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According to WHO currently more than 55 million people live with dementia worldwide, and there are nearly 10 million new cases every year. It is forecasted that as the population ages, the number of people living with dementia will approach 150 million in thirty years. Now there are medications that can alleviate the course of the disease, but there are none that could completely cure patients.
Hence, it is not difficult to assume that a company that finds a cure for a terrible disease will win a real jackpot. Caring for people with Alzheimer’s is expected to cost the American society $20 trillion over the next 40 years, including $15 trillion in Medicare and Medicaid. If a drug is developed to help fight the disease, then everyone wins.
In this context it shouldn’t be a surprise that pharmaceuticals giants like AC Immune, Cassava Sciences, Biogen, Eli Lilly, Mission and AbbVie are pouring billions of dollars into Alzheimer’s research and the development of drugs to treat the disease. By the way, more recently, the Swiss biopharmaceutical company AC Immune announced that a drug it is developing for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease shows a statistically significant result in slowing down the deterioration of cognitive abilities in subjects. Against this background, the company’s shares first soared above $11, but after a few days they returned to their previous values. The reason for this roller coaster can be attributed to the fact that the actual performance of the drug was not so encouraging.
In the case of Cassava Sciences, Inc. (SAVA) things are also not doing well. The company’s shares came under pressure after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement from the former lawyer of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Jordan Thomas. Long story short, he expressed concerns about the quality of the studies carried out on the drug for Alzheimer’s disease – simufilam – and also called for the termination of clinical trials.
But Biogen still has momentum – its drug is set to be used by more than 300 American medical institutions and is already being administered to some patients. The problem is that the FDA recently called for a federal investigation into the approval of Biogen’s Aduhelm drug for Alzheimer’s. Finally, Eli Lilly also plans to seek US approval of its experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease by the end of the year.
