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AstraZeneca's Alzheimer's drug proceeds to advanced clinical trials

ADEAR: "Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral Center, a service of the National Institute on Aging."
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National Institute on Aging

An Alzheimer’s drug that AstraZeneca is co-developing with Eli Lilly will be entering advanced clinical trials, according to a statement released by the Wilmington-based pharmaceutical company Friday.

This oral drug, called AZD3293, aims to treat early Alzheimer’s will be entering phase 3 trials, after initial testing on a few human subjects indicated the medicine would be safe to test on a larger group of patients.

AstraZeneca plans to enroll 2,200 participants across 14 countries in the trial. The company also announced that it would start a separate phase 3 trial to test the drug on patients with mild Alzheimer’s dementia.

The drug works by blocking the BACE enzyme, which has been linked an accumulation of amyloid proteins in the brain that scientists believe to be the cause for this degenerative disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a fatal illness that affects about 46 million people worldwide. The condition currently has no cure and many attempts at treatment have failed. A 2014 study noted that in a recent 10-year period, Alzheimer's drugs showed a failure rate of 99.6 percent.

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