Public Need or Private Profit?

The world's leading pharmaceutical companies are downgrading the search for new treatments for Alzheimer's disease after the failure of a series of high-profile drugs trials. The prospects of treatments to halt it, or slow its progress, are receding as at least five trials in the past five years have delivered disappointing results.

Eric Karran, director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said when asked  if the pipeline of new Alzheimer's drugs could run dry,  "That has always got to be a risk. My sense is not that companies want to move away from Alzheimer's research but that their shareholders are getting restive. That's capitalism – there is nothing we can do about that. But there is a huge public need."

This year, a trial of Dimebon, backed by Pfizer, the US pharmaceutical giant, and reported in January, failed to show any benefit, instead costing the company $750m in lost investment. In July, bapineuzumab, developed by Irish drug-maker Elan in association with Pfizer and the US multinational Johnson & Johnson, also failed to show an impact on symptoms. In August, another US group, Eli Lilly, reported the failure of solanezumab, its second Alzheimer's drug to disappoint in two years. In 2010, a trial of semagacestat not only failed to slow the disease but worsened symptoms.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers worldwide have been cutting back in the recession, but neuroscience has been disproportionately hit, with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline all downsizing their European departments. AstraZeneca had a very large neuroscience group with some 300 scientists. It is reducing that to a team of 40, who will act as a virtual team – not doing their own research but monitoring developments and forging links with other companies.

Craig Ritchie, a leading Alzheimer's researcher at Imperial College, who runs a clinic for patients with dementia in west London, said: "The companies are streamlining their neuroscience departments and one can understand why. But it is hugely disappointing because there is massive unmet need.”

 At least 12 times as much was spent on cancer research as dementia research, yet dementia cost the country twice as much as cancer. Alzheimer's affects an estimated 500,000 people in the UK (a further 300,000 have other forms of dementia) and tens of millions worldwide, with the numbers expected to triple by 2050. It causes amnesia, loss of language, mood changes, apathy, psychosis and aggression.

 Capitalism has decided it is not worth looking for treatments because it costs too much. However, it is said for every $1 spent on research,  Big Pharma spend $16 on marketing.