Alzheimer's treatments aimed at eliminating or preventing amyloid plaques are apparently not sufficient to halt the progression of Alzheimer's and memory loss. For this reason, the new drugs target tau fibrils, which attach to the microtubules of neurons and destroy them. Two new drugs had raised hopes in animal studies, but those hopes have now evaporated in the clinical trial. The researchers were unable to detect any clinically relevant benefit of the drug ceperognastat compared to the placebo. The drug diranersen also yielded questionable results.

Original paper:
Fleisher AS, Munsie L, Mancini M, Cheng YJ, Guo J, Nuthall H, Otero DS, Kotari V, Kielbasa W, Hutton M, Brys M, Mergott DJ, Mintun M, Hansson O. Ceperognastat in Early Symptomatic Alzheimer Disease: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. July 13, 2026:e2612768. doi: 10.1001/jama.2026.12768. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 42441396; PMCID: PMC13366245.

Further information:
https://wissenschaft.de/