BRIEF—NICE can’t justify cost to the NHS to approve Kisluna

The benefits from Eli Lilly’s Kisulna (donanemab) remain too small to justify the additional cost to the National Health Service (NHS), said the UK health technology assessor the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which also rejected Japanese drugmaker Eisai and US biotech Biogen Leqembi (lecanemab) for the same reason.

Explaining the judgement made by the committee that evaluated lecanemab and donanemab, NICE’s Director of Medicines Evaluation Helen Knight said it recognized the hope offered by the drugs and that any slowing of Alzheimer’s disease would be meaningful for people taking them.

But she added: “The committee concluded the small benefits to patients shown in the clinical trials and the lack of long-term evidence of effectiveness balanced with the substantial resources the NHS would need to commit to the treatments would be too great and could displace other essential treatments and services that deliver substantial benefits to patients.”