Alzheimer's disease: treatments in discovery and development.

Alzheimer's disease is the single biggest unmet medical need in neurology. Current drugs are safe, but of limited benefit to most patients. This review discusses the scientific basis and current status of promising disease-modifying therapies in the discovery and development stages. I describe the major targets of anti-amyloid therapy and the main focus of disease modification approaches. In addition, two new potential treatment approaches supported by retrospective epidemiology are outlined.