Experts are disappointed that an experimental Alzheimer’s drug failed to be effective in a late-stage study, but still hope it might work.
 

The injected drug tested by Pfizer with partner Johnson and Johnson did not slow mental or functional decline in patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s.

Maria Carrillo is the senior director of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association. She’s hopeful that three other studies of the drug might produce better results.

“We certainly understand that progress is incremental, and we will have setbacks along the way. Alzheimer’s disease is not an easy disease otherwise we would have had a solution a long time ago. I think we also know that setbacks provide us a lot of information for the general research community that we can apply to future studies.”

More than 150-thousand New Jersey residents have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Carrillo says better treatment and prevention strategies are needed to reduce the toll of the disorder nationwide.

“By mid-century, care for people with Alzheimer’s disease will actually cost us more than a trillion dollars every year. We can’t afford this now. We won’t be able to afford it then, and this unsustainable cost is not only to our health care system but to our families and our federal and state budgets.”