Alzheimer's disease concept, Elderly woman holding brain symbol of missing jigsaw puzzle, World Alzheimer's, World mental health, Memory loss, Dementia, Parkinson disease.
How significant is new drug for those living with Alzheimer’s disease?
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Scott LaMar
Alzheimer's disease concept, Elderly woman holding brain symbol of missing jigsaw puzzle, World Alzheimer's, World mental health, Memory loss, Dementia, Parkinson disease.
Airdate: December 08, 2022
About six million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease that affects their memories and cognitive abilities and could eventually lead to their deaths. The numbers are expected to grow as a large swath of Americans get older. When any progress is made on Alzheimer’s – it is big news.
The results of a large clinical trial on a new drug have shown it slowed down cognitive decline by 27%.
However, some have warned the drug called lecanemab may cause adverse side effects. In fact, two people involved in the study died, although the drug makers say those two had underlying health issues.
The FDA could decide next month whether to approve the drug.
Appearing on The Spark Thursday, Clay Jacobs, Executive Director of the Alzheimer’s Association, Greater Pennsylvania Chapter, talked about why there’s some excitement about lecanemab,”It’s clinically significant, but also the potential significance for families. So this was a trial over 18 months. This moderate improvement, it is one of those things that we can’t let necessarily the perfect be the enemy of good. This is the first medication ever to show benefit to the clinical sides in this way. And so while it may not be a cure and certainly not a silver bullet, if it adds quality of life and reduced symptoms to families, it still is potentially the best thing we have available right now today that would make a difference for all those impacted by this disease.”
The drug could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration next month according to Jacobs,”A decision is incredibly close. So this medication, in terms of the trial, the the longitude, the fullness of the trial, even representation so unique to some dementia trials started years ago, 25% were black and or Hispanic, Latin American. And so it also means it’s a representative sample. And so they were able to move forward with traditional approval and accelerated approval. And so the first decision on whether this could be available will come on or before January 6th. So the FDA has already set that timeline. So we we are within 30 days on knowing whether the FDA will approve this for general usage. Then we get into Medicare and Medicaid and other coverage, but we’ll have an FDA decision very soon.”
