Ozempic dashes hopes in Alzheimer's trial

Significant setback for treating disease

- GINA KOLATA

Boxes of Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy semaglutide drugs.

(REUTERS)

Hopes were high. In retrospect, perhaps too high.

On Monday, Novo Nordisk announced that two large studies failed to find any effect of the drug semaglutide on cognition and functioning in people with mild cognitive impairment — an early stage of Alzheimer's — or with dementia. The participants were randomly assigned to take a pill of semaglutide, the compound at the heart of the weight-loss injections Ozempic and Wegovy, or a placebo for two years.

"Today we announced that our efforts to slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease has come to an end," Maziar Mike Doustdar, CEO at Novo Nordisk, said in a video posted on LinkedIn. He added, "Based on the indicative data points we had, this is not the outcome we had hoped for."

The studies, involving 1,855 people in one trial and 1,953 in the other, seemed to stem an initial phase of optimism. The drugs appeared miraculous in their treatment of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease. Alzheimer's and other brain illnesses looked like the next frontier.

But there had been other recent warnings, in two smaller studies of brain diseases. One, done by researchers in Britain, asked if a similar drug could help with Parkinson's disease. That drug had no effect.

Another study found that semaglutide did not help with cognitive impairment in people with major depression, a severe form of the disease.