TL;DR
An Alzheimer's drug built on a hopeful idea, that the most toxic form of amyloid is the small free-floating clumps rather than the big plaques, has had its answer, and its maker is closing the book. Acumen Pharmaceuticals' sabirnetug cut plaque on brain scans in a 542-person, 18-month trial but did not slow the loss of thinking and daily function, and the company is ending development and halting the trial's open-label extension. A clean negative is still useful: it tells researchers that grabbing those clumps with this antibody was not enough, and it sharpens what the next drugs have to show. Those next drugs arrive fast. In Boston next week, a 1,535-person trial of an Alzheimer's pill is due to read out at the conference (Nov. 16 is the date from an Oct. 19 report that the desk carried forward and did not re-verify), a tau-lowering drug shows 96-week data on Nov. 17, and a pill that lowers stress hormone inside brain cells is due in mid-November (company claim). Our odds that a pill is shown to slow Alzheimer's in a large trial by 2027 are 30%. For the full odds board and the timeline of breakthroughs that could get there, subscribe.
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