Baxter Alzheimer's drug effective at 9 months: study

By Susan Kelly

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Alzheimer's disease patients treated with Baxter International Inc's Gammagard for nine months maintained cognitive function and in some cases improved it, according to an interim analysis of data from a small study.

"If successful, it should actually alter the long-term course of the illness, and the effects should persist for a very long time," Dr. Norman Relkin, lead researcher for the study and a neuroscientist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, said in an interview on Wednesday.

Gammagard, an intravenous therapy of antibodies derived from human plasma that has been sold for other uses for 15 years, is intended to attack the disease in two ways.

The antibodies target beta amyloid proteins thought to disrupt brain function in Alzheimer's patients. Gammagard also contains anti-inflammatory properties that may activate microglia cells to help dissolve amyloid deposits, or plaques.

(Additional reporting by Bill Berkrot in New York)