By
Satyaki Paul
Recently, the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has approved a new drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease named Aducanumab (Aduhelm).
According to World Health Organization (WHO), dementia distresses around 50 million people globally, a number that is projected to grow to 82 million by 2030. In India, it is assessed that 5.3 million people (1 in 27) above the age of 60 have dementia in 2020, according to the Dementia in India 2020 report published by the Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India. This is anticipated to rise to 7.6 million by 2030.
Dementia is an all-inclusive term for conditions that involve a loss of an individual’s cognitive functioning. The Alzheimer’s dementia is the most common type and involves plaques and tangles forming in the brain.To slow down the progression of plaques and tangles formation, Aducanumab (Aduhelm) was designed by Biogen. This drug is a monoclonal antibody targets the amyloid beta (reduces its presence in brain). Amyloid beta is type a protein that forms plaques and tangles in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid is assumed to begin forming years before any signs of memory loss appear in an individual, making treatment as early as possible most likely to provide benefit.
The drug would be administered through monthly intravenous infusions. Furthermore, there are some side-effects to this drug such as swelling of brain, headache, etc. All of these were discovered through clinical trials conducted in USA. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the cost of this drug is around 40 lacs (per year), and it is not a full-proof cure of this disease.
The author works as a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta, and the co-author of the book Anthropology For All (2021).