Medicare estimates $3.5 billion cost on Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi

Medicare for the primary time has estimated {that a} new Alzheimer’s remedy might price this system billions of {dollars} by subsequent 12 months — properly past what Wall Avenue and even the drug’s producer has projected — in accordance with a doc obtained by STAT.

Medicare’s actuaries count on the drug Leqembi, made by the Japanese drugmaker Eisai and bought in partnership with Biogen, to price the standard Medicare program round $550 million in 2024, and your complete Medicare program $3.5 billion in 2025, a spokesperson for the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers confirmed to STAT. That projection forecasts a big improve in uptake over the following 12 months and a half.

The estimate was buried in a brand new CMS document that addressed questions on subsequent 12 months’s funds for Medicare Benefit plans, which cowl greater than 33 million folks and function the choice to the standard Medicare program.