Roche launches first-ever early-stage Alzheimer’s awareness website

To commemorate World Alzheimer’s Day, today Roche has launched the first available website dedicated to early-stage (prodromal) Alzheimer’s disease, called EarlySymptomsAlzehimers.com.

According to Roche, the site, which caters to HCPs, patients and caregivers, was developed to draw attention to the latest progress in exploring the value of earlier diagnosis and treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Research has found that initial Alzheimer’s symptoms can occur up to 12 years before diagnosis, which makes crucial the opportunity to recognize early-stage symptoms of the disease – such as significant memory loss and poor judgment and decision-making – so that therapeutic treatment may be administered before irreparable damage occurs.

While Roche has not, as of yet, brought to market any Alzehimer’s treatments in the US, the pharma currently has a portfolio of four products in development for treating the disease, with one treatment in phase I and three in phase II of clinical trials.

“In recent years our understanding of the very early phases of Alzheimer’s disease has improved significantly and more advanced diagnostic tools have become available to researchers in this field,” says Roche’s global head of the neuroscience discovery and translational area, Dr. Luca Santarelli, in a statement about the site’s launch. “For this reason we started clinical trials that are looking at diagnosis and treatment of this disease much earlier, before significant damage to the brain has occurred.”

The website, which offers visitors a bevy of early Alzheimer’s-related information, in addition to social tools such as videos and a blog, also provides patients with a downloadable “Tracker Diary” meant to act as a checklist that patients can fill out in order to recognize symptoms of the disease.

“We funded the EarlySymptomsAlzheimers site to help patients and medical professionals better understand this new approach,” adds Dr. Santarelli. “We hope that this will positively impact the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in the future.”