Lilly-AstraZeneca latest to abandon Alzheimer's drug trials

Eli Lilly and Co and AstraZeneca Plc said on Tuesday they would discontinue late-stage trials testing their Alzheimer’s treatment, the latest among a slew of drugmakers to stop developing treatments for the memory-robbing disease.

The treatment, lanabecestat, belongs to a class of drugs called beta secretase cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor, that blocks an enzyme involved in the production of a protein that creates brain plaques, considered a major cause of the disease.

Experimental Alzheimer’s drugs have had a dismal track record, with more than 100 failures, with Johnson and Johnson last month stopping mid-stage trials testing its BACE inhibitor drug.

Another BACE inhibitor, elenbecestat, is being jointly developed by Eisai Co Ltd and Biogen.