Promising data on Forest Laboratories' memantine for the treatment ofAlzheimer's disease have been presented at the conferences of the American Psychiatric Association in New Orleans, USA, and the American Academy of Neurology in Philadelphia, USA.
Memantine is a N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist which produces significantly different clinical effects to those of other AD agents, such as Pfizer's Aricept (donepezil HCl) and Novartis' Exelon (rivastigmine), which work by modulating concentrations of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Memantine has been shown to protect neurons from excessive stimulation by the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, the excitotoxicity of which is thought to be responsible for neuronal death in many neurodegenerative disorders, without interfering with the role of glutamate in normal neuronal functioning.
The trial data presented at the APA demonstrated that memantine had the potential to treat patients with moderately-severe to severe AD, relative to those treated with placebo, as shown by positive outcomes in measures of cognition, day-to-day functioning and overall performance.
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