
Medicare Still Won’t Pay for Alzheimer’s Drugs without Confirmatory Data
Reimbursement for Alzheimer's medicines still will occur only with the completion of studies to support full FDA approval.
Confusion recently arose over whether and how Medicare will cover new Alzheimer’s treatments, but the fine print indicates that reimbursement for such medicines still will occur only with the completion of studies to support full FDA approval. And even with that imprimatur from FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will limit reimbursement to patients who enroll in physicians’ registries. While one treatment for this widespread condition may gain full approval next month, accelerated approval status remains insufficient to support reimbursement by the federal government.
The issue made headlines when
The first drug likely to qualify for full approval is Leqembi from Eisai, which is scheduled for an
The
Similarly, the
It really all comes down to money: the high cost of new Alzheimer’s treatments and potentially millions of patients likely to seek treatment would run up Medicare prescription drug budget exponentially.
About the author
Jill Wechsler is Washington report for BioPharm International.
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