Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Maze: A Snap View of the Past Decade’s Diverse Pharmacological Targets for the Disorder

The discovery of disease modifying anti-Alzheimer’s molecules continues to be dared by: disease target multiplicity, downstream neurodegenerative biochemistry complexities, and genotype implications. A confluence of the above ingredients has contributed to a pipeline of creative molecules that regrettably underperform in clinical trials. Thus far, only five palliative pharmacotherapeutic agents, that is, four acetylcholine potentiating agents and an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist are clinically available. In this review we collectively describe the currently suggested targetable pathways for designing anti-Alzheimer’s agents (palliative and/or disease modifying). We are prompted to contribute in this manner out of a desire to simplify and consolidate, to a certain extent, the divergent target literature on Alzheimer’s drug discovery. We herein provide a summary update and perspective on realized and potentially druggable pharmacological targets for this CNS disorder. This article covers mostly the 2005-2015 medicinal chemistry/pharmacological/biological literature space on the subject.