In a new lead on Alzheimer's research, Johnson & Johnson is bankrolling a three-year pilot study of people with Down syndrome to identify the early changes that herald dementia, which afflicts up to 75 percent of adults with the condition.
The aim is to generate support for a much bigger, public-private partnership funded by drugmakers, advocates and government agencies that will study at least 1,000 people with Down syndrome, tracking them from an early age and eventually testing treatments to keep dementia from developing.
"The study we're proposing would provide insight into treating Alzheimer's, but it might help individuals with Down syndrome as well," said Dr Husseini Manji, J&J's global head of neuroscience drug development.
Experts in Down syndrome and Alzheimer's who gathered in Chicago for a workshop on the idea at the Alzheimer's Association offices this month say it may offer the best scientific model yet for testing drugs to prevent the degenerative brain disease. The industry has been repeatedly stung by the failure of experimental Alzheimer's treatments, including recent trials of the J&J and Pfizer Inc therapy bapineuzumab. As a result, companies and researchers are looking for ways to test Alzheimer's drugs earlier, before people's brains become too damaged to benefit.
Studies are already planned to enroll people who carry genetic mutations that ensure they will develop Alzheimer's at an early age. One trial backed by the US Department of Health & Human Services will test a drug from Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit called crenezumab in an extended family from Colombia who carry a mutation that causes them to develop Alzheimer's in their 30s.