Is a bad drug for Alzheimer's better than no drug?
Read about the biggest pharmaceutical developments and pricing stories from the past week in KHN's Prescription Drug Watch roundup. A newly approved drug to treat Alzheimers disease is expected to become a multibillion dollar expense for Medicare. By one projection, spending on the drug for Medicares patients could end up being higher than the budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency or NASA. Theres little evidence that the drug, Aduhelm, slows the progression of dementia, but the Food and Drug Administration approved it this month. Analysts expect that Medicare and its enrollees, who pay a share of their prescription drug costs, will spend $5.8 billion to $29 billion on the drug in a single year. Annual spending on NASA is approximately $23 billion. (Katz, Kliff and Sanger-Katz, 6/22)