Paying Billions for Controversial Alzheimer’s Drug? How About Funding This Instead?

(By Judith Graham for Kaiser Health News)

If you could invest $56 billion each year in improving health care for older adults, how would you spend it? On a hugely expensive medication with questionable efficacy — or something else?

This isn’t an abstract question. Aduhelm, a new Alzheimer’s drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration last month, could be prescribed to 1 million to 2 million patients a year, even if conservative criteria were used, according to Biogen and Eisai, the companies behind the drug.

The total annual price tag would come to $56 billion if the average list price, $56,000, is applied to the lower end of the companies’ estimate.  Continue reading the article here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

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