By Ludwig Burger
ZURICH (Reuters) -Roche said its Alzheimer’s drug candidate could not clearly be shown to slow dementia progression in two drug trials, failing to draw level with a recent development success by rivals Biogen and Eisai.
The Swiss drugmaker said in a statement on Monday that twin studies known as Graduate 1 and 2 did not reach the primary goal of showing that the drug gantenerumab can preserve abilities such as remembering, solving problems, orientation and personal care in patients suffering from early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Roche conducted two equally designed studies with about 1,000 participants each, who were examined and queried by physicians over more than two years. Within each study, volunteers were randomly assigned to either receive the injectable antibody drug gantenerumab, or a placebo.
Gantenerumab is designed to bind to aggregated forms of beta-amyloid and remove brain amyloid plaques, which are believed to play a crucial role in the slowly progressing dementia disease.
(Additional reporting by John Revill in Zurich; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
