Third time lucky for Lilly's solanezumab?
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most challenging therapeutic targets to be pursued in pharmaceutical R&D. While research into this disease therapy has been somewhat successful in terms of developing symptomatic therapies, there has been a track record of failures for disease-modifying candidates – such as bapineuzumab (Johnson & Johnson/Pfizer). Moreover, there is still plenty of deliberation among the scientific community over the actual pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and the different approaches to targeting its complex underlying mechanisms. But, with significant revenue potential waiting to be mined, Eli Lilly is firmly betting on the beta-amyloid approach, thus taking a great risk in the hope of achieving the high returns that it needs in order to offset one of the largest patent-cliffs within its Big Pharma peer-set, says Datamonitor Healthcare analyst Higia Vassoler.