One of the world’s biggest drug firms deliberately buried data showing one of its arthritis medications could slash the risk of Alzheimer’s.
Pfizer kept its finding under wraps for more than three years because, it claims, it didn’t believe the evidence was strong enough.
It found the link between Alzheimer’s and the drug Enbrel when analysing medical insurance claims in hundreds of thousands of people in the US.
People taking Enbrel, an anti-inflammatory used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, appeared to be 64 per cent less likely to develop the memory-robbing disorder.
But after years of discussion, the company decided not to reveal what it had found, according to a document seen by the Washington Post.
Experts are sceptical of the firm’s reasons not to share its ‘strong’ data at a time when scientists are deep into a quest to find an Alzheimer’s treatment.
One suggested money – and a desire to not let others capitalise – may have been behind the decision because Enbrel’s patent had almost run out.
Internal documents from one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, showed it found its rheumatoid arthritis medication, Enbrel (pictured) may be able to reduce someone’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by as much as two thirds
Researchers working inside the $235billion (£184bn) company reportedly urged bosses to start a clinical trial to delve deeper into what they found in 2015.
This could have involved between 3,000 and 4,000 people, taken four years and cost the firm $80million (£63m), it estimated.
After internal discussions, the New York-based company decided in 2018 not to go ahead with a trial, and not to tell the research community what it had found.
A PowerPoint presentation from a Pfizer meeting the same year, seen by the Post, read: ‘Enbrel could potentially safely prevent, treat and slow progression of Alzheimer’s disease.’
Pfizer, headquartered in New York (pictured), told the Washington Post it did not believe its findings were scientifically robust enough to publish
Defending its decision not to investigate the link further, Pfizer – the maker of Viagra – said it believed the chances of success for a clinical trial were low.
And it added the findings from its insurance claims analysis, which included hundreds of thousands of people, did not meet ‘rigorous’ scientific standards.
‘I find Pfizer’s decision really difficult to understand,’ Professor Rob Howard, an old-age psychiatry expert at University College London, told MailOnline.
‘There’s a lot of interest, in Alzheimer’s research, in repurposing drugs and if you were to draw up a list of the top 10 with the most interest [Enbrel] would definitely be on there.
‘If companies find something like this they’ve got a responsibility to make it available as soon as possible.
‘We’re perfectly able to make up our own minds about whether it’s nonsense or not.’
Professor Howard said revealing the findings now was not too late but constituted a delay to a research field racing to find a treatment in the face of constant failures.
He added: ‘To be fair to drug companies they’re not saintly organisations and we have to understand they are commercial entities whose first responsibilities are to their shareholders.
‘But without them we wouldn’t have new drugs. I think they have a bigger responsibility to science.’
More than half a million people in the UK have Alzheimer’s, which is the leading cause of dementia and caused by the progressive death of nerves in the brain.
Defending its decision not to investigate the link further, Pfizer – the maker of Viagra – said it believed the chances of success for a clinical trial were low
Enbrel, an anti-inflammatory drug, may be able to reduce someone’s risk of the condition or slow it down by limiting damaging swelling in the brain.
However, past research on the effects of different types of anti-inflammatories on Alzheimer’s patients have found no evidence to suggest they work.
Pfizer said Enbrel molecules were too large to actually travel into the brain, according to the Washington Post, so its potential was limited.
But one researcher, Professor Clive Holmes of the University of Southampton, suggested market forces were behind Pfizer’s decision to keep its discovery hidden.
He told the Post the company would not have wanted to invest in research which its competitors could have used to make money.
Pfizer said Enbrel molecules were too large to actually travel into the brain, according to the Washington Post, so its potential was limited
The 20-year patent on Enbrel ran out in 2018 and other manufacturers can now make cheaper generic forms of the drug.
If they had known it could treat Alzheimer’s and Pfizer couldn’t get a new patent, the profits would had to have been shared across drug companies around the world.
Professor Holmes said: ‘Someone can pop up and say, “Look, I’ve got a me-too drug here”. I think that is what this is all about.’
The research which led to the discovery was an analysis of medical insurance claims from about 260,000 people with rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions.
When split into two randomised groups of people with Alzheimer’s and people without – 127,000 in each – there were almost three times as many Enbrel patients in the non-Alzheimer’s group (302 versus 110).
UCL’s Professor Howard described the finding as ‘strong’.
The charity Alzheimer’s Research UK said drug companies should make findings ‘as widely available as possible’ as part of their role in developing new therapies.
Director of research, Dr Carol Routledge, said: ‘Drug discovery is a complex process and the repurposing of drugs approved for other medical conditions offers a tantalising opportunity to investigate treatments already proven to be safe in people.
‘We must leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding a new treatment for dementia and we cannot do this alone.
‘Pharmaceutical companies play a crucial role in getting new medicines into the hands of patients and it’s important that they operate as openly as possible.
‘In cases where their research may seem to come to a dead-end, it’s still important that these findings come to light.’
MailOnline has contacted Pfizer for comment.