Alzheimer's drugs not on NHS for all

The high Court upheld NICE's ruling that the drugs are only cost-effective in later-stage disease.

However the Alzheimer's campaigners and drugs companies who took the case did win a partial victory when the High Court ordered NICE to rewrite its guidance to ensure tests for the disease are not discriminatory.

On one count only the court says the guidance discriminated against a small group - who don't understand English or have learning difficulties. So today NICE says it'll reissue the guidance to make it crystal clear.

All the drugs were recommended until November 2001 when the guidelines changed for people with newly diagnosed, mild Alzheimer's.

NICE applies a very complicated formula - called health economic modelling - to decide if the drugs give enough quality of life - for the money spent. The drug Aricept simply didn't make the mark.

Yet patient groups and the drug companies - who've spent 412 million pounds developing the treatment - haven't given up. They say there are 50,000 patients who could benefit.

Frances Leventhal might have been one of them. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1998 when her sister was forced to look after her.

Her condition got so bad - she decided to spend £1,000 a year on Aricept - when the NHS wouldn't pay. Her sister says she should have been allowed it earlier.

Frances Leventhal's family had hoped the court would rule against NICE today. But they and the drugs companies may not have lost yet.

Legal teams are still in the high Court this lunchtime. Debating whether that ruling on discrimination may be enough to quash all of the NICE guidelines on dementia drugs.

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