Novo Leaves Door Open on Alzheimer’s After Pill Setback

Novo Nordisk A/S left open the door for additional work on its pill version of Ozempic for Alzheimer’s disease after a pair of failed trials, saying that patients showed a biological response in a handful of areas despite getting no cognitive improvement.

Doctors found reductions of 10% or less in some markers of neurodegeneration, inflammation and tau, an abnormal protein deposit linked to Alzheimer’s, based on measurements of patients’ cerebrospinal fluid, Novo said in a presentation at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference on Wednesday in San Diego. There was no change seen in a majority of the 30 biomarkers analyzed, however.