The real costs of the new Alzheimer’s drug, Leqembi — and why taxpayers will foot much of the bill (CBS Information):
The primary drug purporting to sluggish the advance of Alzheimer’s disease is likely to value the U.S. well being care system billions annually even because it stays out of attain for lots of the lower-income seniors most likely to suffer from dementia.
Medicare and Medicsupport sufferers will make up 92% of the market for lecanemab, according to Eisai Co., which sells the drug beneath the model identify Leqembi. In addition to the company’s $26,500 annual price ticket for the drug, deal withment may value U.S. taxpayers $82,500 per affected person per 12 months, on average, for genetic exams and frequent mind scans, securety monitoring, and other care, according to estimates from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Evaluate, or ICER.
… To qualify for Leqembi, sufferers should beneathgo a PET scan that appears for amyloid plaques, the professionaltein clumps that clog the brains of many Alzheimer’s sufferers. About 1 in 5 sufferers who took Leqembi within the main clinical take a look at of the drug developed mind hemorrhaging or swelling, a threat that requires these taking the drug to beneathgo frequent medical verifyups and mind scans referred to as MRIs … Outstanding doubts about Leqembi and related medication have given urgency to efforts to monitor affected person experiences. CMS is requiring Leqembi sufferers to be entered right into a registry that tracks their outcomes … In a letter to CMS on July 27, a gaggle of policy specialists stated CMS ought to be certain that any and all Leqembi registries create and share knowledge detailed sufficient for researchers and FDA securety groups to acquire a transparent picture of the drug’s real-world profile.
