Eli Lilly, the giant pharmaceutical company, has decided to halt the development of its latest experimental drug which was a hopeful candidate for treating Alzheimer’s disease. Instead of helping sufferers of this illness, which causes severe memory loss and dementia in mostly older people, the drug was actually thought to be worsening the condition upon administration.
The medication, semagacestat was showed in preliminary results from large studies that cognition and the performance of daily tasks was hindered markedly due to the drug. There was also data from the studies that showed an association of use of the drug with an increased risk of skin cancer.
Although the loss of this drug from the future in the fight against Alzheimer’s is a disappointment, Eli Lilly reassured those concerned that this decision in no way alters the continuing development and testing of solanzumab, another drug with hopeful possibilities for a future treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
