Alzheimer’s Disease (Market Access Landscape for AD Agents) | Physician & Payer Forum | China | 2015
Physician and Payer Attitudes and the Impact of the Aging Population
Aging is considered a new healthcare challenge globally, and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most debilitating diseases related to aging. In China, the prevalence of AD is estimated to be 4 million in 2015. The sheer number of prevalent cases, on top of the difficulty of diagnosis and the hefty cost associated with caring for AD patients, could pose significant demands on the healthcare and long-term care infrastructures in China. There is currently no cure for AD, and standard pharmacological interventions such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs, e.g., donepezil and huperzine A) and memantine (Lundbeck’s Ebixa) merely slow patients’ cognitive and functional deterioration without impeding the neurodegenerative processes. As a result, there is still a huge market demand for novel disease-modifying agents for AD and the emergence of novel disease-modifying agents that can delay disease progression may help to alleviate this healthcare burden in China.
