TORONTO - A new treatment option for Alzheimer's patients -- the first licensed skin patch -- could make life easier for both some people with the disease and their caregivers, experts say.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. announced Tuesday it was bringing to the Canadian market a once-a-day skin patch formulation of its existing drug Exelon.
Exelon -- its generic name is rivastigmine -- currently is administered in the form of capsules which must be taken twice a day. Novartis said both the once-a-day formulation and the fact it is administered via a patch will help reduce the risk of confusion over whether the medication had been taken or not.
"I think that there are definitely patients for whom a patch will be beneficial in terms of administration of medication," said Dr. Morris Freedman, head of neurology at Baycrest Geriatric Health Care System and a clinician-scientist with Baycrest's Sam and Ida Ross Memory Clinic.
"For those patients who are going to go on this medication, the patch has advantages over the capsule."
Freedman, who was not commenting at the behest of Novartis, said a patch delivery mechanism could help overcome a couple of problems associated with Alzheimer's care.
"There are people who have difficulty swallowing pills and capsules. There are people with Alzheimer's disease who are resistant to taking pills. So in that group of patients there is an advantage to have a route of administration that isn't a pill," he said.
As well, the patch formulation appears to have a lower rate of gastrointestinal complications -- nausea -- than the capsule form of the drug, Freedman said.
"The same drug that may be harder to take orally may be more easily tolerated than the capsule form if given by patch," he said, noting drug-associated nausea rates were reduced by about two-thirds in people taking the patch versus people taking the capsule.
Elexon is one of a group of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors that are used to treat the symptoms of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.
