Make Early Alzheimer Disease Medications Accessible to All, Now

When the topic is Alzheimer disease and more specifically when the focus is on access to and insurance coverage for FDA approved medications to treat the disease in its earliest stages, American voters of all political affiliations are nearly unanimous in support of immediate change to existing policies, according to results of a recent poll on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program limiting access to the new drugs.¹

Since April 2022, Medicare has required "coverage with evidence development" (CED) for any FDA-approved therapy for early Alzheimer disease, according to a news release¹ from the Alliance for Aging Research. The CED mandates that coverage of selected treatments require Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in clinical trials. Further, there are strict CED eligibility criteria limit the health care professionals and hospitals that can qualify to run the studies.¹

The net effect is only a small fraction of Medicare beneficiaries have gotten access to the two current early Alzheimer’s treatments available, Leqembi and Kisunla.² "No other FDA-approved drugs for on-label use in other diseases have been subject to CED," according to the news release.¹

The Alliance, along with UsAgainstAlzheimer's and the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, commissioned Lake Research Partners to conduct a phone survey of 1000 US voters, asking them to rank their agreement/disagreement with the CMS policy and about their personal experiences of Alzheimer disease. The poll was conducted by phone and online between August 26 and September 3, 2024.¹

References
1. New poll: bipartisan majority believes Medicare beneficiaries should have access to FDA-approved early Alzheimer's medications the same way they do for all other diseases. News release. Alliance for Aging Research. October 10, 2024. Accessed October 23, 2024. https://www.agingresearch.org/news/new-poll-bipartisan-majority-believes-medicare-beneficiaries-should-have-access-to-fda-approved-early-alzheimers-medications-the-same-way-they-do-for-all-other-diseases/
2. Peschin S. Dear payers: drugs for early Alzheimer's disease are "worth it." Patient Care. October 2, 2024. https://www.patientcareonline.com/view/dear-payers-drugs-for-early-alzheimer-disease-are-worth-it-