Paper Example on Failure of Alzheimers and TGN1412 Drugs

Researches in the United Kingdom in 2012 and 2014 on the drugs to treat dementia have failed severally. Dementia is a set of symptoms which include memory loss, mood changes, and confusion (Ryan, 2014). This is caused by a large number of diseases which include Alzheimers disease and dementia with Lewy bodies (Ryan, 2014). The research specifically researched on Alzheimers disease since it has caused a lot of deaths in the UK. The disease causes loss of brain cells which results in shrinking of the brain.

The study had analyzed 250 in 400 clinical trials for curing the disease. The results showed that only one of the 250 compounds was able to control the disease. This was highest failures of the Alzheimers disease drug by about 98% exceeding 80% of cancer. The medical companies and patients who had adopted the drug were forced to abandon them, and it worsened the disease in some patients. Currently, about 800,000 people in the UK have dementia and approximately 44 million people globally (Cummings et al., 2016). However, there are only four licensed treatments in the country, but they have not found an appropriate drug to treat the disease. This calls for serious research to curb the problem.

In 2013, a clinical trial at Northwick Park hospital in London failed severally and caused severe problems to the victims. The research was about the drug called TGN1412, and six men took the drug so as to cure the disease. However, within 2hours, the drug caused life-threatening effects which almost killed the patients (Attarwala, 2013).

The drug had previously been given to monkeys to test them. The monkeys were given at a 600 fold higher dose, and they showed no health effects thus were considered to be safe for human beings. The drug in the patients released cytokines which are activated by T cells thus causing a severe adverse reaction (Suntharalingam et al., 2014). However, the drug is still under research by the United Kingdoms Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) so as to avoid future disasters.

References

Attarwala, H. (2013). TGN1412: from discovery to disaster. Journal of Young Pharmacists, 2(3), 332-336.

Cummings, J., Aisen, P. S., DuBois, B., Frolich, L., Jack, C. R., Jones, R. W., & Scheltens, P. (2016). Drug development in Alzheimers disease: the path to 2025. Alzheimer's research & therapy, 8(1), 39.

Ryan, L. (2014). Update on Alzheimers disease clinical trials. National institutes on aging (NIA), national institutes of health (NIH), on national Alzheimers coordinating center (NACC). Available online at: https://www. alz. washington. Edu/NONMEMBER/SPR12/Ryan. pdf. Accessed February 17th.

Suntharalingam, G., Perry, M. R., Ward, S., Brett, S. J., Castello-Cortes, A., Brunner, M. D., & Panoskaltsis, N. (2014). Cytokine storm in a phase 1 trial of the anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody TGN1412. New England Journal of Medicine, 355(10), 1018-1028.