Neurology’s false choice: symptomatic vs. disease-modifying

Even as many drug developers celebrate anti-amyloid antibodies as the start of a new era of disease-modifying treatments for dementia, a set of up-and-coming biotechs aims to tear down the distinction between symptomatic and disease-modifying therapy.

The conventional wisdom has been that clinical trials of Alzheimer’s disease therapies must be long and large if companies want a chance of demonstrating their products can impact the pace of disease progression. Further slowing an already slow process is a tall order. Recent Phase III trials of anti-amyloid therapies enrolled over 1,500 patients apiece and measured their primary outcomes at 18 months. ...