05 June, 2025 

We were featured in The Economist article on the shifting landscape of Alzheimer’s drug development.

After decades of limited progress, a new generation of Alzheimer’s therapies is finally emerging—targeting not just amyloid, but also tau, neuroinflammation, metabolic dysfunction, vascular health, and even sleep regulation. A full review on current pipeline by Jeffrey Cummings at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and colleagues in a review published on
Journal of Clinical and Translational Research (JCTR)

Some promising directions include:
🔹 TREM2-targeting therapies to activate microglia, the brain’s immune cells
🔹 Repurposed drugs like semaglutide (diabete) addressing inflammation, piromelatine for sleep-related clearance mechanisms, guanfacine (ADHD) increasing attention or nabilone, which interacts with the cannabinoid receptors
🔹 Neuroprotective agents like AR1001 that improve synaptic function and blood flow
🔹 Drug combinations aimed at clearing senescent cells, such as dasatinib + quercetin

Yet, many trials still fail to account for sex-based differences, despite women being disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s, progressing faster with the disease and having a higher tau pathology spread in the brains, underscoring the need for sex-disaggregated data and sex-specific approaches in all stages of drug development.

At the Women’s Brain Foundation, we’ve long pushed for this paradigm shift. It’s time for science, policy, and pharma to catch up.

“Today’s trials still have blind spots, warns Dr. Antonella Santuccione-Chadha. Many still fail to differentiate patients by sex, she says. Yet women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s, a difference that cannot be explained solely by their longer lifespans, and the disease seems to progress differently in their brains. At any given stage of the disease, tau proteins spread farther in women than in men, says Dr Chadha.”

Featured with Dame Kate Bingham from SV Health Investors and Prof James Rowe.

Read the full article