Two weeks ago a new drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease was given accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The drug is called aducanumab, commercially known as Aduhelm, and was developed by biotechnology company Biogen.

This development is a game changer, because aducanumab is the first ever drug that targets the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s rather than simply the symptoms. Aducanumab is an antibody which targets and lowers a toxic protein in the brain called beta amyloid.

Approval of aducanumab has been a slow and painful journey for pharmaceutical companies, with many setbacks and failures since this approach was first investigated over 20 years ago.