ADHD and diabetes drugs to be tested in Alzheimer’s clinical trial
MELBOURNE: Hundreds of Alzheimer’s patients will be put on ADHD or diabetes drugs as part of a clinical trial that will see Britain “lead the world” in finding new treatments for dementia.
Andy Burnham has backed the trial, called Ad-Smart, which is led by the UK Dementia Research Institute (UKDRI) and will apply lessons from discovering cancer cures to dementia.
More than 1,200 NHS patients will take part in the study, which will repurpose existing medications to see if they are effective at slowing the progress of dementia, with the aim of rolling out treatments on the NHS at scale.
It will test several drugs at the same time, starting with the type 2 diabetes drug metformin, and the ADHD medicine atomoxetine. Participants will be divided into groups, with each on a different drug, which will be compared to a placebo group.
More drugs, including any new treatments designed for Alzheimer’s, will be added to the trial over time. Experts say the approach could halve the time it takes to find Alzheimer’s treatments and has been effective in rapidly finding medicines for conditions including some types of cancer and Covid-19.
Professor Paresh Malhotra, the trial’s chief investigator from the UKDRI at Imperial College London, said: “For too long, Alzheimer’s research has moved at the pace of one drug, one trial, one answer, sometimes taking a decade or more before we know if we’ve found something that works.
“We are applying advances from cancer and other conditions to accelerate testing of treatments for people with Alzheimer’s disease.
“The way Ad-Smart is set up means we’re testing several treatments at the same time, and those that don’t show promise can be quickly stopped. Then we can start testing something else. That’s the best way to get effective treatments to patients as quickly as we can.”
Over the next 18 months the trial will establish whether metformin, which is used for type 2 diabetes, is effective at treating Alzheimer’s. The drug costs less than £1 a month and previous, smaller studies suggested it helps reduce inflammation in the brain.
Malhotra said that atomoxetine — used for ADHD — also helped to reduce inflammation linked to dementia and that there was “a very theoretical rationale why this should work” in slowing the degeneration of the brain in people Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia, affecting about 600,000 people in the UK. There are currently no NHS treatments that can slow or stop the underlying disease.
The first results of the trial are expected before 2030. Malhotra said that, because the drugs are cheap and already widely used for other conditions, then “if we find an effect, we can get it into NHS practice as quickly as possible”.
Alison McGovern, the social care minister, said the government was committed to “bringing medicines to people as quickly as we can” on a visit to Charing Cross hospital, in west London, which is one of the centres that will recruit patients to the new trial.
McGovern told The Times that finding new treatments and “combining science and social care” will be essential to the success of a new national care service promised by Burnham.
She said: “We have a proud tradition in this country of leading the world in science and what better condition to try to lead the world in than dementia. I’m determined that we learn from cancer in trying to find better treatments for dementia.
“We will have about one and a half million people living with dementia by 2040. We need to use both great British science and a new social care system to meet that test.”
McGovern urged patients who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s to sign up for the new trial,
Burnham, whose father Roy died with the illness in September, said: “I know how it feels to lose a loved one to dementia and have seen first-hand the devastating impact this illness has on families.
“That’s why I’m proud to see this trial being launched in the UK, so that cutting-edge treatments can reach patients here as soon as possible.
“I have made dementia research a national priority. I want Britain to be the leading nation, making the breakthroughs that change people’s lives.”