Scoop: VA de­cides against adding Bio­gen's Aduhelm to its for­mu­la­ry as PBM shuns con­tro­ver­sial Alzheimer's drug

The De­part­ment of Vet­er­ans Af­fairs has de­cid­ed to not in­clude Bio­gen’s pricey new Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm on its for­mu­la­ry, and its PBM even went so far as to rec­om­mend against of­fer­ing it, not­ing “the lack of ev­i­dence of a ro­bust and mean­ing­ful clin­i­cal ben­e­fit and the known safe­ty sig­nal.”

The de­ci­sion, which is one of the first na­tion­wide de­ter­mi­na­tions on whether to cov­er the con­tro­ver­sial new drug, al­so rec­om­mends that if Aduhelm is to be used by ex­cep­tion, then it should be used “on­ly in high­ly se­lect­ed pa­tients by ex­perts and cen­ters that have the nec­es­sary di­ag­nos­tic and man­age­ment ex­per­tise — and on­ly by those with the need­ed re­sources for close mon­i­tor­ing to as­sure safe­ty,” End­points News has learned.

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