Early investigational drugs targeting tau protein for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Introduction: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is a significant burden to society. With continual expansion of our understanding of the disease, novel therapies are emerging as potential therapeutics to either halt or reverse progression of the disease.

Areas covered: This paper aims to provide an overview of current drug therapies aimed at targeting the tau protein. With this protein known to be a noted pathologic finding of the disease, trials of therapeutics aimed at this protein have been under investigation. This article is based on data obtained from PubMed searches, TauRx, ALZFORUM, and Clinicaltrials.gov with search terms including: anti-tau, tau therapeutic agents in AD, Phase 0, I, II, III trials in AD, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines.

Expert opinion: Broad-based treatments that target tau, including microtubule stabilization and tau aggregation inhibitors, appear to be of greatest promise. Immunotherapy appears to be relatively safe and efficacious but narrow whereas protein kinase inhibition has not demonstrated clinical benefit to date.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer’s
• clinical trial
• dementia
• drug development
• tau

Declaration of interest

The authors are supported by the Banner Sun Health Research Institute and National Institute of Aging grant P30 AG019610. M Sabbagh receives grant support from Eli Lilly and Company, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Navidea, Functional Neuromodulation, Neuronix, Merck & Co., Takeda, AstraZeneca, Roche and Genentech. He is also an advisor for Biogen Idec, Eli Lilly and Company, vTv Therapeutics, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals and Piramal and also receives royalties from TenSpeed/Random House. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Notes

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