New drug found to slow Alzheimer’s hailed a ‘turning point in fight against disease’
A new drug has been found to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, with experts hailing it as a “turning point” in the fight against the disease.
Donanemab was found to slow “clinical decline” by up to 35%, allowing people with Alzheimer’s to continue performing day-to-day tasks such as shopping, housekeeping, managing their finances and taking medication.
Following the findings of a trial of the drug, Alzheimer’s Research UK said “we’re entering a new era” where the disease “could become treatable”.
The health spending watchdog in England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), is already assessing whether the drug can be used in the NHS.
Meanwhile, Alzheimer’s Society said treatments such as donanemab could one day mean the disease is comparable to long-term conditions such as asthma or diabetes.
The charity believes this “could be the beginning of the end for Alzheimer’s disease”.
Donanemab works by removing plaques of a protein called amyloid that build up in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s.
Scientists have published the final results of a trial, known as TRAILBLAZER ALZ-2, examining the safety and efficacy of the drug, manufactured by US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.
Researchers examined almost 1,800 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s, with half given a monthly infusion of donanemab into the bloodstream and the other half given a placebo over 18 months.
The study concluded, after 76 weeks of treatment, donanemab slowed clinical decline by 35.1% in people with early Alzheimer’s whose brain scans showed low or medium levels of a protein called tau.
When the results were combined for people who had different levels of this protein, there was a 22.3% slowing in disease progression.
Side effects
The researchers found among a small number of people there were some serious side effects such as brain swelling.
Meanwhile, three deaths in the donanemab group and one in the placebo group were considered “treatment related”.
The findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented to the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Amsterdam.
Eli Lilly said some taking the drug would be able to finish the course of treatment in six months once their amyloid plaque cleared.
It said treatment with donanemab reduced amyloid plaque on average by 84% at 18 months, compared with a 1% decrease for participants given a placebo.
Some 47% taking the drug who had early-stage disease and low or medium levels of tau were found to stall the disease for a year.
It comes after trials showed another drug called lecanemab slowed progression of Alzheimer’s symptoms by 27% in patients in the early stages of the disease. The drug was approved for use in the US earlier this month.
‘It is possible to slow down the disease’
Dr Mark Mintun, group vice president of neuroscience research and development at Eli Lilly and president of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, said: “People living with early, symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease are still working, enjoying trips, sharing quality time with family – they want to feel like themselves, for longer.
“The results of this study reinforce the importance of diagnosing and treating disease sooner than we do today.”
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Dr Richard Oakley, associate director of research at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “This is truly a turning point in the fight against Alzheimer’s and science is proving that it is possible to slow down the disease.
“Treatments like donanemab are the first steps towards a future where Alzheimer’s disease could be considered a long-term condition alongside diabetes or asthma – people may have to live with it, but they could have treatments that allow them to effectively manage their symptoms and continue to live fulfilled lives.”
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He added: “Diagnosis will be key to the access of any new treatments.
“We can’t have a situation where treatments are approved for use in the UK but people aren’t diagnosed early or accurately enough to be eligible.
“We need early, and accurate, diagnoses available for everyone and the NHS ready to roll out treatments such as donanemab and lecanemab if and when they are approved in the UK.”
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Thousands of trans rights activists gather in London after Supreme Court ruling on definition of a woman
Thousands of trans rights activists have been demonstrating in central London days after the Supreme Court ruled the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
Trans rights groups, trade unions and community organisations came together for what was billed as an “emergency demonstration” in Parliament Square in Westminster.
Activists demanded “trans liberation” and “trans rights now”, with some waving flags and holding banners.
Campaigners in Westminster. Pic: PA
Graffiti was seen on the statues of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett and South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square.
The Metropolitan Police said it had launched an investigation after several statues were vandalised and it was investigating the incidents as criminal damage.
Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell said it was “very disappointing to see damage to seven statues and property in the vicinity of the protest”, adding: “We support the public’s right to protest but criminality like this is completely unacceptable.
“We are now investigating this criminal damage and urge anyone with any information to come forward.”
Meanwhile, a rally and march organised by Resisting Transphobia has been taking place in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.
