Oh man is this going to cost alot! A dose of Enbrel costs about $900. If everyone with Alzheimer’s gets one shot per month, that’s $45 million a month or half a billion per year.
Don’t count on Medicare being solvent when we get ready for it.
I don’t think Medicare covers it at present, or at least it didn’t last time I checked. Self-administration issue. I might not be current on that, though.
It’s not clear from the article how often Enbrel would have to be administered to sustain the effect.
However, whatever the cost of the drug, I’m sure it would be nothing compared to the cost of providing nursing home care for these patients-—and never mind the human cost of the disease.
What is the current treatment cost? I'd think it would be far more than a half bil.
A drop in the bucket compared to what we give countries that hate our guts.
compared to the cost of lingering in a nursing home for ten years? might be a bargain
Is the high cost of dosage related to recovering research and development costs, or is it just real expensive to produce? If the former, the costs should go way down over time, especially if the drug has an unanticipated application for AZ disease, which would dramatically increase the demand.
I'd work extra or overtime if one of my parents (long gone now) needed it.
Your numbers are off by a few orders of magnitude - 5 million patients * $900/month * 12 months/year = $54 billion per year.
In all likelihood, Enbel won't end up being ideal on it's own for Alzheimer's, so we'll have to see what the cost ends up being for the product(s) that are. It'll be big money, in any case
45 million a month. Chickenfeed. You oughta see what Alzheimers' is costing now, not just in medicine but nursing home costs, hospitalizations and all the associated services.
At $900 a dose it’s still cheaper than assisted living which can run in the thousands per month....
Cheaper than a nursing home.
What is the justification for it costing $900?