More Aducanumab and Biogen...

... and more on the San Diego Clinical Trials Conference.

This week's issue of ALZForum reported on the early December conference and discussed Biogen's presentation on aducanumab.  The article contained a few insights I hadn't seen previously.

One thing I hadn't seen reported previously was that, not only did aducanumab clear beta amyloid plaques, but it also appears to remove tau tangles.  Amyloid plaques and tau tangles are the two pathologies that define a dementia as Alzheimer's disease.  Both are products of the disease, but both appear to participate in propagating the disease.  Aducanumab was to remove the amyloid, but it's a bonus that it also appears to clear tau. 

In Beating the Dementia Monster, we provide an overview of where these come from and what we understand about their role in Alzheimer's disease.

Apparently there were some naysayers at the conference, but the article reported the encouraging conclusion that, "It robustly removes amyloid, possibly clears tau tangles as well, and, at sustained high doses, may modestly slow decline." 

The big question mark now is whether the FDA will consider the data clean enough to approve the drug.  The issue will be how the unplanned changes to dosing that were made part way through the trial complicate analysis of the data.