The drug industry, patient advocates and congressional Republicans have all attacked federal officials’ decision to decline routine Medicare coverage for a controversial Alzheimer’s drug. They’ve gone as far as to accuse them of tacit racism, ageism and discrimination against the disabled — and hinted at a lawsuit — over the decision to pay only for patients taking the drug in a clinical trial.
The drug, Aduhelm, with a listed price tag of $28,200 a year, has had few takers in the medical world. Brain doctors are leery of administering the intravenous drug because it appears dangerous and largely ineffective. Many of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals — such as the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Massachusetts General in Boston — have declined to offer it to patients.
While groups representing the pharmaceutical industry and patients press to undo Medicare’s decision, industry critics applaud the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for throwing obstacles in the way of a drug they think the FDA should never have approved in the first place.
