Roche suffers setback with Alzheimer's treatment

[June 16, 2022]  ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche said on Thursday its Alzheimer's medicine crenezumab did not slow or prevent cognitive decline in people with a specific genetic mutation which causes early-onset of the disease, a study showed, in another blow after a recent setback with cancer treatment tiragolumab.

Crenezumab did not show a statistically significant clinical benefit in either of its co-primary endpoints assessing the rate of change in cognitive abilities or episodic memory function, the drugmaker said in a statement.

The Alzheimer's Prevention Initiative (API) Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer's Disease (ADAD) Colombia Trial was evaluating the potential of crenezumab to slow or prevent Alzheimer's disease in cognitively unimpaired people who carry a specific genetic mutation which causes an early onset of the disease, Roche said.

The Basel-based firm had already suffered an important setback with an experimental cancer drug last month.

The logo of Swiss drugmaker Roche is seen at its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland January 30, 2020. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

In May, Roche said that an interim analysis of an ongoing clinical trial showed that its experimental drug, tiragolumab, failed to meaningfully slow disease progression in newly diagnosed patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in combination with its approved PD-L1 immunotherapy Tecentriq, versus Tecentriq alone.

(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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