From TODAY, News
Thursday July 31, 2008
It can halt progress of the disease by 81 per cent
Hasnita Maji d
A DRUG that can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease may be available here in about four years’ time.
A Singapore-based start-up, TauRx Therapeutics, has developed a drug, rember, which can attack the root of the problem.
Clinical trials done in 2004 and 2005, involving more than 300 patients in the United Kingdom and Singapore over a period of 19 months, showed that the treatment managed to stop the progression of the disease by 81 per cent.
During the same period, the patients did not experience a significant decline in their mental function.
Alzheimer’s, a degenerative disease that involves damage to important brain cells, causes forgetfulness, and in severe cases, hallucinations and behavioural changes.
Current therapies for Alzheimer’s do not affect the progress of the terminal disease itself, but provide only a temporary boost to mental function, with no longterm benefit. Proteins known as Tau tend to stick together to the brain cells as a person ages, but in some people, these proteins aggregate abnormally — damaging the brain cells, and leading to Alzheimer’s.
Dr Seng Shay Way, managing director of TauRx Therapeutics, said: “What our drug does is to stop them from sticking together and for those that have stuck together, we sort of dissolve them and break them apart, and hopefully restore function to the nerve cell and to the patient.”
Tests showed the drug had the biggest effect in the worst-hit part of the brain which has the highest density of the Tau protein aggregates.
The next phase of clinical trials has been planned, this time involving more than 1,000 patients from the European Union, the United States, Asia and the Middle East. If the trials prove successful, the drug will be available by 2012.
The company’s ultimate goal is to develop a product that could be widely used at the very earliest stages of the disease, long before patients experience the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
It is estimated that more than 20,000 people in Singapore are afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease, and the statistic will grow as the population ages.
In the Asia Pacific, Alzheimer’s affects almost 14 million people — a number set to reach 64 million by 2050 — and has become a growing burden on health services
CHANNEL NEWSASIA
No comments:
Post a Comment