Medicare Is Not Planning To Pay For Expensive New Alzheimer’s Drug
The brand new drug has sparked controversy since its approval by the Meals and Drug Administration final … [+]
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Simply a few days in the past, I wrote a column about aducamumab (Aduhelm), a brand new Alzheimer’s therapy developed by Biogen. The FDA authorised Aduhelm final summer season, in a extremely controversial choice that was strongly opposed by the FDA’s personal knowledgeable panel and by many different Alzheimer’s consultants.
As I defined in my earlier column, aducamumab doesn’t appear to offer any scientific profit, it has an actual threat of hurt (it could possibly trigger mind swelling), and to high all of it off, it’s extraordinarily costly, priced at $56,000 per 12 months.
Due to the outcry over the price, Biogen simply slashed the worth in half as of January 1. Even so, $28,000 per 12 months for a therapy that doesn’t work continues to be outrageous.
Now, only a day after my column appeared, Medicare announced that it will only cover Aduhelm when it’s being used in a clinical trial. This can be a tiny variety of Alzheimer’s sufferers, and this transfer will save Medicare billions of {dollars} per 12 months.
Medicare ought to be applauded for this choice. Not solely will it save Medicare from potential chapter, it additionally saves hundreds of thousands of sufferers, and their households, from the false hopes being pushed primarily based on a failed speculation–the concept decreasing amyloid plaques is an efficient solution to deal with Alzheimer’s. Though aducamumab (Aduhelm) does appear to scale back plaques, it doesn’t seem to decelerate or reverse any of the scientific signs of Alzheimer’s.
Because the Medicare announcement said, they may cowl Aduhelm (a monoclonal antibody) in a scientific trial provided that it handle this query:
“Does use of monoclonal antibodies directed towards amyloid for the therapy of AD end in a statistically vital and clinically significant distinction in decline in cognition and performance?”
Effectively finished, Medicare. The FDA nonetheless has some explaining to do.
