Baxter Alzheimer's drug promising in small study

17 april 2008--Baxter International Inc said on Thursday its Gammagard intravenous plasma-based treatment helped improve mental function in a small study of patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.
The treatment met the primary goals of the six-month, 24-patient trial by proving better than placebo at improving measures of cognitive function and global impression of change, the company said, although the study was too small to demonstrate statistical significance.
"This was the first placebo-controlled clinical trial of Gammagard for Alzheimer's disease, and the results are clearly promising," Dr Norman Relkin said in a statement. Relkin presented the data at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Chicago.