A Breakthrough on Alzheimer's Is Closer Than Ever
Promising data could open the door to insurance coverage for expensive new drugs, bringing them closer to patients.
Photographer: Konrad Fiedler/Bloomberg via Getty Images
New data for Eli Lilly & Co.’s Alzheimer’s treatment donanemab is a big win for patients and their families after decades of disappointments. Perhaps as importantly, it will help overcome the field’s next challenge: getting insurers to pay for the drugs.
Lilly’s experimental drug works by clearing away the amyloid plaques known to coat the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. Monthly infusions slowed the relentless cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s by 35% during the 18-month study of people in the early stages of the disease.
In the last year, the field has surmounted a daunting hurdle: proving, after decades of failures, that clearing away amyloid can translates into clinical benefits. Both Lilly and Eisai have shown their drugs can at least modestly slow the loss of memory and daily functioning that so profoundly affects people with Alzheimer’s and their families.
Translating those benefits into the real world means convincing insurers, the final arbiters of treatment options, of their value.