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Medicines in Development for Neurological Disorders
America’s pharmaceutical research companies are developing 547 new medicines to treat debilitating neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and stroke. Combined, the disorders targeted by this research inflict great pain and suffering on patients and their families and every year cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars in care, lost work days, and reduced productivity.
The economic cost of Alzheimer’s alone, for example, totals more than $148 billion annually, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
The medicines in development (either in human clinical trials or at the Food and Drug Administration awaiting approval) include:
- 171 medicines for pain for the 76.5 million U.S. adults having experienced chronic or recurrent pain.
- 82 medicines for Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicts more than 5 million Americans.
- 58 medicines for brain tumors, for the estimated 359,000 Americans who have a primary brain tumor.
- 46 medicines for multiple sclerosis, which afflicts some 400,000 Americans.
- 30 medicines for Parkinson’s disease, which affects as many as 1.5 million Americans.
- 29 medicines for migraine, a condition that affects about 29.5 million people.
- 26 medicines for epilepsy, which affects more than 3 million Americans.
- 23 medicines for stroke, the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
Other medicines in development target brain injuries, Huntington’s disease, spinal cord injury, myasthenia gravis, juvenile cerebral palsy, and restless legs syndrome.
The many promising new medicines in development include:
- A medicine that uses normal human cells to enhance brain levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter deficient in Parkinson’s patients.
- A medicine for glioblastoma (brain cancer) that singles out and latches onto the receptors on the surface of the malignant cells—but not the healthy cells—and destroys them.
- A medicine in development for epilepsy activates certain proteins in the brain that play a role in regulating both the resting potential and electrical firing of nerve cells in the brain.
The new medicines now in the research pipeline will add to the substantial progress made in previous years by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in developing new and more effective neurological treatments. They are giving patients and health-care providers new hope that more effective treatments—and even possible cures—may soon be available. This strong commitment to research— building on the past, continuing in the present, and heading into the future—is a product of the determination of the men and women working for America’s pharmaceutical research companies to develop new medicines to help patients live longer, healthier, and more productive lives.
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