The two companies that have discovered bapineuzumab, a drug that is supposed to slow down the disease progression, have seen their shares rise after they have published a study showing partial results of the treatment of more that 70 patients with the new found drug.

The Dublin, Ireland based Elan’s shares’ price has reached the highest level in three years on the London stock market, while Wyeth, a pharmaceutical company from Madison, New Jersey, had its shares close at $45.16, which meant a 4.83 percent increase.

The study that the two companies carried on discovered that patients that have taken bapineuzumab had a decline of only 2 to 2.5 points over a period of 18 month on a test of cognitive functions created specifically for persons with Alzheimer. The set of patients who were given a placebo had an average decline of 6.5 points under the same conditions as the others.

However, the newly discovered drug doesn’t work for everybody. Alzheimer patients that were diagnosed with a genetic variation called ApoE4 haven’t presented any improvement in cognitive functions during treatment. This subset of patients makes up for 30 to 60 percent of all the Alzheimer diagnosed persons, and people who have the gene accountable for the variation’s apparition are the most likely ones to develop the disease.

Even though the drug does not work for all patients, analysts believe that if it gets approved by the drug authorities of different countries, it is most likely to make billions for the two companies that have developed it. According to the New York Times, a pharmaceutical analyst has announced Wyeth’s board of directors that he considers that the drug has a 30 percent chance of reaching mass production.