A new drug for Alzheimer’s disease called Rember is being praised by the National Institute on Aging. This drug is only in the earliest stages of testing, but is showing amazing results.
The National Institute on Aging — one of the National Institutes of Health here in the United States — helped fund early research that led to the development of drugs like Rember. These drugs are designed to target tau proteins in the tangles that form in the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s disease.
For decades, medical research on Alzheimer’s disease has focused on a different kind of protein — known as beta-amyloid deposits. These sticky tangles are thought to be one of the main causes behind Alzheimer’s disease. Work with tau protein particles is a far more recent effort in the war against Alzheimer’s disease.
A Singapore company called TauRX Therapeutics developed and is currently testing Rember. In preliminary testing, Rember showed an amazing ability to halt the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by breaking up protein tangles in the brain. This is the first Alzheimer’s drug that is able to maintain mental performance — and not just manage symptoms. The four drugs currently available to treat Alzheimer’s disease only target symptoms and do little to break up protein tangles in the brain that seem to cause the disease.
These are only early results — the drug is in the middle stages of testing. Much more testing is in the works before Rember will be available to the public.
Still, this is amazing news for the more than five million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. If Rember continues to do well in testing, we may well see a viable treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in our lifetimes. Will it be a total cure for the memory-stealing disease? Only time and more testing will tell.