Fierce NextGen: Despite another key trial failure, Alzheimer's therapy developers find reason for optimism

As Genentech’s Greg Rippon, M.D., detailed his company’s failed Alzheimer’s disease study for a drug called crenezumab, his fellow panelists nodded solemnly. They’d all been there before.

Rippon, who serves as vice president and chief medical partner of neurology, ophthalmology and internal medicine at Roche’s Genentech unit, was describing the disappointing news that had dropped a few days earlier that crenezumab had failed to impact the cognitive abilities or episodic memory function in a group of patients with an inherited form of Alzheimer’s during a phase 2 trial.