For decades, families affected by Alzheimer’s have had little more than hope to cling to.  

Today, however, there are treatments that can slow the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s. After years of setback and frustration, finally there are medicines that change the trajectory of the disease rather than simply managing symptoms. 

We’ve proven that science can address the issue. Now the challenge we face is practical. 

New treatments 

In the UK, these new treatments are not available in the NHS. If you want them, you have to pay for them. That’s because of the way the NHS makes decisions about what medicines it will fund – this approach aims to balance the costs to the NHS against the benefits of any treatment. In the case of two new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease neither was judged as “cost effective”.  

New treatments pose real challenges for health systems when making these decisions. The data about them is limited – usually just from a clinical trial over a fixed period in group of participants who don’t fully reflect the people who will use the treatment in the health system. It’s no surprise then that the first treatments to slow the progress of Alzheimer’s would pose uncertainties about their longer-term use in the real world.  

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