We're fixing that problem with the Being Patient Trials Update.
It’s been a big year for Alzheimer’s research. Between July 6 of last year and this July 2, two disease-modifying drugs for Alzheimer’s disease received full FDA approval. Those drugs — Leqembi and Kisunla — are now on the market.
They’re not silver bullets for Alzheimer’s — but they are a step in the right direction when it comes to interventions that slow down disease progression in early-stage patients, and help people live better and longer, despite Alzheimer’s.
Who do we have to thank for this progress? The first people I want to thank are the trial participants. Without volunteers to take these drugs and placebos to help scientists understand critical things like just how effective they are, what kinds of side effects they have in whom, and what dosage they should be administered at, they’d never have made it to the general public.
These trials aren’t cheap! In fact, they cost billions of dollars. And frankly, it upsets me that billions of dollars are spent on drug trials, yet a relatively small amount of money is spent on educating the people who very well may want to participate about how trials work, what the experience is like, and what the benefits and risks may be.
It’s true: Drug companies do fall short when it comes to investing in educating patients and caregivers, and Being Patient is on a mission to fill this gap — because we know that without these trials, there are no new drugs for dementia, but we also know that the best decision anyone can make for themselves or when caring for a person with dementia is an informed and educated one.
That’s why, this year, we established a new quarterly newsletter dedicated specifically to news on the clinical trials underway in the Alzheimer’s, dementia, and brain health space, helping our community keep track of the latest developments in Alzheimer’s and dementia drugs and treatments.
Subscribe to our free, quarterly dispatch on dementia clinical trials
The Being Patient Trials Update is a free, subscription-only newsletter service covering the latest Alzheimer’s and dementia clinical research news and milestones, and helping to bring readers into the fold on how clinical trials work, what the clinical trials participant experience is like, and what the benefits and risks may be of participating in various types of trials for dementia research, from observational trials to drug trials.
Every quarter, subscribers get an update about the latest studies and trials that are recruiting — and most importantly, which piece of the puzzle all of the dementia drugs being tested are trying to solve, whether it be a prevention vaccine or a disease-modifying therapy. It’s full of links to relevant reporting we’ve done, making it easy to dig deeper into the approaches you want to learn more about.
We sent out the first installment in May — and we’re getting wonderful feedback so far. (Keep it coming.) If you haven’t already done so, you can subscribe to the quarterly Being Patient Trials Update.
And when you sign up, you’ll find a link to the first installment — so you can catch up on anything you missed.
