Could an Alzheimer's Drug Be on Horizon?

It's a miracle drug, a medication that can slow or even stop the progression of Alzheimer's disease. It also doesn't exist.
Humanetics Corp., though, thinks it's getting close.

The Eden Prairie, Minn.-based drug company, in collaboration with the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, recently released a study that suggests a natural anti-diabetic compound, dubbed NIC5-15, can help safely reduce dementia in Alzheimer's patients.

Humanetics and Mt. Sinai researchers presented the results from the study at the annual International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Vienna.

There is no cure or long-term treatment for Alzheimer's, a neurological disease that kills brain cells and leads to memory loss and death. The few drugs today on the market can only relieve some symptoms.

"What we are doing now is what angioplasty did for coronary heart disease," said Humanetics chief medical and scientific officer Dr. John Zenk. "We are getting at the root cause of the disease rather than the symptoms."

But experts say it's much too early to know if Humanetics' drug works. Many promising treatments have come and gone over the years, frustrating researchers who have yet to determine a firm cause for the disease, much less a cure.

NIC5-15 "is a very interesting idea," said Dr. David Knopman, a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic and an investigator with the school's Alzheimer Research Center. "But a lot of ideas have promise but are hard to prove clinically.

"Twenty years of research has given me a thick skin. There have been so many failures, so many good ideas that didn't pan out."

For example, Humanetics' compound targets Beta-amyloids, a protein scientists have long suspected to cause Alzheimer's. But now some scientists are starting to even doubt what had been the prevailing theory in Alzheimer research.

First discovered in 1906 by German doctor Alois Alzheimer, the disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Alzheimer's Association, an education and research organization.

Over 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's, which costs the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs about $112 billion each year. That number will likely grow by hundreds of thousands annually as baby boomers start to retire.

Despite years of research, drug companies have struggled to find an effective treatment. Part of the problem, Dr. Knopman of Mayo says, is timing: Symptoms only surface 20 to 30 years after patients develop the disease. By then, it's too late.