Alzheimer's - Dementia, Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Medicare, UCLA / 15.10.2024
Wasted Alzheimer’s Drug Can Cost Medicare Hundreds of Millions Annually
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_64014" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Frank F Zhou[/caption]
Frank F. Zhou | he/him
MD Candidate, Class of 2025
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What is Lecanemab used for? How is it given to patients?
Response: Lecanemab is a new infusion therapy for Alzheimer's disease. Its dosing is based on each patient's body weight (10 mg/kg every two weeks), but the drug is only available in 500 mg and 200 mg single-use vials, meaning that any leftover drug in vials must be thrown away. Given that lecanemab is expected to cost Medicare billions of dollars each year, we hypothesized that discarded drug could result in significant wasteful spending.
Frank F Zhou[/caption]
Frank F. Zhou | he/him
MD Candidate, Class of 2025
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What is Lecanemab used for? How is it given to patients?
Response: Lecanemab is a new infusion therapy for Alzheimer's disease. Its dosing is based on each patient's body weight (10 mg/kg every two weeks), but the drug is only available in 500 mg and 200 mg single-use vials, meaning that any leftover drug in vials must be thrown away. Given that lecanemab is expected to cost Medicare billions of dollars each year, we hypothesized that discarded drug could result in significant wasteful spending.
Dr. Martens[/caption]
Christopher R. Martens PhD
Assistant Professor
Director, Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research
Department of Kinesiology & Applied Physiology
University of Delaware
Newark, DE
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: One of the main issues with Alzheimer's disease is an impaired ability to make energy in the brain. NAD+ is critically involved in the creation of energy within cells and there is strong evidence that nicotinamide riboside (NR), a precursor to NAD+, can restore brain function in mice that exhibit similar characteristics as people with Alzheimer's disease.
We had previously studied the effects of NR in healthy older adults and wanted to see whether it is even capable of getting into brain tissue. We used remaining blood samples from our original study and measured the amount of NAD+ within tiny "vesicles" in the blood that we are quite confident originated from the brain and other neural tissue