A systematic pipeline census published October 11 in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions counted 38 active trials for frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) as of its May 31, 2026 search cutoff, split evenly between 19 pharmacological and 19 neuromodulation studies. The authors, led by Alberto Benussi, searched ClinicalTrials.gov, the European Union Clinical Trials Register, the EU's Clinical Trials Information System and the ISRCTN registry; they classified 7 trials as Phase 1, 11 as Phase 2 and one as Phase 3, and reported that 25 of the 38 trials, or 65.8 percent, use a biomarker as an outcome measure.
The finding updates a pipeline this newspaper last measured at just twelve trials. Among disease-modifying efforts, the review found progranulin restoration strategies, aimed at raising levels of the protein in people with GRN-related FTD, and tau-targeting approaches as the leading disease-targeted categories. Neuromodulation, which the review found makes up exactly half the pipeline, was concentrated in studies of language networks in primary progressive aphasia, a non-drug approach distinct from the disease-modifying compounds that dominated earlier counts.
The census also logs two exits from the pipeline this year. PR006, a GRN gene therapy developed by Prevail Therapeutics under parent company Eli Lilly, was discontinued on February 4 after what a company spokesperson described as a lack of compelling efficacy in the patient population studied, according to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD). Separately, Passage Bio announced on May 15 that it was closing its upliFT-D trial of the gene therapy PBFT02 after the Food and Drug Administration told the company, in a Type C meeting, that it would not support a single-arm design for a future registrational trial and would instead require a randomized, controlled study.
Taken together, the count shows a pipeline that has grown substantially in volume but remains concentrated in early-phase testing: only one of the 38 trials has reached Phase 3, and half the total consists of neuromodulation studies that, as registered, are not aimed at altering the underlying disease process.