Intensive care medicine

Clinical trial

Alzheimer's disease

Drug

Drug development

Internal medicine

Drug trial

Pharmacology

Medicine

Disease

Investigational Drugs

Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions

Introduction The number of individuals worldwide with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is growing at a rapid rate. New treatments are urgently needed. We review the current pipeline of drugs in clinical trials for the treatment of AD. Methods We interrogated ClinicalTrials.gov, the federal registry of clinical trials to identify drugs in trials. Results There are 126 agents in 152 trials assessing new therapies for AD: 28 treatments in Phase 3 trials, 74 in Phase 2, and 24 in Phase 1. The majority of drugs in trials (82.5%) target the underlying biology of AD with the intent of disease modification; 10.3% are putative cognitive enhancing agents; and 7.1% are drugs being developed to reduce neuropsychiatric symptoms. Discussion This pipeline analysis shows that target biological processes are more diversified, biomarkers are more regularly used, and repurposed agents are being explored to determine their utility for the treatment of AD.

Alzheimer's disease drug development pipeline: 2021