28 February 2018 - European regulators are following in the footsteps of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with plans to help pharmaceutical companies win approval for novel Alzheimer’s drugs that treat the earliest stages of the memory-robbing disease.

The European Medicines Agency said on Wednesday its new guidance would encourage the testing of new medicines even before symptoms appeared, as well as the potential use of biomarkers, such as signs of protein build-up in the brain.

Experimental Alzheimer’s drugs have had a dismal track record, with more than 100 failures, including most recently a treatment from Merck, while Pfizer said in January it was quitting the field.

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