Genentech has closed two large Phase III trials for its once-hyped anti-Alzheimer’s drug crenezumab after an independent data monitoring committee warned the company that crenezumab wasn’t likely to hit its primary endpoint.
The CREAD 1 and CREAD 2 trials had enrolled 1,500 patients worldwide, all of them in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and offered patients doses four times higher than in the Phase II trials that had showed promise in helping patients.
But Genentech, a subsidiary of Roche, announced last week that its IDM committee told them the drug didn’t seem to be improving patients’ scores on individual cognitive tests.
Genentech officials acknowledged the “disappointing” results but said that they’re still studying crenezumab in an ongoing trial of clinically healthy patients in Colombia who carry the genetic mutation associated with heritable Alzheimer’s
