Treatments for Alzheimer’s, finally

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Treatments for Alzheimer’s, finally’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, July 21st. And this is your FT News Briefing.

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Yesterday was a bad day for the Nasdaq and a powerful political group in Thailand has thrown a wrench in the country’s democratic process. Plus, we’ll look at two huge breakthroughs in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. I’m Marc Filippino and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had its biggest one-day drop since March on Thursday. It fell a little more than 2 per cent in New York, dragged down by Netflix and Tesla. The streaming service and electric-car maker reported disappointing second-quarter earnings the day before. Tesla dropped nearly 10 per cent yesterday. Netflix fell about eight and a half per cent. It raises the question of whether the months-long rally in the tech sector is coming to an end. Tech companies, especially the ones that focus on artificial intelligence, have been propping up an otherwise underwhelming market. We’ll see more next week about how the tech sector is doing when companies including Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft report earnings.

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Thailand’s Move Forward party won the country’s general elections in May, but the party leader, Pita Limjaroenrat was prevented from taking over as prime minister. He was suspended from parliament on a technicality because he allegedly held a small number of shares in a now defunct TV station.

Robin Harding
What’s really going on is that the establishment in Thailand do not want the Move Forward party to take power.

Marc Filippino
That’s the FT’s Asia editor, Robin Harding.

Robin Harding
And they are using the various means at their disposal to prevent him. And it suits them for it to be a legal technicality as the reason to block him rather than an exercise of rule power because it looks better that way.

Marc Filippino
Robin says the main threat is from a powerful group allied with the country’s military. They’re concerned with a lot of what the Move Forward party stands for.

Robin Harding
They ran on what they call the three D’s: demilitarisation, demonopolisation and decentralisation. So they wanted to reform the very powerful military. They want to break up certain monopolies, such as the liquor monopoly, alcohol monopoly in Thailand. And they want to decentralise power from Bangkok. And all of that is very threatening to various people in power. And it seems that the Move Forward party is unacceptable to that establishment, and they are therefore going to do whatever they need to do to make sure they can’t take power.

Marc Filippino
Thailand will hold another vote next week to choose a prime minister. And there could be a compromise government with the Pheu Thai party, but that could have an impact on the country’s economy.

Robin Harding
It’s a country which seems like it’s on the verge of becoming a very wealthy, successful economy but has never quite made it and has got stuck in this sort of halfway developed stage where, you know, it’s not quite been able to make the transition to being a knowledge economy. And to do that, it needs reforms. It’s a long way of saying, yes, the current political situation really is holding back the country’s development, not in the short-term macroeconomic sense but in the deeper how do we reform to really become a fully developed and industrialised economy sense. And that’s kind of the tragedy of it. I think Move Forward ultimately would like to do some of those things.

Marc Filippino
Robin Harding is the FT’s Asia editor.

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July has been a big month for Alzheimer’s treatment breakthroughs. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug to slow the progression of the disease, and Eli Lilly reported earlier this week that its new drug does something similar. To talk more about these advancements in Alzheimer’s treatment, I’m joined by the FT’s science editor, Clive Cookson. Hey, Clive.

Clive Cookson
Hi, Marc.

Marc Filippino
So, Clive, Eli Lilly’s drug is called and I’m . . . I’m gonna try this one. It’s donan . . . don . . . am . . . mab . . . an . . . donan . . . (laughter)

Clive Cookson
Donanemab. (laughter)

Marc Filippino
And the drug approved earlier this month is called lecanemab, made by Biogen in the US and Eisai in Japan. How do these drugs work and what exactly do they do?

Clive Cookson
Both of the drugs work in a pretty similar way. They’re both antibodies, and the antibodies are aimed at a nasty protein called amyloid, which builds up in the brain as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. They attack the amyloid as it clumps together. It’s not a simple popping-a-pill for these drugs. They’re administered by intravenous injection, which has to be done in a clinic or in a hospital. And you have to do it every . . . once every two weeks or four weeks, depending on the drug.

Marc Filippino
So then why are these advancements such a big deal?

Clive Cookson
They’re a huge deal, Marc, because there are 750,000 people in the UK and more than 6mn Americans right now suffering from Alzheimer’s. It’s a horrible, horrible thing and it’s very widespread. So it’s a big deal that for the first time we have two drugs that actually make a difference. They slow it down by several months. And it’s the base on which the worlds of medical research and the pharmaceutical industry will be able to build to make better drugs, which are easier to administer and more effective than these two.

Marc Filippino
Do we have a sense of whether or not people will be taking these drugs anytime soon?

Clive Cookson
Yes, they will. Lecanemab is ahead in the commercialisation process. It’s been given a trade name — Leqembi — which is slightly less of a mouthful. It is now available in the US and it even has a list price of $26,000 a year. The feeling is that donanemab will get FDA approval before the end of this year and then it, too, will get a trade name or brand name, which I hope is easier to remember and pronounce than donanemab. (laughter)

Marc Filippino
(laughter) Yeah, you and me both, Clive. So one of the things I’m genuinely curious about is why we’re seeing such big strides now.

Clive Cookson
Alzheimer’s research dates back more than 100 years. Medical research and pharmaceutical research is a long, long process. It’s getting better. There are better diagnostic tools. Brain scans, PET scans have become much simpler. Blood tests are being developed to show whether or not you’ve got Alzheimer’s. They’re still at a fairly early stage. So I think the whole technology is moving forward. And long, long-term research is coming to fruition.

Marc Filippino
Clive Cookson is the FT’s science editor. Thanks, Clive.

Clive Cookson
Thank you, Marc.

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Marc Filippino
Before we go, a quick correction. We said in yesterday’s show that Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez entered a coalition with the leftwing separatist Bildu party. That was a mistake. Bildu’s parliamentary votes helped Sánchez pass legislation, but Bildu was not in the coalition.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back next week for the latest business news. The FT News Briefing is produced by Sonja Hutson, Fiona Symon, and me, Marc Filippino. Our engineer is Monica Lopez. We had help this week from Saffeya Ahmed, David da Silva, Michael Lello, Peter Barber and Gavin Kallmann. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the global head of audio, and our theme song is by Metaphor Music.