Lilly reports good results in small Alzheimer’s trial

Abstract

Eli Lilly and Company is reporting positive results in a small trial of donanemab, an experimental antibody treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The Phase 2 trial, which was placebo controlled and double blinded, followed 272 people for about 18 months. “It potentially is very exciting,” says David Holtzman, an Alzheimer’s disease expert at the Washington University School of Medicine, describing one of Lilly’s reported findings: a 32% drop in cognitive decline, as measured by one of many tests given to people who received the antibody. Holtzman says other experimental treatments haven’t delivered such a result. Like other antibodies for Alzheimer’s, donanemab targets clumps of protein in the brain called amyloid-β. But donanemab binds to a less prevalent section of the protein containing an altered amino acid called pyroglutamate. Nearly everyone who has Alzheimer’s has some pyroglutamate, says John Sims, Lilly’s senior medical director for neurodegeneration. According to Holtzman, when treatments like