An Ethical Argument for Ending Human Trials of Amyloid-Lowering Therapies in Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Given the past two decades of over 40 failed trials of amyloid-lowering therapies in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), many of which succeeded in lowering amyloid as designed, we present an ethical argument for emptying the drug pipeline of tests of amyloid-lowering agents so as to end the historical dominance of the amyloid-reducing therapeutic approach in AD.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• dementia
• clinical trials
• equipoise
• clinical ethics
• research ethics

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Alberto Espay cofounded REGAIN Therapeutics (a biotech start-up developing nonaggregating peptide analogues as replacement therapies for neurodegenerative diseases) and is co-owner of a patent that covers synthetic soluble nonaggregating peptide analogues as replacement treatments in proteinopathies.

FUNDING

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.