Yes, something that merely stopped progression of Alzheimer's would have an enormous market. Something that reversed symptoms is the holy grail.

I think that's a bit of a straw man argument there -- anyone with any familiarity at all with the progression of Alz knows how incredibly valuable it would be just to know that things weren't going to get worse.

The idea that AVXL's drug may work on only some people with certain genetic markers is more support for my completely unscientifically-supported theory --

that the reason so few Alz drugs succeed at all, but the ones that do seem to help a small subset of clinical trial participants -- is because there are many different brain-dysfunction diseases with similar symptoms, all lumped into the category of "Alzheimers." Of course one drug doesn't work on all people, or even a huge percentage of them -- any more than one antibiotic would work on all infections. If you're treating someone for a different disease that what you drug has efficacy against, then of course everyone isn't going to be helped.

Hopefully AVXL is a step in the right direction, for some patients.