There is a drug that might improve your cognition and your memory even after you start to lose them.

But few people know about it, even though a Phase 2b/3 drug trial has already been completed and even though the drug shows immense promise. In fact, it could be approved for emergency use by the U.S. FDA.

It’s a treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease, but the Alzheimer’s Association does not mention it on their website, unlike the many mentions over the years of Aducanumab and Leqembi, two Alzheimer’s drugs with shady rap sheets. From initial indications, neither Aducanumab nor Leqembi work as well, or are as safe, as the drug I am about to tell you about.

It’s called Blarcamesine, and it is being put through three different drug trials by its inventor, Anavex Life Sciences, a biotech corporation.

The three drug trials are for Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Rett Syndrome. Let us focus in this article on the Alzheimer’s trials.

In the Phase 2b/3 trial, Blarcamesine demonstrated that it actually improved the cognition of some participants suffering from dementia and serious cognitive decline. I italicized the word “improved” because dementia drugs are expected only to slow down the cognitive decline of patients, not actually improve their condition.

This Blarcamesine study was placebo-controlled, double-blinded, and randomized. The patients in the trial were suffering from cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease.

One of the tests used to measure the cognitive abilities of the participants was the ADAS-Cog13. This test involves a long series of questions and tasks involving thinking, drawing, remembering, and so forth.

While people with dementia are expected to get worse over the course of a year, there were a number of participants who actually improved their cognition over the course of 48 weeks, or about 11 months, using this measure. Those who did improve their cognition improved it by about 4 points on the ADAS-Cog13 scale, which is astounding, considering that the typical person sliding into full dementia gets worse by about 1 point a year.

The average person who took Blarcamesine, however, only slowed their cognitive decline by 45% over those 11 months. That’s great too. Hey, slowing my brain death by 45% in just a year is something I want!

After studying the statistics that the company provided, I deduced that there seem to be a number of “super-responders,” or people who improved an unusual amount upon taking the drug. There were likely a significant number of patients who improved their scores by 6 points or more, which, if continued over a few years, would likely cure their Alzheimer’s Disease-induced dementia.

Those who took Blarcamesine also did well on another measure of Alzheimer’s severity called the CDR-SB. This test involves interviewing both the patient and the caregiver or monitor to put a score on their level of cognition and daily activities.

Examining data released by Anavex, it looks like, after 48 weeks, the worst-performing patient taking Blarcamesine performed better on the CDR-SB than the best-performing patient on the placebo!

The average patient who took Blarcamesine showed remarkable slowing of cognitive decline — meaning they maintained their abilities for longer.

And finally, there is the ADCS-ADL, a test that involves asking questions of the caregiver or monitor about the patient’s behavior — how is the patient doing in their daily activities? On this test, the company claimed in their initial press release that the drug was successful in slowing cognitive decline, but their later press release seemed to indicate that the drug did not produce a statistically significant slowing of cognitive decline. The two sets of data involved two different statistical methods — an initial analysis of mean differences and then a least-squares mean analysis.

The company stated that the outstanding performances on the first two measures outweighs the non-significance found in the third measure. Furthermore, the third measure is an indirect measure of behavior and the first test is a direct measure of cognition; so they may be measuring two different sets of symptoms.

Blarcamesine produced significantly better results than the two drugs that the FDA recently approved for use. Both of these drugs, Aducanumab and Leqembi, plus a third one being developed by Eli Lilly, cause brain inflammation or brain bleeding in a major portion of its users.

In fact three patients died because of brain bleeding caused by Leqembi during its “open-label extension” drug trial of the drug. These patients were only the drug for six weeks during the extension study!

Symptomatic brain bleeding is why the FDA requires that people who start on Leqembi subject themselves regularly to brain MRIs to check on brain swelling and bleeding.

While the number of deaths from Leqembi were only three, the number of patients in the trials were also quite limited. If all 6.7 million people with Alzheimer’s Disease took Leqembi, thousands of people would likely die from the drug’s effects. One might expect a patient advocacy group like the Alzheimer’s Association to put out a stern warning to its constituents about the dangers of Leqembi.

Instead, this is what can be found on the Alzheimer’s Association page dedicated to Leqembi:

All drugs have side effects. As with other anti-amyloid treatments in this class of drugs, lecanemab does have side effects. Lecanemab can cause serious allergic reactions. The most common reported side effects were infusion-related reactions, amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) and headache.

It’s obvious to me that the Alzheimer’s Association is trying to put the best spin on the “side effects” caused by lecanemab (brand name Leqembi). First, they say that “all drugs” have side effects. If the Alzheimer’s Association wanted to truly warn its constituents about the possible brain bleeding side effect, it would say, “All drugs have side effects, but some drugs have very serious, even fatal, side effects.”

