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Economic analysis of opportunities to accelerate Alzheimer's disease research and development
Author(s) -
Scott Troy J.,
O'Connor Alan C.,
Link Albert N.,
Beaulieu Travis J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.12417
Subject(s) - clinical trial , disease , drug development , dementia , government (linguistics) , medicine , alzheimer's disease , confidence interval , clinical research , gerontology , psychiatry , drug , linguistics , philosophy
The development of disease‐modifying treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) faces a number of barriers. Among these are the lack of surrogate biomarkers, the exceptional size and duration of clinical trials, difficulties in identifying appropriate populations for clinical trials, and the limitations of monotherapies in addressing such a complex multifactorial disease. This study sets out to first estimate the consequent impact on the expected cost of developing disease‐modifying treatments for AD and then to estimate the potential benefits of bringing together industry, academic, and government stakeholders to co‐invest in, for example, developing better biomarkers and cognitive assessment tools, building out advanced registries and clinical trial‐readiness cohorts, and establishing clinical trial platforms to investigate combinations of candidate drugs and biomarkers from the portfolios of multiple companies. Estimates based on interviews with experts on AD research and development suggest that the cost of one new drug is now $5.7 billion (95% confidence interval (CI) $3.7–9.5 billion) and could be reduced to $2.0 billion (95% CI $1.5–2.9 billion). The associated acceleration in the arrival of disease‐modifying treatments could reduce the number of case years of dementia by 7.0 million (95% CI 4.4–9.4 million) in the United States from 2025 through 2040.