A drug found to be the first to slow Alzheimer’s has been given the regulatory green light in the UK.
Lecanemab was approved for early treatment of Alzheimer’s by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency on Thursday.
This comes after a clinical trial last year found Lecanemab, produced by Japan’s Eisai in partnership with Sweden's BioArctic, slowed cognitive decline by 27% in Alzheimer’s patients.
However, a separate ruling by the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on Thursday stated the drug was too costly to prescribe on the NHS.
Patients will therefore only have access to the Lecanemab privately, with the bi-weekly IV drip-delivered treatment costing £20,000 a year in the US.
NICE chief executive Samantha Roberts said the benefits of the treatment were “just too small to justify the significant cost to the NHS”.
This comes after UCL Institute of Neurology chair John Hardy hailed the drug as “the biggest advance for 30 years” in the treatment of Alzheimer’s previously.
He added it was “the beginning of the end” for the disease, with the drug said to slow rather than just mask symptoms.
America’s Food and Drug Administration approved the drug last year, though European regulators have been more cautious, rejecting an application in July over potential side effects, such as swelling in the brain.