RTI: First effective Alzheimer's treatment would cost $5.7 billion to develop - Triangle Business Journal (blog)

$5.7 billion.

That’s how much a report from Research Triangle Park-based RTI International predicts it will cost to bring the first effective Alzheimer’s drug to market, which is three times the typical cost of drug development.

Despite countless efforts - even some locally^[1] - there’s still no treatment to slow or reverse the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. And it’s hard for some companies^[2] to justify pouring billions into an area of research with those odds.

But hidden in the cringe-inducing numbers released this week, there’s some of hope of reducing that price tag and timetable. Throw in infrastructure improvements such as new biomarkers, patient registries, data sharing and new partnerships, and you could lower that cost by 65 percent to $2 billion, the report finds.

Furthermore, if a drug to slow or reverse the disease could be found by 2025, it would avert 7 million case-years of dementia and more than $100 billion in costs of care over a 15-year period in the United States.

“Alzheimer’s disease is a global emergency. It robs people of dignity in their final years and takes a debilitating toll on national economies,” says New York Academy of Sciences President and CEO Ellis Rubinstein^[3] in a statement. “Progress in developing new therapies has been unacceptably slow, and so we must rethink how Alzheimer’s research is carried out so that scientific breakthroughs get to patients faster.”

For perspective, here are some more numbers:

35 million: The number of people currently affected by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

$600 billion: Health care expenditures racked up by those patients in 2010.

Lauren Ohnesorge covers technology, biotechnology and Durham County.

References

1. ^{^} even some locally (www.bizjournals.com)


2. ^{^} some companies (www.bizjournals.com)


3. ^{^} Ellis Rubinstein (www.bizjournals.com)