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London The drug Lecanemab for the treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease has received approval for certain patient groups in Great Britain from the British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

According to Bioarctic AB (BIOA B), a partner of Eisai, the marketing authorization is for the treatment of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia secondary to Alzheimer’s disease in adult patients who are apolipoprotein E ε4 (ApoE ε4) heterozygous or non-carriers.

Lecanemab is the first drug to be approved in a European country that targets an underlying cause of the disease. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had recently rejected approval for the drug.

Approval in the UK was based primarily on Phase 3 data from the global Clarity AD clinical trial.

However, the drug is not distributed through the NHS because the financial regulator responsible for this considers the drug to be too expensive. The benefits of the active ingredient lecanemab are simply too small to justify the considerable costs for the NHS, explained the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

According to Bioarctic AB, there are an estimated 982,000 people living with dementia in the UK, and 60 to 70 percent of dementia sufferers are said to have Alzheimer’s disease as the cause. © EB/afp/aerzteblatt.de