Roche will terminate a late-stage study of its experimental drug for treating Alzheimer's disease after it was found ineffective in treating the condition, the Swiss drugmaker revealed on Friday. The company also announced disappointing results of a breast cancer trial involving its new drugs, marking a double blow for the company and resulting in Roche's shares to drop by more than 5 percent.
Experts believe that the best chances for treating Alzheimer's disease, a progressive and deadly condition that currently affects about 44 million individuals worldwide, lies on giving drugs before the brains of the patients become wrecked by the disease so the company's decision to discontinue the SCarlet RoAD (WN25203) phase III study of its Alzheimer's drug, Gantenerumab, was particularly disappointing given hopes that the investigational treatment would have better outcome in patients with prodromal (pre-dementia) Alzheimer's disease.
"We are disappointed with these study results because people with early stage Alzheimer's need new medicines that delay disease progression," said Roche Chief Medical Officer Sandra Horning. "This is the first Phase III trial to evaluate a potential disease-modifying medicine in this early prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease. We remain committed to investigating new medicines for this devastating illness."
Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, which commonly afflicts the elderly. Estimates made by the Alzheimer's Disease International show that the number of people who will develop the condition with rise three times by 2050. Unfortunately, new treatments hardly come by.
Despite the setback, Horning said that Roche is still committed on investigating new treatments for the disease with Gantenerumab being studied in another phase III trial that involves patients with the later stage of the disease. Roche's two other investigational Alzheimer's drugs crenezumab and RG1577 are also being assessed in Phase II tests.
Meanwhile, the drug company's late-stage study involving women with advanced positive HER2 positive breast cancer showed that Herceptin, Perjeta and Kadcyla, which had been green-lighted as treatment for breast cancer that stems from the cells producing too much of the protein HER2, helped extend the survival of patients without worsening their conditions.
The Phase III MARIANNE study, however, did not find Kadcyla-containing treatments superior in terms of improving the length of time that the breast cancer patients lived without their disease progressing.
"Study did not meet PFS superiority endpoint for Kadcyla-containing regimens," Roche noted in its press release. "Results do not impact approved uses of Kadcyla or Perjeta in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer."
