Rigorous clinical trial design is especially important as tau trials move out of early clinical stages and are being investigated for signs of efficacy. Though we may be years from an effective tau-directed therapeutic, once an effective treatment is found, additional trials will need to be done to determine which populations will benefit, and perhaps whether combination therapies with multiple tau therapeutics or other non-tau therapeutics may be necessary. In addition to the ongoing clinical trials for current therapeutic approaches, there are several new strategies in the pre-clinical stage trying to tackle the challenges of treating tauopathies, but these efforts are at an early stage, and it may be some time before they are tested in the clinic. However, the rapid pace of development of novel tau directed therapies over the past five years is encouraging and suggests that we will eventually see a tau therapeutic in clinical use.
