The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and Drug Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease

Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently issued guidance that restricts the use of cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in the National Health Service. This stance contains lessons for designers of trials, drug regulators, health economists and those developing clinical guidelines for dementia care. The debates that took place around and within NICE were about identifying the benefits of these medicines and the beneficiaries, clarifying the costs of the medication and whom bears them, the methods of weighing benefit against cost, and the consequences of using different approaches to cost-benefit analysis. This article discusses each of these themes and outlines the changes in research and clinical practice and policy making that might flow from NICE’S decisions on medication use. Outcome measures that capture changes in dementia syndromes need further development. Cost-benefit analysis needs refinement with better tools than quality-adjusted life-years, and the policy implications of restricting treatments in a progressive neurodegenerative disorder need more careful consideration.