Dementia experts from 12 countries have signed a policy paper urging Brussels to give dementia its own framework, modelled on the €4 billion Beating Cancer Plan
Medicine can now slow Alzheimer’s disease, but whether patients benefit depends on where they live. In Rome, experts from 12 countries signed a policy paper urging Brussels to give dementia its own framework, modelled on the €4 billion Beating Cancer Plan.
In Austria, more than a hundred people with early Alzheimer’s disease are receiving the new anti-amyloid therapies, reimbursed by the state and available in eight of nine federal states. In Spain, reimbursement has been refused outright. In Germany, patients on treatment today may lose access within months. And in Hungary, just one in a hundred ever receives the biological diagnosis the new drugs require.
For the first time, medicine can alter the course of Alzheimer’s disease rather than merely ease its symptoms. But whether Europeans benefit increasingly depends on where they live.
That was the conclusion of MindShift, a 12-country policy dialogue in Rome on 9-10 June, backed by eight pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies.
