Tau-Targeted Therapy Slows Alzheimer's Progression for 19 Months

CHICAGO, July 29 -- An old drug for urinary-tract infections, methylene blue (Urolene Blue), may hold the key to a therapy that can slow the progress of Alzheimer's disease for as long as 19 months, researchers here reported. After 24 months of treatment with 60 mg three times a day of methylthioninum chloride (rember), patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease achieved a treatment effect that "was twice the effect seen with donepezil (Aricept)," said Claude Wischik, Ph.D., of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. The drug called rember is a formulation of methylene blue made by TauRx Therapeutics, and Dr. Wischik is founder and chairman of TauRx Therapeutics. The drug attacks tau, which promotes tangles, as opposed to amyloid plaques./.../