
WASHINGTON — To the average observer, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation couldn’t be further from achieving its mission of finding a treatment or cure for Alzheimer’s. But the group’s executive director, Dr. Howard Fillit, tells a different story.
Despite a spate of high-profile trial failures and the present dearth of late-stage clinical development programs for the devastating disease, Fillit insists that the industry is on the cusp of some breakthroughs. He insists, in fact, that he is “very, very optimistic” that there could be new Alzheimer’s treatments approved by 2025.
That’s a striking statement, but it comes with some caveats. Fillit insists that the treatment of Alzheimer’s will likely follow the path set by cancer: one of gradual approvals of incrementally better and better drugs.