Source: (Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images.)
INDIANAPOLIS — An experimental drug from Eli Lilly to treat Alzheimer’s disease has taken a major step forward.
The drug known as “Kinsula” has received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The drug is said to reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in elderly patients by up to 35-percent.
“It really is a big breakthrough,” said Dr. Howard Fillit on WISH-TV. He is the co-founder and chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.
“It’s very, very exciting, and it proves a theory that’s been around for 40 years, which is that this beta-amyloid protein plays a role in the disease process and the beta-amyloid plaques that occur in the brain, which are removed by drugs like donanemab or Kisunla.”
As more research has been done on Alzheimer’s over that 40-year span, it’s been widely accepted by medical experts that the disease is caused by an abnormal build-up of a certain type of plague in the blood vessels of the brain. The build-up restricts blood flow and thus causes irreversible damage and slows brain function.
Kinsula is said to reduce the build-up of plaque. Furthermore, Fillit said a crucial part of the treatment process with Kinsula is that it will be widely accessible to patients because it’s not a drug you have to take indefinitely.
“If the plaques are gone on the PET scan, we can stop the drug,” he said. “That’s a real innovation in our field. And it’s been shown that, in some of the data, in the long-term follow-ups, it takes about 3-4 years for the plaque to re-accumulate.”
In which case you would start taking the drug again and then stop once the plaques are gone again. He said not having to take the drug indefinitely means that it will be much easier to manufacture and thus make more available to more patients.
“It’s very rewarding that we have treatments on the market,” Fillit said. “But, as we said earlier, these treatments only slow it down by 35-percent, so what we want to do is slow it down by 100-percent or even prevent it.”
The next step will be figuring out large-scale manufacturing of the drug, but Fillit said that should not take too terribly long and that the drug should be available for mainstream use by the end of the summer.
