There was frustration in some corners of the media when it was announced that a new drug to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s was not going to be made available on the NHS. Alzheimer’s wonder drug blocked on NHS over cost , a Telegraph headline ran. The Daily Mail went with: Alzheimer’s ‘wonder’ drug will be blocked by NHS from TODAY due to cost .
In late August, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which provides clinical guidance for the NHS, rejected another Alzheimer’s treatment called lecanemab. The media response at that time was similar . One million people in the UK have dementia, and this figure is expected to rise to 1.
4 million by 2040. We have no drugs that slow the disease progression – so-called “disease-modifying drugs” – for this mind-robbing disease, only drugs to treat symptoms. It is clear that we need new drugs, so has Nice made the wrong decision? Let’s dig a bit more into the rationale for Nice’s decision.
The “wonder” drug (or “miracle drug”) that some newspapers referred to is donanemab, an antibody that latches onto amyloid plaques in the brain and removes them. These plaques are the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s, but it is not known if they are the cause of Alzheimer’s or a consequence of it. (Some people have an abundance of these plaques but no Alzheimer’s.
) At the end of October, Nice declined to approve this drug for use on the NHS for treating early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. T.