Memory drugs- part 2

 Donepezil study involved 69 people with multiple sclerosis and mild cognitive problems. One – half of the participants took the drug for 24 weeks and the other half took a placebo. The participants were tested for memory and other cognitive functions at the begning and end of the study.

At the study’s conclusion those taking donepezil improved by an average of 14 percent on the memory test, compared to a 3 percent improved for those taking the placebo. 66 percent of those taking the drug felt that their memory had improved, compared to 32 percent of those taking the placebo.

“The possibility that memory and cognitive impairment in MS (Multiple Sclerosis) could benefit from drug treatment is of major importance to patients and their families,” says study author and neurologist Lauren Krupp, MD, of Stony Brook University Hospital in New York.

Promising clinical studies are one thing, actual commercial usage on a widespread basis is another. Nothing out there in the marketplace currently does what drug makers claim their products can do – namely cure or halt the disease in which brain cells deteriorate and die, robbing people of their memory. Drug maker Pharmos knows the feeling. Its effort to help the 85,000 Americans who suffer from traumatic brain injury fell short last year with its clinical trial of dexanabinol, which failed to show statistically significant improvement in a critical late- stage testing program. Investors weren’t happy. The drug had been under development since the mid – 1990s at a cost of 50 million dollars. The day after the failed trial, shares of Pharmos fell 66% .

But that was then and this is now. Notably, the pool of potential memory drugs is widening. According to the analyst firm, Datamonitor, there were more than 40 drugs in mid – or late- stage clinical trials and another 100 more in early stages of development at the begning of 2005. The firm also reports that future success may not even come from biopharm behemoths like Merck or Eli Lilly. Smaller companies like Cortex, Neurochemand, and Axonyx are making the fastest inroads.

With these memory drugs the companies may get huge profit as Viagra did. Some of the memory drugs in the pipeline may become the block blusters. Such products will help the patients to retain their memory and the investors will have a ‘long memory’.

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