=3 Drug/Biotech Stocks in Focus on World Alzheimer's Day

World Alzheimer’s Day is observed annually on Sep 21. The day is marked with countless global campaigns, raising awareness to counter the common stigma surrounding Alzheimer related dementia. The campaign was launched in 2012.

What is Alzheimer's Disease?

A type of dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive medical condition, impairing memory and other mental functions. Its key symptoms include memory loss and loss of other essential cognitive abilities that hinder even daily activities in an individual’s life.

Majority of AD patients are aged above 65 years. However, per estimates, approximately 200,000 people below the senior citizen age bracket are suffering from the disease in the United States alone. Most people often think that this disease is normal during one’s silver years.

Drugs/Therapies Currently Approved

While there is no cure for the disease yet, there are a few drugs approved by the FDA for Alzheimer’s that help control the symptoms. A class of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors is administered to patients in the early to moderate stages of Alzheimer’s. Among these, Exelon patch is a prescription medicine used to treat mild, moderate, and severe memory problems associated with AD.  Allergan’s AGN Namenda is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist indicated for the treatment of moderate to severe dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.

The AD market has attracted a lot of attention from several biggies in the pharma/biotech space, given its market potential (estimated value of the U.S. market for the disease is around $30 billion). However, successful development of therapies for treating Alzheimer’s disease is challenging due to risk of adverse events. Big shots like Merck and Pfizer had earlier terminated development of candidates for AD due to failure of studies.

Stocks in Focus

Here we take a look at companies with promising candidates in their pipeline for AD.

Swiss pharma giant Roche Holdings RHHBY has two late-stage pipeline candidates, namely crenezumab and gantenerumab. Both are currently being evaluated for Alzheimer’s. The company also has an anti-tau molecule in phase II for AD.   Crenezumab is currently being studied in two phase III, two-year, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trials (CREAD 1 and 2) for addressing patients in early AD stage. Based on data from two phase II trials, the CREAD studies are administering higher doses of crenezumab and have enrolled patients showing initial signs of AD who have also confirmed AD pathology.  The candidate is also being assessed in a landmark Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative (API) trial involving cognitively healthy individuals in Colombia with an autosomal dominant mutation and who are at risk to develop early-onset AD.  Gantenerumab is being investigated in two phase III studies (GRADUATE 1 and 2) for the treatment of early AD. Additionally, the candidate is being studied as part of the DIAN-TU trial, a worldwide clinical program, evaluating multiple compounds in individuals at risk or with a type of early-onset AD caused by a genetic mutation.  Both candidates have exhibited great potential.