CONFERENCE COVERAGE SERIES

European Medicines Agency’s Expert Meeting in Familial Neurodegenerative Disorders

European Medicines Agency, London, England

08 November 2010

Tools

Back to the Top

In November 2010, officials from European and U.S. drug regulatory agencies met in London with Alzheimer's and Huntington's scientists in academia and pharma to grapple collectively with the prospect of something that has never been done before: Test experimental drugs in asymptomatic carriers of autosomal-dominant AD mutations. Those are the folks who will get AD with certainty and live every day either with that knowledge or at least the fear.

The biology of the disease is already unfolding in them, but they are outwardly healthy. "We learned convincingly that autosomal-dominant patients have been excluded, and now realize they could be an extremely valuable population for trials," concluded one senior official at the European Medicines Agency. Read Gabrielle Strobel's full account.