Reacción a "Reactions: Pharma's Eli Lilly publishes results of phase 3 trial of Alzheimer's drug donanemab"

The results add further evidence that immune therapies that successfully remove amyloid plaques associate with modest slowing down of Alzheimer’s disease progression. The study is well conducted and notable for the further evidence that therapy in earliest stages of the disease (that is where there is still low levels of tau protein build up in the brain) carries the greatest benefits. Concerns remains over the side effects of these drugs - a significant proportion of patients developed a form of brain oedema.

On a positive note, this side effect resolved without causing symptoms for the majority of patients. The next stage is to find out what the long term outcomes are of those have been on therapy - we still do not know when patients would stop treatment in the real world. This is going to have a huge importance on making the health economic case for this type of drug being made available through the NHS.

Finally, the effects in early disease raise the question of whether these therapies should be given to people who have evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains but are still symptom free.