Alzheimer's disease drug development pipeline: 2021

The number of individuals worldwide with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is growing at a rapid rate. New treatments are urgently needed. We review the current pipeline of drugs in clinical trials for the treatment of AD.

We interrogated ClinicalTrials.gov, the federal registry of clinical trials to identify drugs in trials.

There are 126 agents in 152 trials assessing new therapies for AD: 28 treatments in Phase 3 trials, 74 in Phase 2, and 24 in Phase 1. The majority of drugs in trials (82.5%) target the underlying biology of AD with the intent of disease modification; 10.3% are putative cognitive enhancing agents; and 7.1% are drugs being developed to reduce neuropsychiatric symptoms.

This pipeline analysis shows that target biological processes are more diversified, biomarkers are more regularly used, and repurposed agents are being explored to determine their utility for the treatment of AD.