Medicare expects it will spend more $550 million this year for the controversial anti-Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi and predicts the cost will skyrocket to $3.5 billion in 2025, according to Stat News. The program spent $5.7 billion on drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro in 2022, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. These GLP-1 medications were designed to treat type 2 [...]
Last year, Medicare decided it would routinely pay for sophisticated imaging tests for Alzheimer’s disease called amyloid-PET (positron emission tomography) scans. The move will make it easier for people with early-stage memory loss to get tested and potentially become eligible for a class of new drugs that aim to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s. However, many neuroscientists and imaging experts [...]
The National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association have proposed revised clinical guidelines that would designate seven major stages of the brain disease. The first two would be for people who have no symptoms but may be at higher risk for Alzheimer’s. These technical guidelines, which would update a 2018 version, could have enormous, and conflicting, implications for drug [...]
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted final approval to the anti-Alzheimer’s drug lecanamab, marked as Leqembi by drugmakers Eisai and Biogen. Here is what you need to know: What does it do? In a formal phase 3 trial, Leqembi was shown to slow the progression of memory loss and cognitive impairment in patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease by [...]
The drug industry and its supporters are blasting the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for proposing to limit Medicare payments for the new anti-Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab to patients who participate in a trial or a special registry aimed at tracking their experience with the drug. CMS says the record-keeping will help provide important, real-world information about the benefits [...]
The powerful Alzheimer’s Disease lobby is fighting a multi-billion-dollar battle on two fronts. It is quietly trying to limit restrictions the Food and Drug Administration puts on the use of new drugs aimed at slowing the progression of the brain disease. And it is publicly pressing Medicare to pay for the widespread use of the monoclonal antibodies FDA already has [...]
Medical experts are raising new questions about the safety of the anti-Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, which is marketed as Leqembi by drugmakers Biogen and Eisai. One study, which looked in detail at the death of a participant in a Leqembi research trial, suggests that people with a condition that affects as many as half of those with Alzheimer’s Disease may be [...]
The FDA’s decision to grant accelerated approval for the anti-Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, which will be sold as Leqembi, has significant potential for research into treatment of the disease. But people living with Alzheimer’s and their families will face difficult choices once the drug is made available later this month by Biogen and the Japanese firm Eisai. A trial found the [...]