Paying for treatment - not Medicare

gelbee

My husband is 60, so not yet age-eligible for Medicare. Is anyone using employer-sponsored insurance or any financial assistance programs to pay for the infusions. He only just had a PET scan yesterday, so we are still waiting for results and to find out if he is eligible. But even if so, I have no idea how to pay for it if his insurance (United HC) or mine (Cigna) will not.

South Dakota Dave

We sure wish everyone can be covered for Alzheimer's and we hope your husband is OK!

I'm 73 & have had Leqembi for a year now. Years ago, I bought a Health Insurance supplemental policy. We now have the Leqembi to deal with (free) but there is also the significant cost with the current infusions as they are separate and handled by a medical professional.

For us in South Dakota USA, the infusion cost is about $1600 each month without supplement.

For us, with the supplemental, the infusion cost is $190 each month.

AND Leqembi is testing an at home injection system (much cheaper, avoids most of the transfusion cost) intended for FDA approval and shows 14% more plaque removal. (This likely will not be available soon).

LBC83

I have been on Leqembi since June 2024. I am also not on Medicare (just turned 64). I have Blue Cross / Blue Shield private insurance, my co-pay is about $380 every two weeks. Most of the cost is for Leqembi, a part of the cost is for the infusion itself.

Regarding the "home injection system" mentioned by South Dakota Dave, on Jan 14 Eisai issued a press release on this topic. Eisai is a company based in Japan that owns the rights to Leqembi, they have offices in the U.S. and share 50% of the income from Leqembi with Biogen, a U.S. company which manufactures Leqembi at a plant in NJ.

They announced in the press release that the FDA accepted their application for their Leqembi subcutaneous autoinjector (SC-AI) for weekly maintenance dosing, setting an action date for August 31, 2025 (this is the date when the FDA will hopefully announce their approval of Eisai's application).

In the press release, Eisai indicated the application was based on data from the Clarity AD study open-label extension and computer modeling of the observed data. If this application is accepted, Eisai notes that Leqembi will be the only treatment for AD that can be administered subcutaneously at home using an autoinjector. They again noted the injection process is expected to take, on average, 15 seconds. As part of the SC-AI 360 mg weekly maintenance regimen, patients who have completed the biweekly IV initiation phase ("exact period under discussion with the FDA"), would receive weekly doses that are expected to maintain the clinical and biomarker benefits.

The release then gives a good overview:

"AD is a progressive, relentless disease caused by a continuous underlying neurotoxic process that begins before and continues after plaque deposition. Only Leqembi works to fight AD in two ways: by continuously clearing protofibrils and rapidly clearing plaque. With continuous administration, Leqembi clears toxic protofibrils which can continue to cause neuronal injury even after amyloid-beta plaque has been cleared from the brain. Long-term three-year Leqembi data presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference2024 suggest that early and continuing treatment may prolong the benefit of therapy even after plaque is cleared from the brain."

The press release concludes with a summary of where Leqembi is approved: U.S., Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Israel, UAE, Great Britain, Mexico, and Macau. Eisai notes that a committee in the European Medicines Agency recommended approval, and Eisai has submitted applications for approval of Leqembi in 17 countries and regions.

https://www.eisai.com/news/2025/news202502.html