Britain’s High Court upholds limits on treatment for Alzheimer’s disease
Campaigners and drug makers failed last week in their High Court bid to overturn guidance recommending only limited coverage on the NHS of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. This was the first major legal challenge to guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the body that recommends which drugs are available on the NHS in England and Wales.
Mrs Justice Dobbs ordered NICE to amend the existing guidance, having ruled that its diagnostic criteria breached the Disability Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act. NICE undertook to make the relevant changes within 28 days—but the core of the guidance will remain unchanged. The guidance recommends against the use of donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), and galantamine (Reminyl) in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and against the use of memantine (Ebixa) in moderately severe to severe disease.
Source: High Court upholds NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) decision to limit treatments for Alzheimer’s disease,” by Owen Dyer (Vol. 335, No. 7615, Aug. 18, 2007, p. 319).