Graffiti was daubed on the statue by trans activists. Pic: PA
Graffiti on the statue of South African statesman Jan Christian Smuts in Parliament Square. Pic: PA
In a long-awaited judgment delivered on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court ruled the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.
It essentially means trans women who hold gender recognition certificates are not women in the eyes of the law.
This means transgender women with one of the certificates can be excluded from single-sex spaces if “proportionate”.
Demonstrators in Westminster
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said on Thursday that the ruling means trans women can no longer take part in women’s sport, while single-sex places, such as changing rooms, “must be based on biological sex”.
The UK government said the unanimous decision by five judges brought “clarity and confidence” for women and service providers.
A Labour Party source said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had brought the party to a “common sense position” on the subject from an “activist” stance.
Among the groups supporting the London protest were Trans Kids Deserve Better, Pride In Labour, Front For The Liberation Of Intersex Non-binary And Transgender people (Flint) and TransActual.
Pic: PA
Keyne Walker, strategy director at TransActual, told Sky News the government needed to put equality laws back on a “sound footing”.
Speaking from Parliament Square, they said: “The mood is jubilant and also angry and also people are anxious… Right now trans people are coming together to demonstrate to the country, and to everybody else, that we’re not going anywhere because we don’t have anywhere to go…
“Queer people have been through worse than this before, and… we’ll suffer through whatever is to come in the next few years.”
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The activist continued: “The government needs to immediately clarify how they are going to protect trans people and what this ruling actually means for spaces.
“It does not bring clarity… businesses and venues at the moment don’t know what they can and can’t do… the government needs to step in and put equalities law back on a sound footing.”
Protesters in Westminster in support of the transgender community. Pic: Daniel Bregman
It comes as Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan announced she has helped raise more than £100,000 for a trans rights charity following the Supreme Court decision.
Following the ruling, the Irish star said she was “completely horrified” and “disgusted” by the ruling and added she would match donations up to £10,000 to transgender charity Not A Phase.
The fundraiser has since raised £103,018, with a revised target of £110,000.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Why was the case heard in court?
The Supreme Court ruling followed a long-running legal challenge which centred around how sex-based rights are applied through the UK-wide Equality Act 2010.
The appeal case was brought against the Scottish government by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) following unsuccessful challenges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
FWS called on the court to find sex an “immutable biological state”, arguing sex-based protections should only apply to people born female.
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Campaigners react to gender ruling
The Scottish government argued the protections should also include transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
The Supreme Court judges were asked to rule on what the Equality Act 2010 means by “sex” – whether biological sex or “certificated” sex as legally defined by the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Delivering the ruling at the London court on Wednesday, Lord Hodge said: “We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.
“The Equality Act 2010 gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”
A teacher who was upskirted by a pupil says women are being “specifically targeted” by misogynistic attitudes being expressed in classrooms.
Sally Rees, now the president of teachers’ union NASUWT in Northern Ireland, was visited by police officers in 2016 and told they had found a USB stick containing images filmed up her skirt by a pupil.
“You just feel so violated,” she told North of England correspondent Shingi Mararike.
“As a teacher, you give so much of yourself in the classroom, you want the best for your pupils and then to know that somebody has done that to you, it just completely shatters your sense of trust.”
Ms Rees was filmed multiple times over 14 months and after a “long drawn-out legal process”, the pupil was found guilty of five counts of outraging public decency.
Ms Rees spoke to Sky News as a new survey by NASWUT suggested nearly three in five (59%) teachers believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
At the union’s annual conference this weekend, members will debate calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.
“We’ve seen the impact that Andrew Tate and other figures are having on… young boys’ reactions in the classroom,” Ms Rees said.
“One of the things we have to remember is that the majority of our workforce is female and so they are being very specifically targeted by these attitudes, specifically things around; ‘You can’t tell me what to do’, that a man has a right to dominate a woman and has a right to a woman’s body.”
Andrew Tate.
File pic: AP
The drama teacher said schools were now expected to deal with behaviour like this without enough support.
“We need to bring parents and carers into this because it starts in the home and then trickles into our schools,” she added.
“We end up with a blame culture that education is at fault, teachers aren’t dealing with it and yet teachers are the ones that actually end up being the victims of this type of behaviour.”
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When asked about the NASWUT survey, a spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.
“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”
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