Strong R&D Investment the Best Bet to Slow Alzheimer’s Growing Threat

Strong R&D Investment the Best Bet to Slow Alzheimer’s Growing ThreatA new series in the News-Press, “Stolen Futures: The High Cost of Alzheimer’s,” spotlights the economic and personal devastation of Alzheimer’s disease in Southwest Florida. The stories highlighted in the series bring to life the struggles of Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers and underscore the importance of investing in new innovative medicines to treat, slow, and prevent the disease.
Some experts believe Alzheimer’s will be the nation’s next great health care crisis.  Nationally, Alzheimer’s accounts for $200 billion each year in direct medical costs, due in part to the high cost of nursing home care required for many patients. And the scope and economic burden of Alzheimer’s is expected to grow.
According to a report by the Alzheimer’s Association, the number of Americans with the disease will reach 13.5 million in 2050. On this trajectory, the direct cost of Alzheimer’s in American adults over 65 could increase to $1 trillion per year by 2050.
New innovative medicines could change these projections. The same report found that a new treatment that delays the onset of disease by five years would reduce the number of people with the disease by nearly half and reduce the cost for care of Alzheimer’s patients by $447 billion a year by 2050.
Though the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, researchers in the public and private sectors are committed to finding...

Source: PHRMA - January 28, 2015 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Emily Source Type: news