Lecanemab can; now the wait for details begins

There will be plenty of devil in the detail of lecanemab’s Clarity AD trial – whose shock success was revealed last night – but it surely represents the biggest win seen so far for Alzheimer’s disease in general, and for the amyloid-beta hypothesis in particular.

Of course, the bar was low, and the details remain under wraps until the CTAD congress on November 29. Among the unknowns are what the effect means in terms of real clinical benefit, and to what extent unblinding compromised Clarity AD. But the fact that the trial seems to have hit traditional cognitive and functional endpoints, as well as the more questionable CDR-SB measure, could be its biggest success.