Red flags on China's new Alzheimer's drug?

It’s been failure after devastating failure in Alzheimer’s drug development. Then, this past weekend, there was shock when China approved a new therapy for the neurodegenerative disease.

But as more data about the microbiome-modulating therapy emerges, scientists are becoming increasingly skeptical. Medicinal chemist Derek Lowe waved some red flags about the therapy — including the fact that the drug’s maker, Green Valley Pharmaceuticals doesn't exactly have the best reputation back in China. The clinical data itself may also be too good to be true:

“…one of the weird things was that the drug started showing an effect at the earliest time point, four weeks. And that’s unheard of for an Alzheimer’s medication,” Lowe told STAT. “So that’s either really good news or it’s an artifact.”