DONANEMAB AND LECANEMAB

Two drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease showed promising results.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurologic disorder that causes the brain to shrink (atrophy) and brain cells to die.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia — a continuous decline in thinking, behavioral and social skills that affects a person’s ability to function independently.
The early signs of the disease include forgetting recent events or conversations.
As the disease progresses, a person with Alzheimer’s disease will develop severe memory impairment and lose the ability to carry out everyday tasks.
There is no treatment that cures Alzheimer’s disease or alters the disease process in the brain.
Alzheimer’s disease affects at least 55 million people worldwide.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia.
Dementia is the seventh leading cause of death and one of the major causes of disability and dependency among older people globally.

The drugs:

As with similar antibody-based therapies such as lecanemab, donanemab is not a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Instead, they are antibodies that target different forms of amyloid-beta (Aβ) proteins that can clump together to form amyloid plaques in people’s brains, resulting in their congnitive decline.
The drug aims to remove the plaques from the brain and slow the progression of the disease.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB

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