Dear Readers,
After years of waiting and hoping, the millions of people living with Alzheimer's got very encouraging news this week: A clinical trial found that the treatment lecanemab met its primary endpoint by reducing patients’ cognitive decline by 27%. There are still many unknowns, but clearly, as senior writer Matthew Herper put it, this is “one of the biggest — and potentially happiest — shocks in the recent history of medicine.”
STAT has the most deeply sourced and authoritative team on this story, with reporters working tirelessly to bring you the most comprehensive coverage you'll find anywhere. Here are some highlights:
- Adam Feuerstein, Damian Garde, and Rachel Cohrs tackle the burning questions left unanswered by the success of lecanemab, the latest Alzheimer’s treatment from Biogen and Eisai.
- Matt weighs in with a piece on how the drug’s success is a reminder of why we should demand good clinical trials.
- Andrew Joseph offers this first look at exactly what the treatment could mean for patients.
- The morning after the news broke, we published this project by Usha Lee McFarling, reporting from the Texas-Mexico border, where there are some of the highest rates of Alzheimer’s in the nation — yet people there have been largely left out of research.
Our reporters are continuing STAT’s commitment to covering a disease that is projected to affect 13.8 million people by 2050, from 6.5 million people today. Throughout last year, some of the same reporters who delivered the lecanemab stories this week won prestigious George Polk and NIHCM journalism awards for their coverage of how Biogen used an FDA back channel to win approval of its earlier, polarizing Alzheimer's drug.
Many of these pieces are available only to STAT+ subscribers. I hope you'll consider trying out a subscription so you won't miss out on many of our best investigative, news, and analytical stories, while also supporting our mission to produce essential journalism on health, medicine, and science. We offer special annual rates for groups, and you can contact us to learn more about discounts for readers in academia and government.
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You can count on our team to bring you important Alzheimer's developments; many other stories are in the works. The disease is also a topic of lively conversation on the latest episode of our “Readout LOUD” podcast, which drops later today. Among other points, Damian and Adam discuss with Allison DeAngelis what the lecanemab data mean for Biogen's business and the fate of the company.
Thank you for reading STAT. As always, feel free to shoot me an email with your concerns, compliments, or other feedback. I’m at rick.berke@statnews.com and @rickberke on Twitter.
All the best,
Richard L. Berke
Co-founder & Executive Editor
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