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Dr. Samuel Gandy: “Biogen Drug Could Inspire New Hope for Alzheimer's Treatments”

  • Forbes
  • New York, NY
  • (March 20, 2015)

An experimental Alzheimer’s treatment being developed by biotechnology firm Biogen Idec BIIB +6.66% seemed to slow patients’ inexorable cognitive decline in a small, preliminary study. The result will probably lead to greater hope for a new strategy for drug companies: Treat Alzheimer’s patients early, when the disease is mild, and use brain imaging to make sure that every patient already has the amyloid plaques that help cause the disease. The data are “convincingly encouraging,” says Samuel Gandy, MD, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who has been skeptical of medicines that, like BIIB037, are purported to work by clearing plaques of the protein amyloid from the brain. “I’m willing to suspend disbelief.” Learn more