Health Alert: FDA to Ease Process of Approving Alzheimer's Drugs

Could help millions by possibly preventing it

The Food and Drug Administration will loosen the rules for approving new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. People in the very early stages of the disease will qualify for approved drugs, even if they haven't developed any obvious impairments yet. Also. companies would not have to show that the drugs improved daily, real-world functioning. (For the last several decades, Alzheimer’s drugs could only be marketed if they also improved the patient's ability to dress, feed or bathe themselves, not just their ability to think and remember.) The proposal, published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, could help millions of people at risk of developing the disease by speeding the development and approval of drugs that might slow or prevent it. (NY Times)

[SUBSCRIBE TO LOOP 21 RSS FEED]