The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the drug adcanumab to fight Alzheimer's disease. This happened for the first time in 20 years.
The drug, developed by Biogen, will be marketed under the trade name Aduhelm.
It targets the underlying causes, not the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of senile dementia.
Adumanucab breaks down amyloid, a protein that forms clots in the human brain, damaging cells and causing problems with memory, thinking and communication.
More than 30 million people in the world, the vast majority of whom are over 65 years old, are believed to have Alzheimer's disease.
Adumanucab is suitable for patients under 80 years of age and with an initial stage of the disease. You will also need to make an accurate diagnosis using a detailed MRI scan.
Over a hundred treatments for Alzheimer's have been considered in the past 10 years, but none have been proven successful.
Adumanucab is not a panacea, and many doctors have expressed doubts about its merits. But its registration in the United States will give a strong impetus to research in the fight against dementia, which is traditionally underfunded in comparison with oncology or cardiology.
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In March 2019, international trials of adumanucab involving three thousand people were interrupted at the final stage when it turned out that the drug, received in the form of a monthly injection, did not give a positive result compared to a placebo.
Scientists noted that patients' brains work better after using the drug
However, at the end of the same year, American manufacturer Biogen analyzed more data and found that adumanucab significantly slowed cognitive decline when used at higher doses.
