[HN Gopher] US approves first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       US approves first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years
        
       Author : happy-go-lucky
       Score  : 10 points
       Date   : 2021-06-07 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | missedthecue wrote:
       | Insurers (whether companies or government schemes) will _only_
       | have to pay $56,000 a year for this treatment.
       | 
       | I wonder how much the FDA increases healthcare costs. Biogen has
       | been trying to get the approved for a very long time. I'm sure
       | they're starting out maybe five to ten billion in the red on this
       | product.
        
       | CharleFKane wrote:
       | Derek Lowe posted about this on Friday:
       | 
       | "A Brief Note About Aducanumab"
       | 
       | https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/03/a-...
       | 
       | "Given the current data, I do not think that aducanumab should be
       | approved. I don't believe that Biogen's clinical trials have
       | really demonstrated efficacy against the disease, and the FDA
       | briefing documents show that there are many people in the agency
       | who agree with that position..."
        
       | tibbydudeza wrote:
       | 6 million Alzheimer patients in the US ... can see why it was
       | approved.
        
       | maxk42 wrote:
       | Interesting that this is the first approved drug to target
       | amyloid plaques. Is most treatment targeted at symptoms instead?
        
         | jcranmer wrote:
         | No, all prior attempts (that I'm aware of) have been to target
         | amyloid plaques--amyloid hypothesis has been the big working
         | hypothesis of Alzheimer's for decades. That they all failed has
         | caused most in the field to abandon the hypothesis, and the
         | fact that this is an amyloid blocker has most people expecting
         | this to fail.
         | 
         | Indeed, the expert advisory committee at the FDA itself
         | recommended against approving the drug, since the data on
         | improving actual Alzheimer's progression is _at best_
         | equivocal, especially given the past history of amyloid
         | blockers. The FDA granted it essentially saying  "there's
         | nothing else there that works, and this does clearly clear
         | amyloid plaques" (ignoring prior drugs that clearly cleared
         | amyloid plaques yet still didn't work). And many people,
         | including myself, are now preparing for the country to spend
         | tens of billions on a drug which very probably doesn't work.
         | 
         | This does not paint the FDA in a good light.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-06-07 23:02 UTC)