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Findings Indicate Continuing Benefits Over 1 Year in Subjects Receiving Namenda (Memantine)

NEW YORK, NY -- January 11, 2006 -- Namenda (memantine), which has yielded success in treating patients with moderate to advanced cases of Alzheimer's disease over a 6-month period, now appears to be effective over a time span of 1 year.

Barry Reisberg, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and Director of the Fisher Alzheimer's Education and Resources Program is the principal author of a 1 year study on memantine.

Findings on memantine which were published in March 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), in moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease patients indicated the efficacy of memantine treatment over a 28 week double-blind trial period. This study was used as a pivotal trial in memantine's approval first in the E.U. in 2002, and subsequently in the U.S. in 2003 and, subsequently, went on the US market as Namenda. It is now used worldwide as the only approved treatment for the more advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease.

This study, which appears in the January issue of the Archives of Neurology, examined the effects of continuing the memantine treatment for an additional 24 weeks of open label treatment in both the NEJM study patients and the placebo treated patients.

The findings indicate the continuing benefits over a 1 year period in the subjects who were originally receiving memantine treatment. Significant benefits in global, functional and cognitive outcomes examined were also found in the original placebo group. The results also indicate the continued, favorable tolerability of the memantine treatment over this extended period.

Dr. Reisberg believes that these results, obtained in patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease, significantly extend the timeline of the previous findings.

About Dr. Barry Reisberg
Dr. Reisberg has served as the Director of the Fisher Alzheimer's Educational and Resources Program since its inception over 10 years ago. He is also the Clinical Director of the Silberstein Aging and Dementia Research Center at New York University School of Medicine, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Reisberg was the first to describe many of the most important symptoms of Alzheimer's and the characteristic clinical course of the disease, with the Global Deterioration Scale (1982) and the Functional Assessment Staging measure (1984). His staging tools are presently governmentally mandated measures for certain purposes throughout the U.S., and elsewhere in the world.

Dr. Reisberg has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for his pioneering research including a Lifetime Achievement Award for Research in Alzheimer's disease from the major worldwide organizations in 2004.

This study was funded by Merz Pharmaceuticals GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany.


SOURCE: Fisher Alzheimer's Educational and Resources Program

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