Eisai Reports 11 Deaths From Aricept Clinical Trial

TOKYO - Eisai Co. recently announced that 11 patients died during a clinical trial of the company's Aricept Alzheimer's Disease drug.

In a statement released March 16, Eisai reported that in its clinical trial studying Aricept (donepezil) in patients with vascular dementia (VaD), 11 out of 648 patients using donepezil died, while no there were no fatalities in 326 people in the placebo group.

'While there was no statistically significant difference in the overall occurrence of adverse events, there were more deaths observed in the donepezil group than in the placebo group,' Eisai reported. 'Consistent with Eisai's standard practice, …