An experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that removes a toxic protein called tau from brain cells showed “favorable trends” across several measures of cognition and function in a small study — results that offer some hope for an emerging drug class that has failed to deliver benefits in the past.
The drug, called BIIB080, is being developed by Biogen.
“We are very encouraged by the consistency of the data,” said Priya Singhal, Biogen’s chief of drug development, while also emphasizing the company is not trying to oversell the significance of the findings. “These are exploratory outcomes from a very small study,” she added.