A breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment.

October 23, 2024

Discover the latest breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment but it is costly.

A breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment may not be too far away.

Two years ago. results were published revealing that anti-amyloid drug lecanemab slowed cognitive decline by 27 per cent. Two years later, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced that lecanemab was “safe and effective” for certain groups, making it the first drug which slows the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s to receive a UK drugs licence. Now a similar drug donanemab has also been passed as safe by MHRA.

The disappointment is an announcement from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) that the benefits were “too small to justify the significant costs to the NHS”: more than £30,000 a year per patient including staffing and scans. That decision to save roughly £2 billion a year denies the drug to about 70,000 patients in England who would have otherwise been eligible. The cost of either drug is approximately five to six times above what Nice normally considers an acceptable use of NHS resources.

Private clinics are not constrained by Nice and will start offering the drugs. Private fortnightly treatments are expected to cost at least £50,000 a year, so only the wealthy are likely to afford it.

There are concerns about lecanemab because a 27 per cent reduction in cognitive decline equates to a mere five-month pause and it’s similar for donanemab. A key concern over lecanemab and the other anti-amyloid drugs is inflammation on the brain, which, depending on genetics, affects between 13 per cent and 45 per cent of patients on the drugs. In some patients this causes headaches and in others leads to brain bleeds. A handful have died.

However, there are other drugs being tested. Hilary Evans-Newton, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, says: “There are now more than 160 trials under way testing over 125 experimental treatments for Alzheimer’s across the globe, including 30 in late-stage trials.”

Alzheimer’s was discovered in 1906, and there are genuine hopes that effective treatment could come sooner rather than later and like cancer treatments become more effective, safer and cheaper over time.

Read our post on what you can do about dementia