Germany's battle against Alzheimer's

As populations age, the number of patients suffering from dementia is set to increase sharply. In Germany alone, there are already 1.1 million people with dementia (1.3% of the population), according to government figures.  By 2030 the total is likely to have reached 1.7 million.

Some 700,000 currently suffer from Alzheimer’s, the most common  form of dementia, and researchers are predicting a rise to more than double this figure - 1.8 million - by 2050. So there is an urgent need for drugs that can stop or at least significantly postpone Alzheimer’s, says Cornelia Yzer, general manager of the German pharmaceutical association, the VFA.

The global pharmaceutical industry is involved in 316 projects working on new Alzheimer’s drugs, 32 of which involve German companies. 72 drugs are currently being tested on patients worldwide. Three new treatments have reached the last stage of development, Phase III trials. Two of them involve immunotherapy, with monoclonal antibodies attaching themselves to the beta-amyloid protein, which according to researchers plays a key role in the destruction of nerve cells. In eighteen months the first drugs should have completed phase III.