I am sure that many, if not most, people listening to my podcasts will be aware of couple of ground-breaking medical breakthroughs that have occurred in recent months. After decades of disappointments and failures, two new drugs have given us reason to hope. They are, of course, Lecanemab, the results of which were announced this spring and then, in July, came Donanemab which is shown to have slowed the decline in memory and cognition of people with early stage Alzheimer’s disease by up to 40pc.
This is significant. The two drugs do not, like others before them, merely mask the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, which accounts for over 60pc of all dementia cases – they modify the disease itself. They bind to the Amyloid plaque that builds up in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s, triggering the body’s own immune cells to remove the destructive plaque.
My guest, Dr Richard Oakley, knows much more about these promising drugs than I do. Dr Richard Oakley, the Alzheimer’s Society’s Associate Director of Research, has described the arrival of Donanemab as a turning point in the fight against the disease.
Unlike some newspapers and media outlets that shall remain nameless, the Alzheimer’s Society doesn’t normally go in for hyperbole or overblown rhetoric when it comes to what some might describe as miracle drugs. So Dr Oakley’s words are worth listening to. He says that treatments like Donanemab are the first steps towards a future where Alzheimer’s could be considered a long-term condition alongside diabetes or asthma. People may have to live with it, but they could have treatments allowing them to manage their symptoms and continue to live fulfilled lives.
Dr Oakley and I talk about who exactly out of the 850,000 people living with Alzheimer’s these drugs will help, when they might be available to them, what they will cost, any side effects they may have and – crucially – whether the NHS in its current state will be able to deliver them to those they would most benefit.
