Alzheimer's disease therapeutics

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic and progressive brain neurodegenerative disease affecting over 30 million people globally. Currently, no effective treatment is available owing to multiple factors involved in the progression of AD. Based on numerous AD-related targets in the disease network, a single-target strategy, multiple-medication therapy and/or multiple-compound medication, and multiple target–directed ligands strategy have been employed to treat AD. Approved drug candidates are in clinical trials, and the promising preclinical compounds are summarized in this chapter. Sodium oligomannate GV-971, which is approved in China, opens the door for the discovery of novel anti-AD drugs. This review also suggests that cell-penetrating peptides, autophagy inducers, and protectors of brain pericytes provide an approach to treating early stage AD, and that obligate multispecific drugs with cell-penetrating peptides may be the most promising strategy for therapy at different stages of AD.