Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that patients diagnosed with dementia are able to access breakthrough treatments as soon as possible.

Several potential new disease modifying treatments for dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease are in development. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), NHS England and the Department are working closely to ensure that arrangements are in place to support the adoption of any new licensed and NICE recommended treatment for dementia as soon as possible.

NICE’s evaluations of two new potential treatments, lecanemab and donanemab, are now underway. NICE has begun work in readiness for the companies submitting their evidence. This includes work done by NICE’s Health Technology Assessment Innovation Laboratory (HTA Lab) to identify the key issues that might arise during planned and future evaluations, based on current knowledge, publicly available evidence and in-depth discussions with researchers, patient groups and National Health Service colleagues. The NICE HTA Lab report found that NICE’s methods and processes for evaluating new treatments for use in the NHS are appropriate for the new class of Alzheimer’s drugs and identified key issues that need to be considered during evaluation.