There Are 3 Groundbreaking Alzheimer’s Treatments on the Horizon—a Neurologist Explains How They Work

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the biggest health threats of our time. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, an estimated 7.4 million Americans 65 and older are currently living with Alzheimer’s disease. Of the total U.S. population, one in nine people over age 65 has Alzheimer’s.

Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, but there are treatments that extend cognitive health and delay symptoms from progressing as quickly. Dr. Rudy Tanzi, PhD, a neurology professor at Harvard, director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and who is credited for discovering the first Alzheimer’s gene, explains that there are two prominent drugs currently being used for managing Alzheimer’s: Leqembi and Kisunla.

Dr. Tanzi explains that these drugs work by targeting and clearing amyloid plaques in the brain, which are a hallmark of the disease. They are given through IV infusions and have been shown to moderately slow cognitive decline in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s. 

Related: 14 Specific Ways You May Be Able to Prevent Dementia, According to Neurologists

Dr. Tanzi notes that one major downside of these drugs is that they are very expensive, costing between $26,500 and $32,000 a year. “Part of the reason why they are so expensive is that people taking them must get brain scans every one or two months to make sure there is no swelling happening in the brain,” he explains.

Soon, these two expensive drugs may not be the only way Alzheimer’s is treated. There are a few groundbreaking new medical treatments that may soon become widely available, including one that Dr. Tanzi is helping develop. 

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3 Alzheimer’s Treatments That May Soon Become Widely Available

1. A preventive treatment that stops Alzheimer’s from ever developing

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a drug for Alzheimer’s that worked similarly to how statins work for lowering the risk of heart disease, halting the disease at the earliest warning bells before it progresses? This is exactly what Dr. Tanzi and his team of researchers have been working on for years.

Forty years ago, Dr. Tanzi discovered the first Alzheimer’s gene, the amyloid precursor protein, or APP for short. APP is a normal protein in the brain that everyone has, but inheriting a mutation of this gene is associated with a high likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s.

Related: What You Should Stop Doing By Age 65 to Prevent Alzheimer’s, According to Neurologists

Now, Dr. Tanzi is helping develop a drug called gamma-secretase modulator, which works by shifting amyloid-beta production toward shorter peptides. This is important because longer peptides are more prone to aggregation and plaque formation, while shorter peptides are less likely to clump. These modulators change where gamma-secretase cleaves the amyloid precursor protein (APP), shifting production away from longer amyloid-beta forms toward shorter ones.

The logic, Dr. Tanzi explains, is that if someone has mutations of the APP gene (and therefore very likely to get Alzheimer’s), they can take a gamma-secretase modulator to stop the disease from progressing before it even starts. 

Similarly, Dr. Tanzi notes that there is a blood test that can identify if someone has plaques and tau tangles in their brain (both associated with Alzheimer’s). “In a perfect world, everyone over 50 would get this blood test, and if they find out that a pathology for Alzheimer’s is brewing—because the pathology for Alzheimer’s forms an average of 22 years before symptoms—they can receive the drug as a preventative treatment,” Dr. Tanzi says.

Wondering when the drug will become available? “We got our go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration in February and are starting trials now,” Dr. Tanzi says, adding that other pharmaceutical companies are also working on making similar drugs. With hope, it will become available within the next few years.  

Related: Doing This One Thing Every Day Could Lower Your Risk of Dementia, According to a Cleveland Clinic Neuropsychologist

2. A device that improves blood flow to the brain

Another breakthrough Alzheimer’s treatment is external counterpulsation. Earlier this month, a study published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias, showed that external counterpulsation significantly improved cognition in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Arman Fesharaki-Zabeh, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology at Yale School of Medicine, explains that external counterpulsation works by wearing a device that improves blood flow, oxygenation and vascular health in the brain. This is important because impaired vascular function is the second-most common cause of dementia, according to scientific research.

Last year, Cerezen, an external counterpulsation device, received CE certification under the European Union’s Medical Device Regulation, making it the first and only device certified under the new EU framework for Alzheimer’s. This new study continues to show its efficacy.

While promising, Dr. Fesharazki-Zabeh says that larger-scale studies on external counterpulsation need to be done to prove it really works. That is the only way it can move toward FDA clearance and become available.

3. Trontinemab, the newest amyloid-targeted therapy  

As previously explained, current treatment for Alzheimer’s involves drugs that target and clear amyloid plaques in the brain. A major risk associated with taking Leqembi or Kisunla (the two primary amyloid-targeted therapy drugs for Alzheimer’s) is brain swelling. As Dr. Tanzi explained, that’s why people taking them need to get brain scans every one or two months. 

Preliminary clinical trials on a new drug, trontinemab, show it may work just as well as existing drugs, but can be taken at a lower dose, which decreases this risk. Dr. Fesharazki-Zabeh says that trontinemab just moved into Phase 3, which is the final stage before FDA approval. But this stage can take more than two years, so it will still be several years before this treatment could become available. 

As you can see, there are several exciting strides being made in Alzheimer’s prevention and treatment. But Dr. Tanzi and Dr. Fesharazki-Zabeh emphasize that there is a lot everyone can do to lower their risk—without expensive drugs. 

Dr. Fesharazki-Zabeh points to 14 modifiable risk factors that can prevent or delay nearly half of all dementia cases. Some of these recommendations include treating hearing loss, managing high cholesterol, not smoking, being physically active, treating depression, minimizing alcohol, maintaining social relationships and treating vision loss. “Prevention is by far more effective than any treatment for Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Fesharazki-Zabeh says. 

With this in mind, focus on what you can do to lower your risk. In the meantime, researchers will continue to be hard at work developing the latest treatments. 

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Sources

• 2026 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures. Alzheimer’s Association.
• Dr. Rudy Tanzi, PhD, neurology professor at Harvard, director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and who is credited for discovering the first Alzheimer’s gene.
• Lecanemab Approved for Treatment of Early Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s Association.
• New Alzheimer’s drugs expected to strain Medicare’s budget, potentially raising premiums. Healthcare Brew. 
• Nordvall, G., Lundkvist, J. and Sandin, J. (2023). Gamma-secretase modulators: a promising route for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2023.1279740.
• Cummings, J. L., Zhou, Y., Yang, Y., et al. (2026). Alzheimer’s disease drug development pipeline: 2026. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions. https://doi.org/10.1002/trc2.70251.