Lutz Frolich, MD, PhD: Target Patient Populations for Alzheimer Therapies

“These 2 types of patients are really the target population for new developments and innovative treatment in Alzheimer disease.”

Lutz Frölich, MD, PhD, the head of the Department for Geriatric Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health sat with NeurologyLive at the 2018 Alzheimer Association International Conference in Chicago, Illinois, to discuss his thoughts about a few specific groups of patients with Alzheimer disease pathology.

Frölich mentioned how recently he was involved in a series of trials that included patients with prodromal Alzheimer disease and mild dementia, both of which are patients that are sought-after subjects for clinical trials of Alzheimer therapies. He noted that since they’re not so severely affected by the disease as of yet, they’re ideal candidates for disease-modifying therapies. This patient population is the one targeted by himself and his fellow investigators in the research he presented at the meeting of orally administered BI 409306, a novel phosphodiesterase 9 inhibitor.

He also mentioned his thoughts on the previous and ongoing attempts to test therapies in patients who are in even earlier stages of Alzheimer pathology, such as patients with no symptoms at all. He noted his interest in these patients but acknowledging the difficulty with getting them included in trials. Preclinical patients and those with subjective cognitive decline, he said, are difficult to leave out, as they are also patients in need of treatment.