Alzheimer’s: Lilly reaffirms its commitment to sustainability and patient care

Eli Lilly Italia “reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that Italian patients with Alzheimer’s disease have access to approved treatment options, continuing its dialogue with the authorities to secure reimbursement by the National Health Service and, at the same time, providing practical tools to ensure that patients eligible for treatment are not left without options”. It is a dialogue – as difficult as Alzheimer’s disease itself is complex – that has resurfaced after a long hiatus, concerning new therapies that slow the progression of the disease in its early stages. Lilly addresses both the ‘administrative’ aspect of the issue – namely that relating to reimbursement – and the crucial aspect of bringing these therapies, so to speak, to the bedsides of eligible patients in a single statement.

At an institutional level, as part of the ongoing assessment process regarding the reimbursement status of donanemab, the company has submitted its comments to the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA), “accompanied by proposals aimed at minimising the economic impact of any treatment failures on public resources”. This proposal “aims to combine the availability of a significant therapeutic innovation with the full sustainability of the public healthcare system, confirming Lilly’s commitment to making the innovations arising from its research accessible to all patients who can benefit from them, regardless of their geographical location or financial circumstances”, the company notes.

At the same time, Lilly will begin working on partnerships with leading Italian specialist centres to make donanemab available to eligible patients at more affordable costs, through schemes designed to support patients in financial difficulty. These measures “ensure continued access even for patients not included in the compassionate use programme, which will close on 2 August and which – as the company points out – has provided free treatment to over 200 patients across 61 centres in 16 regions of Italia”.

Finally, Lilly reaffirms its commitment to Alzheimer’s research, for which the European approval of donanemab represents a first, important milestone. As Elias Khalil, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Eli Lilly Italy Hub, explains: ‘Our commitment is to give every patient who could benefit from it access to the innovation resulting from our research, regardless of where they live or their financial circumstances.’ We will continue to work with the authorities to ensure these treatments can be made available through the National Health Service and, in the meantime, we will do our part to ensure that no eligible patient is left without a chance of treatment for financial reasons. The European approval of donanemab is a first, important milestone in the fight against Alzheimer’s, but for us it is only the beginning: we will not stop until science enables us to offer patients a definitive cure.”