An experimental drug from Eli Lilly Co. been found capable of slowing memory loss in mild Alzheimer's patients considerably, showing a ray of hope to patients of memory-robbing disease.

Pooled results from two studies of the experimental drug called solanezumab showed that it can lead to decrease in memory loss by 32 per cent. Current treatments do nothing more than treating the symptoms of the disease.

David Ricks, president of Lilly Bio-Medicines, said, “Our next step is to talk to the regulators to see what this means, although we think this is a step forward in getting to a treatment for Alzheimer's.”

However, researchers also found a few side effects of the drug, such as chest pain called angina that is caused by a lack of enough supply of oxygen-rich blood to the heart.

Ricks admitted that they needed to conduct more tests to reach a firm conclusion.

The researchers discussed the positive signs at the recently held annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in Boston. The company also shared the data with researchers involved in the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study, a government-funded academic research consortium, which conducted their own analysis of the data.

Currently, around thirty-five million people are suffering from some form of dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the most common type of the disease. There are nearly five million Alzheimer’s patients in the US alone. Available treatments like Aricept and Namenda provides only temporarily relief from the symptoms of the disease. There is no known permanent cure for this memory-robbing disease.