Central nervous system (CNS) disorders have long been the
Bermuda Triangle of drug development. For example, a 2014
study of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) drugs tested between
2002 and 2012 showed that 99.6% of them failed one of
Phase I, II or III trials. Many of these AD drugs failed late, in
large Phase III trials, making the failures costlier and more
dispiriting for researchers, drug developers, and, certainly,
patients. Rebecca M. Evans, MD, MS, Global Therapeutic
Area Head for CNS and her team at Parexel, serve the
readers with a detailed study of CNS drug development.