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A new online service could help combat the lack of subjects needed to test new anti-Alzheimer’s drugs.
The service is aimed at matching patients with clinical trials. Researchers say they will need 10,000 patients over the next five years to enrol in just the trials already planned.
Too few volunteers are signing up for the studies – more than 100 clinical trials in Alzheimer’s drugs and dementia, with dozens of other experimental drugs ready for testing soon, said the Alzheimer’s Association.
It takes an average of one to two years for drug companies to enrol enough patients for mid-stage and late-stage clinical trials, said Dr Reisa Sperling, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
“If it takes 18 months to enrol and the trials are 18 months long, that is three years for every single drug,” she said at the Alzheimer’s Association meeting in Honolulu.
Copyright Press Association 2010
