China Expects New Alzheimer's Treatment to Hit Market This Year
Lv Jinyu
DATE:  Nov 04 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
China Expects New Alzheimer's Treatment to Hit Market This Year China Expects New Alzheimer's Treatment to Hit Market This Year

(Yicai Global) Nov. 4 -- China's drug regulator has approved the launch of a new Alzheimer's medicine and expects it to the local market, home to more sufferers than any other country, by the end of this year.

The National Medical Products Association gave the nod for Oligomannate, or GV-971, to be used as a treatment for "mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease" and for "improving cognitive function," the drug's producer Shanghai Green Valley Pharmaceuticals said in a statement on Nov. 2. The medicine is the first of its kind to get approval anywhere in the world since 2003 and Green Valley is already preparing to mass produce it.

"Existing drugs merely combat symptoms," said Prof. Xiao Shifu, a leading investigator during GV-971's third-phase clinical trials at Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Medicine. "There aren't many available and those that are cannot delay or prevent the progression of the disease."

Based on the drug's efficacy in the trials, he believes Oligomannate has the potential to treat the disease, which racked up global treatment expenses of more than USD1 trillion last year.

At least 50 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer's disease, whose symptomps include cognitive and behavioral impairment and mental disorder, among others. It is the third-leading cause of disability and death among the elderly behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. Some 10 million people in China suffer, and this is expected to rise to 40 million by 2050 as the number of global patients rises to 150 million.

Pre-clinical studies showed that GV-971 modulates peripheral and central inflammation by inhibiting the abnormal increase of intestinal flora metabolites, thereby improving cognitive function, added Geng Meiyu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. His organization worked with Green Valley and the Ocean University of China to develop the medicine.

Drugmakers have only produced five medicines to treat Alzheimer's since its discovery 100 years ago, and none has proven to be highly effective. Pharma firms the world over have invested hundreds of billions of dollars into developing a treatment in the past 20 years, resulting in some 320 drugs failing to pass clinical trials.

American biotech firm Biogen and Japanese partner Eisai announced recently that they would apply to the United States Food and Drug Administration to get approval for an early Alzheimer's treatment named Aducanumab.

Editors: Chen Juan, James Boynton

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Keywords:   Aizheimer's Disease,GV-971