Reasons that a cure for Alzheimer's is very difficult to develop is because there are many causes of the disease. Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company, stopped developing an Alzheimer’s cure because of 2 decades of failures in tests. An antibody-drug, bapineuzumab, recently failed in late-stage tests. This is a major setback after a long time of testing the drug. There are two major setbacks of the cure production. One is, we don’t know what causes the development of the plaques. The other setback is that drugs need to pass the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier is a defense against pathogens and bacteria that go to the brain. So it is natural for a foreign substance to be blocked out. The downside is that it blocks potential helpful drugs from your brain (Götz).

On July 9, 2000, three major breakthroughs of finding an Alzheimer’s cure were made. The number of drugs that fight the effects of Alzheimer’s reached 60 total available drugs. Researchers are also starting to find the disease’s root causes instead of researching symptoms. Testing of an early human vaccine is beginning to happen after the cure worked on mice. The vaccine works by boosting your immune system which will reduce brain plaque, which most researchers believe is the main cause of Alzheimer’s. This vaccine is still in early testing though, so no confirmation on if it will be effective (Borenstein 14B).