Medicare Officially Limits Coverage of Aduhelm
to Patients in Clinical Trials
New York Times - August 8, 2022
Officials cited data showing the new Alzheimer’s drug has serious safety risks and may not help patients.
Ever since Medicare proposed to sharply limit coverage of the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, the agency has been deluged with impassioned pleas.
Groups representing patients insisted the federal insurance program pay for the drug. Many Alzheimer’s experts and doctors cautioned against broadly covering a treatment that has uncertain benefit and serious safety risks.
On Thursday, Medicare officials announced their final decision. Though the Food and Drug Administration has approved Aduhelm for some 1.5 million people, Medicare will cover it only for people who receive it as participants in a clinical trial.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, said the decision was intended to protect patients while gathering data to indicate whether Aduhelm, an expensive monoclonal antibody given as a monthly infusion, could actually help them by slowing the pace of their cognitive decline.
Ever since Medicare proposed to sharply limit coverage of the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, the agency has been deluged with impassioned pleas.
Groups representing patients insisted the federal insurance program pay for the drug. Many Alzheimer’s experts and doctors cautioned against broadly covering a treatment that has uncertain benefit and serious safety risks.
On Thursday, Medicare officials announced their final decision. Though the Food and Drug Administration has approved Aduhelm for some 1.5 million people, Medicare will cover it only for people who receive it as participants in a clinical trial.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, said the decision was intended to protect patients while gathering data to indicate whether Aduhelm, an expensive monoclonal antibody given as a monthly infusion, could actually help them by slowing the pace of their cognitive decline.
