FDA approves Alzheimer's drug that appears to modestly slow disease

The FDA approved a drug that may help people with Alzheimer's maintain their mental abilities.

Lecanemab, which will be marketed as Leqembi, is likely to reach more patients than Aduhelm, which flopped after being approved.

Maria Carrillo is the chief science officer for the Alzheimer's Association.

Patients have to receive brain scans after starting treatment for Leqembi. It's not clear whether Medicare and private health insurers will cover the drug.

The treatment will cost $26,500 per year according to the company that developed it.

A substance called amyloid is removed from the brain with a new drug. Many previous drugs that targeted amyloid didn't slow down patients' loss of mental abilities.

People with early Alzheimer's who got Leqembi for 18 months had a 27 percent decline in memory and thinking.

It's a small benefit according to Dr. Joy Snider, a professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine.

It isn't a cure. The disease isn't completely stopped by it. It doesn't improve people. In very mild disease, it slows down the progression.

Even a modest slowing could be meaningful to patients and their families.

She suggests that you might be able to keep driving for an additional six months or a year. For an additional six months to a year, you could do your checkbook.

It could take many months for Leqembi to reach millions of patients.

To be eligible for treatment, people need to be shown that they are in the early stages of Alzheimer's and that their brains have amyloid deposits. It is likely that there will be at least two visits to specialists.

According to Hlvka, the result is likely to be a long queue.

He says that it will take about five years for all the eligible patients to be cleared.

Leqembi was approved based on its ability to remove amyloid from the brain. After reviewing the evidence, the FDA is likely to approve the drug later this year.

The drug will be approved.

She said the science speaks for itself. The science tells us that lowering amyloid leads to clinical benefits.

Medicare won't cover it for many patients until Leqembi is approved. Aduhelm is a drug used to treat Alzheimer's disease.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided that Aduhelm would only be covered for patients in certain clinical trials. The agency was unwilling to offer more coverage for an Alzheimer's drug that had not been shown to work.

The ruling applies to all Alzheimer's drugs that have not been approved by the FDA.

Most patients will have to pay for it.

There is a breakthrough that is not available to the American public. That is not right.

Hlvka says the cost could be tens of billions of dollars a year if Medicare covers Leqembi. A new approach to caring for people with dementia may be needed because of the high price tag.

Hlvka says that pooling all of the dementia patients who are covered under different plans into a single risk pool could be a solution.

If people with dementia can delay expensive nursing home care, the government can balance the cost of the drug against potential savings. It would make it easier for the government to get a better price for Leqembi.

Hlvka says there is a precedent for putting all people with a disease under the same roof.

Medicare has offered a program for people of all ages who have failing kidneys. The program costs Medicare billions of dollars a year.