Drugs for Alzheimer’s disease: Where are we coming from? Where are we going?

With population aging, the number of people with dementia is expected to increase over the coming decades. Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia worldwide, is characterized by a progressive loss of autonomy leading to dramatic consequences for patients and their caregivers, as well as an increase in health and social care costs. The main physiopathological features of AD include deposition of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tau tangles. Disease-related biological changes are detectable before the onset of clinical symptoms. The development of strategies to prevent or delay progression of AD-related cognitive decline has been a major challenge for more than 30 years.