Our response to the Scottish Medicines Consortium’s review of donanemab

Henry Simmons, Alzheimer Scotland’s Chief Executive, said:

“The decision by the Scottish Medicines Consortium not to recommend donanemab for use by NHS Scotland after reviewing further evidence on its effectiveness is devastating for people living with dementia, their families and carers.

“This demonstrates the urgent need for change in the system used to assess dementia drugs if we have any hope of tackling this disease. We understand that the SMC has established assessment protocols and criteria, however we believe that moving from clinical trials into clinical practice based on the current process is not working.

“We would like to see a new element to the assessment process and that would be the introduction of dedicated pilot sites. These can be used to further test new promising treatments in meaningful clinical practice, before a decision on NHS provision is made.

“We know that in countries where these treatments are available there is growing evidence that they are more effective in preventing disease progression than the clinical trial evidence suggests. In our view this is the only real way we will get a proper assessment of these new drugs’ validity and potential for use on the NHS.

“We need a dedicated dementia drug innovation fund to be set up in order to take this forward and properly test any new promising treatment.

“Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer and people living with this disease, their families and carers have been waiting decades for treatments that effectively slow its progression.

“We owe it to them to have an assessment process that gives promising new drugs a chance to show their true value and to realise their life-changing potential.”

You can read more about the SMC review of donanemab here: Medicines advice: donanemab (Kisunla)

If you have been affected by today’s decision and require support, please contact our 24 hour Freephone Dementia Helpline on 0808 808 3000 or by emailing helpline@alzscot.org