Research and development of anti-Alzheimer’s disease drugs: an update from the perspective of technology flows

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Today, over 20 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) worldwide. AD has become a critical issue to human health, especially in aging societies, and therefore it is a research hotspot in the global scientific community. The technology flow method differs from traditional reviews generating an informative overview of the research and development (R&D) landscape in a specific technological area. We need such an updated method to get a general overview of the R&D of anti-AD drugs in light of the dramatic developments in this area in recent years.

Areas covered: This study collects patent data from the Integrity database. A total of 399 patents with 821 internal citation pairs in the US from 1978 to 2017 were analyzed. Patent citation network analysis was used to visualize the technology relationship.

Expert opinion: For better production of anti-AD drugs, governments should emphasize the multi-target drug design, provide policy support for private companies, and encourage multilateral cooperation. The β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) theory leaves much to be desired; neurotransmitter and tau protein hypotheses are worth further examination. The use of old drugs for new indications is promising, as are traditional herbal medicines.

KEYWORDS:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• patent
• technology flow
• citation network
• research and development

Article highlights

• Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that places a heavy burden on patients as well as society.

• From 2014 to 2017, active drug R&D efforts were made in the area of AD, as shown by the high number of annual patents, which were driven by pipeline projects similar to those from the peak development period (1996–2001). However, no new drug was generated, and many clinical trials, particularly in Phase III, failed repeatedly during this period.

• Private companies possessed the largest number of patents in 2014–2017.

• The development of multi-target drugs has become a new strategy and tendency in the anti-AD area. Traditional herbal medicines are also worthy of consideration for further multi-target drug development.

• The use of old drugs for new indications, namely drug repositioning, has the benefit of rapid development and shows a bright future for the treatment of AD.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no 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. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

University of Macau grant MYRG2015-00145-ICMS-QRCM, MYRG2015-00172-ICMS-QRCM and MYRG2016-00144-ICMS-QRCM