With over 5 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in the United States, finding viable treatments has become a top priority. However, only four drugs targeting this disease have been approved between 1998 and 2014.

The human brain is a very complex structure, which makes it difficult for drugs to penetrate and then carry out specific tasks on precise targets. Over the past two decades, many pharmaceutical companies have confined their research to the exploitation of a single mechanism of action for possible treatment and prevention of the disease, but some scientists are now advocating a shift of focus towards experimenting with previously unexplored mechanisms.

Stevin Zorn, PhD
Lundbeck: Executive Scientist in Residence