Renewed Hope for Alzheimer's Patients - and Investors?

Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced it has started a Phase II/III clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of MK-8931 versus placebo in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.

MK-8931 is Merck's novel investigational oral β-amyloid precursor protein site-cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor, and is the first with this mechanism to advance to this stage of clinical research. The global, multi-center study, called EPOCH, is designed to initially evaluate the safety of MK-8931 in a cohort of 200 patients prior to advancing into a larger Phase III study.

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Baxter (BAX) Gammagard Buzz

Is Gammagard the One the Alzheimer's Community Has Been Waiting For?

This is re-posted from the Alzheimer's Reading Room. You might want to take a look at Baxter. However, there is still a lot of risk going into the results of the Phase 3 clinical trial

This is the first study to report long term stabilization of Alzheimer's symptoms over a period of 36 months .

Alzheimer's Reading Room

We now have the first study in almost a decade that is reporting long term stabilization of Alzheimer's disease symptoms in patients.

Eleven patients who were treated over a 36 month period with IVIG/Gammagard had favorable outcomes in terms of their thinking abilities, behavior and daily function.

To be clear, the already existing symptoms of the Alzheimer's patients being studied did not improve; however, patients did not show any further decline on measures of cognition, memory, daily functioning or mood over the three years.