The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7385 p98
28 January 2006

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News summary

NICE consults on Alzheimer's disease drugs

A revised draft of a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence review of Alzheimer's disease treatments is recommending that donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl) and rivastigmine (Exelon) should be considered as options for patients with moderately severe disease only (patients with a score of between 10 and 20 points on the mini mental state examination).

NICE is consulting on the revised guidance, which does not endorse memantine (Ebixa) except as part of clinical studies.

Current guidance on donepezil, galantamine and rivastigmine recommends the use of these drugs for all patients. A review initially concluded that there was not enough evidence to support this. However, NICE asked the companies involved to look for evidence to support the view that the drugs may be more effective for certain groups of people. This new evidence has resulted in the revised draft guidance.

NICE now expects to issue final guidance to the NHS in July.