The US-based pharmaceutical giant said it would be ending its neuroscience discovery programmes following a review, and 300 jobs would be lost.<\/p>\n
The Alzheimer’s Society called the news “disappointing” and a “heavy blow” to those living with dementia.<\/p>\n
Companies should be encouraged to invest in research into neuroscience, Alzheimer’s Research UK said.<\/p>\n
The move means Pfizer will also stop looking for treatments for Parkinson’s disease, but the company said it planned to create a new fund dedicated to neuroscience research in the future.<\/p>\n
A statement from the company said: “We have made the decision to end our neuroscience discovery and early development efforts and re-allocate funding to those areas where we have strong scientific leadership and that will allow us to provide the greatest impact for patients.”<\/p>\n
Prof Tara Spires-Jones, a neuroscientist at Edinburgh University, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 that despite the decision, there was still a lot of hope.<\/p>\n
“Not all pharmaceutical companies are pulling out and there are over 100 clinical trials at the moment.<\/p>\n
“There is a lot going on in the basic science – we need to understand the complexity of the brain.”<\/p>\n
She said Pfizer’s decision was understandable because of the failure rate of clinical trials.<\/p>\n
“More than 99% of trials for Alzheimer’s drugs have failed in past 15 years.<\/p>\n
“So companies are justifiably cautious, but we are making great advances on the scientific front.”<\/p>\n
Prof Spires-Jones added: “We’ve learned from these failures of trials that we need to take a step back and understand brain changes.<\/p>\n
“At the moment we don’t fully understand how memory and thinking work fully in a healthy brain.”<\/p>\n
Pharmaceutical companies including Novartis, Janssen, Biogen, Abbvie and Eli Lilly are still developing medicines to treat Alzheimer’s disease and a spokesman for the ABPI (Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) said they continued “to make progress in unravelling the complexities of the brain and identifying the underpinnings of the disease”.<\/p>\n
Dr James Pickett, head of research at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Of course it’s disappointing to hear that Pfizer, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, will be terminating their research efforts in neuroscience, including Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery.<\/p>\n
“The brain is the most complex organ in the body and developing drugs to treat brain diseases is a tremendous challenge, but with no new drug for dementia in the last 15 years, this will come as a heavy blow to the estimated 46.8 million people currently living with the condition across the globe.”<\/p>\n
The Alzheimer’s Society said it had committed \u00a350m to fund new research at the UK Dementia Research Institute alongside Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Medical Research Council.<\/p>\n
Dr Matthew Norton, director of policy at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “We hope that pharmaceutical companies will look at the long-term potential when deciding whether to participate in this effort.<\/p>\n
“It is vital that all of us – charities, government and industry alike – make long-term commitments to dementia research if we are to bring an end to the fear, harm and heartbreak of dementia.”<\/p>\n
Currently, about 850,000 people in the UK have a form of dementia.<\/p>\n
One million people are predicted to be living with the condition by 2021, and this could rise to two million by 2051.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 10)<\/span>\n BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Drug company Pfizer has announced it is pulling out of research into drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. The US-based pharmaceutical giant said it would be ending its neuroscience discovery programmes following a review, and 300 jobs would be lost. The Alzheimer’s Society called the news “disappointing” and a “heavy blow” to those living with dementia. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,107],"tags":[15385,15386,61908,77849,77848],"class_list":["post-59838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-health","tag-alzheimer","tag-alzheimer-disease","tag-brain","tag-drug-company-pfizer","tag-tara-spires-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}