Donanemab

Cosmic

Does anyone have any more information on this new study? Said it might slow progression by attacking the plaques or eliminating them.

Quilting brings calm

I believe it’s similar to the other two recently discussed. All three have significant percentages of patients who suffer brain swelling or bleeds as a result of the medication.

This drug appears to be one that you stop taking after 12-18 months, once the plaque has disappeared.

My opinion is that you can’t fix the brain with something that causes damage( swelling/bleeds) to the brain.

Lane Simonian

I agree with Quilting brings calm. There is not much difference between these anti-amyloid drugs.

Eli Lilly used tau levels as a proxy for stages of the disease. I am not sure why they did not simply compare the effects of donanemab on mild versus moderate Alzheimer's disease, or at least directly compare those with intermediate tau levels to those with high levels (may be the reason is that the results would not have been so good).

https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lillys-donanemab-significantly-slowed-cognitive-and-functional

Earlier this year, Eli Lilly acknowledged that its drug had no significant effect on non-carriers, so I am not sure why the FDA would even approve the drug for this group of patients.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/alzheimersdisease/100667

Donanemab does modestly slow down the progression of the disease in APOE4 carriers, but whether it does so in a clinically significant matter is debatable. As noted, the drug can lead to brain swelling and brain bleeds and so far has been responsible for at least two deaths.

There is another anti-amyloid drug Alzheon's ALZ-801 that produces almost the same results as donanemab, Leqembi, and Aduhelm, but does not cause any brain bleeds or swelling because in prevents amyloid monomers from aggregating into oligomers and plaques instead of removing them. The company hopes to get FDA approval of its drug in two years. It would not help non-carriers either, but it would not cause severe side effects in APOE4 carriers.