AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly in Final Stage of Testing Alzheimer's Drug
April 08 2016 - 4:10AM
Dow Jones News
LONDON—AstraZeneca PLC and Eli Lilly and Co. said they would
progress a clinical trial for an Alzheimer's drug after initial
human testing showed it didn't have harmful side effects.
The drug, called AZD3293, is a so-called BACE inhibitor, a hot
new class of drugs the industry hopes could prevent the onset of
Alzheimer's by preventing the buildup of a protein known as amyloid
in the brain, thought to be the main cause of the degenerative
neurological disease.
AstraZeneca and Lilly said they would progress the drug to a
phase three clinical trial. The final stage of testing, in patients
with early stage Alzheimer's. They hope to enroll a total of 2,200
patients across 14 countries in the trial. They said they would
also start test the drug in patients with mild Alzheimer's in a
separate trial set to start enrolling participants in the third
quarter of 2016.
BACE inhibitors are the latest glimmer of hope in a field dogged
by failures, but they could stumble in later-stage development. Eli
Lilly scrapped a BACE inhibitor, LY2886721, in 2013 over concerns
that the drug could affect liver function. Research released by the
trade group Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America
in 2012 showed there had been 101 Alzheimer's drug failures in the
previous 13 years.
It is being co-developed by AstraZeneca and Lilly under a
risk-and-reward sharing deal. Under that agreement, Lilly took the
lead in designing and running clinical trials for the drug, which
was previously under development solely by AstraZeneca. The two
will share the costs of development, and, if the drug is
successful, future revenues, equally.
Lily also agreed to a series of payments to AstraZeneca as the
drug progresses through various milestones. It will pay $100
million now that the drug is moving to late-stage testing.
The deal forms part of AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal
Soriot's "externalization" strategy to partner with other
drugmakers when the program in question falls outside its core
areas of expertise.
The high failure rate of research in Alzheimer's disease has led
to other partnerships in the industry: last year Novartis AG struck
a deal with Amgen Inc.
An estimated 5.3 million Americans suffer from the disease,
according to the Alzheimer's Association, a nonprofit organization.
Current treatments can help manage symptoms, but there is no cure.
The market for Alzheimer's drugs stood at $4.9 billion in 2013 and
is expected to reach $13.3 billion by 2023, according to
GlobalData, a research and consulting firm.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 08, 2016 04:55 ET (08:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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