Op-ed: Medicare agency limiting access to Alzheimer’s treatment

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Commentary: A new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, lecanemab, will likely receive traditional FDA approval on Thursday. Unfortunately, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is closing the door to ready access to this new treatment.

Vials and packaging for Eisai's medication Leqembi. Alzheimer’s disease treatment lecanemab is sold under the brand name Leqembi.

A new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, lecanemab, will likely receive traditional Food and Drug Administration approval on Thursday, marking a tremendous milestone for patients and their families. Unfortunately, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is closing the door to ready access of this new treatment.As a young physician in training, I became focused on the search for Alzheimer’s treatments because the disease was, and remains, America’s largest single unmet medical need. Alzheimer’s is a tragic dehumanizing illness, resulting in death by inches. When I graduated from medical school, new transgenic mouse models of the disease were being developed.

. Yet now, in what should be a breakthrough moment for our patients and families, CMS is operating with a different set of rules.Last year, the agency denied coverage of anti-amyloid antibodies for Alzheimer’s outside of a new trial. And now, on the precipice of traditional FDA approval for the most effective treatment to date, Medicare will cover it only in select clinical trials with a patient registry, mandating the collection of additional data and study.

 

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