Then to soften the paragraph even further, the Alzheimer’s Association states that Leqembi has side effects just like all drugs of its class — so this drug is not any worse than the others. Indeed all drugs of its type cause brain bleeding, but that is not mentioned in this sentence.

They all have “side effects.” The word “side effects” is far softer and acceptable than “brain bleeding.” If they wanted to give their constituents fair warning, they would say, “Leqembi and Aduhelm as well as the drug being developed by Eli Lilly all cause brain swelling and brain bleeding.”

The most revealing spin that the Alzheimer’s Association puts on these words is calling the brain bleeding “Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities”. First, nobody knows what that means. Second, it sounds like an image is being distorted, that a photograph has been developed wrongly. It does not sound like brain bleeding.

They sandwich the “amyloid-related imaging abnormalities” between “infusion-related reactions” and “headache.” Again, softening the blow.

And they may also mention that patients must get an IV-infusion directly into their veins once every two weeks. This may cause infection and certainly a great deal of inconvenience — some people do not have a free ride to the hospital.

Also, the Alzheimer’s Association does not mention that the federal government requires that people taking Leqembi must have regular brain MRIs done to monitor for brain bleeding.

An open and honest paragraph or two would likely dissuade a caregiver from taking their parent or sibling into the neurologist’s office to ask about Leqembi. It might make them ask the doctor about alternatives.

If the doctor knew about Blarcamesine, the doctor might tell them that this possible treatment does not cause brain bleeding and is a pill taken daily and not a biweekly infusion. If the doctor knew about Blarcamesine, he might tell the patient that Blarcamesine is more effective than Leqembi.

But the doctor likely has no clue about Blarcamesine. Why?

Because the billion-dollar behemoth, the Alzheimer’s Association, has been selling the doctor and the rest of the public on Leqembi and Aduhelm for years now.

In fact, the Alzheimer’s Association did not really even have Blarcamesine on its radar when I interviewed one of its top scientists this year. She could not speak about the drug candidate without looking up information on her computer. She said that the Alzheimer’s Association does not oppose any type of treatment, but it has been obvious through the years of lobbying and publicity that the Alzheimer’s Association does favor certain types of treatment.

And their favoring the two drugs offered by Biogen may not have anything to do with “targeting amyloid plaques” in the brain. The Alzheimer’s Association may favor drugs from pharmaceutical megacorportions worth 30 billion dollars or more. Anavex is tiny in comparison, with no lobbying crew.

The FDA may also favor the likes of Biogen over Anavex. How does one explain the dozens of secret meetings between Biogen and the FDA in order to pass Biogen’s first Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, a drug which is now considered useless by most clinicians.

The secret meetings were uncovered by a Congressional investigation, and yet neither Biogen nor the FDA were punished for them. And it’s still not clear what quid pro quo’s were exchanged in those meetings.

The Alzheimer’s Association worked Congress through direct DC lobbying efforts, and Biogen worked the FDA through secret meetings involving what can only be assumed as “bribes” or “quid pro quos.” All this in an effort to bring Aduhelm and Leqembi to the public with as few limitations as possible and to get Medicare to put up the billions to pay for a drug that costs $26,500 a year, plus the price of biweekly infusions and regularly scheduled brain MRIs. Perhaps over $30,000 a year for possibly six million people; that’s a potential $180 billion bill for a drug that, if six million people took, would kill thousands unless they were immediately taken off the drug after their brains started bleeding.

All in all, it’s not an extreme tragedy. Suffering people get access to a drug that looks to be somewhat effective for many people. Some people die from the brain bleeding, but people die from helpful drugs every day.

The true crime? Blarcamesine is more effective, works faster, and has no deadly side effects, and it will likely be forced to jump through hoops that Aduhelm and Leqembi did not have to jump through. For instance, Leqembi received emergency approval before it received traditional approval.

Without the support of Congress, the medical community and the powerful Alzheimer’s Association, Blarcamesine will likely be the subject of yet another drug trial taking another two years to plan, execute, and publish. And then more months for the FDA to approve the drug.

Perhaps a delay of three years!

Meanwhile, my mother will completely forget who I am.

All because one drug is pushed through by a 33 billion dollar company and the other drug is being pushed through by a 600 million dollar company, or 1.5% the size of the bigger.

No Alzheimer’s Association going to bat for us. No major media outlets. Just some schmuck on Medium.com and on other writer on Seeking Alpha.

We can only hope that the FDA’s commitment to Biogen does not translate to delaying a significantly better, far safer, and far cheaper alternative.

Last gasp: call the Alzheimer’s Association and your Congressman and demand support for Blarcamesine.

Final addition: Anavex today just announced that they are applying to the European Union for approval for Blarcamesine to treat Alzheimer’s Disease; this shows great confidence in the efficacy of the drug, and a lack of confidence in the U.S. FDA.