Drugmakers to Showcase New Alzheimer's Drugs at Conference
Bloomberg News
July 17, 1998, 9:57 a.m. ET
Drugmakers to Showcase New Alzheimer's Drugs at Conference
Amsterdam, July 17 (Bloomberg) -- With the number of elderly
people expected to double to more than 1 billion in 20 years,
drugmakers are stepping up efforts to find new treatments for age-
related disorders.
Topping this list of market opportunities -- to be the focus
of a conference in Amsterdam starting this weekend -- are drugs
to treat dementia, a broad category of brain-related disorders
including Alzheimer's disease that experts say affects one in 20
people over aged 65 to varying degrees.
While drug companies like Warner-Lambert Co. and Pfizer Inc.
have made major advances in dementia treatments in recent years,
doctors say there is much room for improvement in treating the
progressive and debilitating condition that causes memory loss,
disorientation and death. The $2 billion market for dementia
drugs is expected to surge in coming years.
''These drugs don't treat the disease, but they can slow
down the progression,'' said Genghis Lloyd-Harris, an analyst at
Credit Suisse First Boston.
At the Sixth International Conference on Alzheimer's
Disease, Novartis AG, Johnson & Johnson Co., Hoechst AG and
others will showcase what they hope will be the next generation
of Alzheimer's drugs. The presentations will be among more than
200 given at the conference covering research about treatment and
causes of the disease, which are still largely unknown.
Dementia includes not only the memory loss common in
Alzheimer's patients, but also impaired reasoning ability,
paranoia and other symptoms. The causes of dementia are unknown
and possibly genetic, although drug use, depression, alcoholism,
smoking, lack of nutrition and exercise have been linked to the
disease. Some 14 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from
dementia, and another 20 million worldwide.
Daily Activities
The drugmakers aim to show that their drugs are better at
not only slowing the progress of dementia, but also improving the
patient's ability to function in routine daily activities -- a
critical component to alleviating the surging costs of treating
the elderly.
''It is more imperative than ever that older adults continue
to contribute to society,'' said Alex Kalache, head of the World
Health Organization's program on aging and health. Without a new
push for healthy living throughout life, the surging elderly
population will be ''a burden on health systems at a time of
shrinking public health budgets.''
Topping the list of the most successful Alzheimer's drugs in
recent years has been Aricept, made by Pfizer Inc. and Eisai Co.,
a so-called acetylcholinesterase inhibitor introduced last year.
Aricept was considered a vast advance over the first drug in
that class, which was Warner-Lambert Co.'s Cognex, a much-touted
drug from the world's 16th-largest drugmaker that has fallen out
of favor amid reports of liver toxicity.
However, Aricept is losing momentum on concern over its
effectiveness. Pfizer, the world's sixth-biggest drugmaker, said
Aricept generated $78 million in sales in the first quarter of
1998, and $79 million in the second quarter, a lackluster
performance for a new drug in a highly undertreated therapeutic
area.
Clinical Data
''This product has not been particularly successful at this
point,'' said Stewart Adkins, a Lehman Brothers pharmaceutical
analyst. He said marketing could have been partly a factor, but
said it's more likely that effectiveness is the main issue.
Adkins said one highlight of the conference will be
presentations by Johnson & Johnson Co. of the U.S. and its
partner Shire Pharmaceuticals Plc, a small U.K. drugmaker that
developed galanthamine, a new acetylcholinesterase inhibitor
based on daffodil extracts.
The companies plan to release late-stage clinical data that
Adkins said are likely to show the drug is an improvement over
Aricept and other drugs in that class, which includes Excelon, an
Alzheimer's drug developed by Novartis AG, the world's third-
biggest drugmaker.
Excelon, which is approved in 40 countries worldwide,
faced an unexpected delay this month before the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration, which requested more data analysis before
granting U.S. approval. A Novartis spokesman said he expects U.S.
approval for Excelon within six months.
''Who would have imagined that a company like Novartis would
have stumbled on Excelon?'' said Credit Suisse's Lloyd-Harris.
''It's pretty stunning bad news.''
Novartis wasn't the first to stumble and certainly won't be
the last in finding drugs for the disease. Earlier this year,
SmithKline Beecham Plc dropped development of Memric, a promising
Alzheimer's drug in late-stage clinical development, the most
expensive phase of a drug's clinical trial program. Other
drugmakers have also failed in the pursuit of drugs in the Memric
class, called muscarinic agonists.
Other drugmakers expected to make presentations about their
new drugs include the Hoechst Marion Roussel drug division of
Hoechst, which will present final stage clinical data about
propentofylline, a drug that is expected to be launched this year
which the company expects to have peak sales of 750 million
deutsche marks ($419 million). |
