Alzheimer's: four main drugs availability to be limited
Health News Article | Reuters.com"Britain's cost-effectiveness health watchdog said Tuesday it wants to limit access to the four main drugs used to treat patients with Alzheimer's disease, to the fury of pharmaceutical manufacturers. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended that doctors should stop giving the drugs to new patients because they are not cost effective.
NICE said three of the drugs were not recommended to treat mild to moderate dementia -- Pfizer Inc and Eisai Co.'s Aricept; Novartis AG's Exelon; and Reminyl, made by Johnson & Johnson and distributed in Britain by Shire Pharmaceuticals Group Plc.
"(They) are not recommended for use in the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease," NICE said in a statement on its Web site (http://www.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=245908).
A fourth drug, Ebixa, made by Danish group Lundbeck, was not recommended for its designated treatment of moderately severe to severe Alzheimer's outside clinical trials.
Currently some 52,500 Britons are taking the drugs, known as cholinesterase inhibitors, at a cost of around 1,000 pounds ($1,922) per patient a year. Although they will be allowed to continue on treatment, the draft recommendations say the medicines should not be offered to new patients."
posted by Jen @ 8:11 AM
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