Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has raised hopes a breakthrough dementia drug could be made available on the NHS.
The drug lecanemab, which is used to treat early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, is set to be manufactured in Britain and distributed worldwide – but is not available on the NHS.
Now, veteran Cabinet minister Yvette Cooper has told The i Paper that changes to cost-effectiveness guidance from the health spending watchdog will improve access to many treatments, which could include the availability of dementia medications.
Cooper has no power to order a drug to be made available. But the NHS can ask Nice, the organisation that assesses value for money for new treatments, to consider a particular drug.
The UK became the first country in Europe to licence lecanemab – which is sold under the brand name Leqembi – in 2024 after clinical trials found it showed a “significant” reduction in decline among eligible patients.
A few months later it licensed another drug used to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, called donanemab.
New guidelines for drug costs
But the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) – which evaluates the clinical and cost-effectiveness of new treatments – initially declined to recommend either drug for NHS use, saying the benefits to patients would not outweigh the cost to the health service.
It meant lecanemab and donanemab would be reserved for those who could afford to pay for the treatments privately.
But earlier this year, the Government raised the limit for what Nice considers good value for money by around 25 per cent, meaning more expensive medicines and treatments can be approved to improve patient care.
It came following the brokering of a pharmaceutical trade deal with the US where Britain agreed to spend more money on drugs, in return for medications and treatments entering the US tariff-free for the next three years.
The UK was the first country to secure the deal, which ministers said would improve NHS patients’ access to new medicines by encouraging pharmaceutical companies to launch breakthrough treatments in the UK.
This is the first time Nice, which makes decisions independently from the Government, has implemented changes to its cost-effectiveness threshold in its 25-year history, meaning a host of drugs that were previously denied for NHS use can be reevaluated.
Asked specifically whether she would look for a workaround for dementia drugs, Cooper told The i Paper: “We’ve got areas where some of the changes that we have made to the Nice guidance are making it possible to get more drugs available on the NHS.
“So we are seeing that happening now, but we’ll look at the dementia [drugs].”
Any decisions would be made independently by Nice, who evaluate drugs at the request of the NHS or Department of Health.
NHS in talks to secure a deal for patients
Cooper said the Government would appoint a dementia tsar to “bring together the approach” around preventing, treating and caring for people with the disease.
It is understood that the NHS and the company behind lecanemab, Eisai, are in talks to explore “all reasonable opportunities” to secure a “positive outcome” for NHS patients. Nice said it “paused” its separate evaluation of using lecanemab to treat Alzheimer’s after these “commercial discussions” began.
Eisai is a major Japanese pharmaceutical firm which has won a Government grant to expand its Hatfield site meaning drugs including lecanemab could be manufactured there and supplied across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Similar talks are also underway with Eli Lilley, which manufactures donanenab.
Michelle Dyson CB, Alzheimer’s Society’s CEO, welcomed Cooper’s commitment to dementia patients and described drugs that slow the progression of the disease as a “watershed moment”, saying more options must be made available on the NHS “urgently”.
It was announced on Tuesday that patients in England with a specific type of incurable breast cancer can access a drug called Enhertu, which can give patients an extra seven months to live on average. Nice initially ruled that the drug was not good value for money but said it reversed its decision largely because of the trade deal.
Support for breast feeding
It comes as Cooper set out her priorities for her new role as Health Secretary in a wide-ranging interview with The i Paper, saying she would like to improve maternity services and heatwave-proof hospitals.
Speaking after giving a keynote speech at the National Maternity Safety Conference in Birmingham, where she promised to “put the cradle back at the heart of the NHS”, Cooper said she wanted new mothers to be offered “support with breastfeeding” and mental health as part of an expansion of community care for babies and children in their early years.
Cooper laid out proposals for an improved “neighbourhood approach to supporting new mums” with more ingrained early health checks and support with baby vaccinations, but noted the plans are still at a “very early stage in development”.
Asked how she would spend any boost to the health funding in the upcoming October budget, she said: “Maternity is a personal priority for me. I do think that is really important. We’re also supporting capital improvements as well.”
Hospitals fit for heatwaves
She said the health department was looking at how to make hospitals fit for heatwaves after the summer of 2026 was officially the UK’s hottest on record.
Cooper promised to “make sure we’ve got resilient plans for extreme heat in the summer”, in the same way the NHS currently plans for the winter cycle each year.
“That is a shift in what the NHS has had to do, partly because of dealing with extreme heat and climate change as well,” she added.
She also backed the Prime Minister’s mission to set up a national care service, arguing that failing to link health and social care causes “growing pressures on the NHS”.
Asked whether the NHS could collapse without urgent social care reforms, Cooper said patients are forced to attend hospitals even if it is not the “best place for them” as the “social care side is not working effectively, and we don’t have the proper links between them”.
“Andy [Burnham] is right; we will see growing pressures on our NHS, and we’ve got growing pressures on our NHS now compared to 15 years ago because we haven’t made reforms since then,” she added.
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