Big Pharma has cooled to Alzheimer's
Pharmaceutical companies will reduce the cost of finding new drugs for Alzheimer's disease
Copper news
Leading pharmaceutical companies have questioned the economic feasibility of developing new drugs for Alzheimer's disease. The decrease in the corresponding activity of drug manufacturers is reported by The Independent (Drug giants give up on Alzheimer's cure).
Due to the recession, pharmaceutical giants such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline decided to cut the staff of their European divisions. Eric Karran, one of the heads of the British charity Alzheimer's Research UK, which organizes research on Alzheimer's disease, said that the most extensive reductions are observed in departments dealing with neurology.
Such a division of AstraZeneca had 300 employees. However, the company's management decided to reduce their number to 40 people. The Department will refuse to conduct independent research, its specialists will only monitor the relevant work and interact with other firms.
One of the reasons for this situation is the failures that have befallen pharmaceutical companies in the process of testing new drugs for Alzheimer's disease. In particular, at the beginning of 2012, Pfizer failed to confirm the effectiveness of the drug "Dimebon", for the development and implementation of which about $ 750 million was spent.
In July 2012, similar information was obtained about the experimental drug bapinizumab, a joint development of Elan, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. In August, Eli Lilly announced the unsuccessful completion of trials of solanezumab, which was the second unsuccessful attempt to introduce new drugs for Alzheimer's disease in the last three years.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru21.09.2012