CTAD 2023: Medical Centers Adapt To Leqembi Testing, Monitoring Requirements

Questions Remain Around Long-Term Use

Neurologists shared their health care facilities’ protocols as they begin treating Alzheimer’s patients with the first anti-amyloid treatment to win both US FDA approval and Medicare coverage – Eisai/Biogen’s Leqembi.

PET CT scan of Human Brain (Axial view Positron Emission Tomography) — PET scans, MRI monitoring and infusions complicate treatment with anti-amyloid antibodies • Source: Shutterstock

Neurologists at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) annual meeting welcomed the introduction of the first US Food and Drug Administration-approved anti-amyloid antibody for early Alzheimer’s disease to also win Medicare coverage – Eisai Co., Ltd./Biogen, Inc.’s Leqembi (lecanemab) – but also noted the thoughtful process their affiliated health care centers are undertaking to make sure the therapy gets to appropriate patients.

Key Takeaways

Treating early Alzheimer’s disease with anti-amyloid therapies, like Eisai/Biogen’s Leqembi, involves PET scans, MRI monitoring, genetic testing and infusion of the medicines – a complicated process for doctors, health care systems and their patients.

The FDA converted Leqembi’s accelerated approval to a traditional approval on 6 July, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid...