{"id":424509,"date":"2025-04-16T13:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T11:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/04\/16\/ue-autorizza-primo-farmaco-anti-alzheimer\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T15:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T13:33:12","slug":"eu-authorizes-first-drug-against-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/04\/16\/eu-authorizes-first-drug-against-alzheimers\/","title":{"rendered":"EU authorizes first drug against Alzheimer\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Alzheimer’s: t<\/strong>he European Union is writing a new chapter in its common health policy\u00a0by authorizing, under strict conditions, the marketing of Leqembi, a drug to treat the disease in its early stage<\/strong>. It\u00a0is the first drug of its kind authorized in the EU. Alzheimer’s disease affects the central nervous system. Degeneration of brain tissue results in the loss of brain cells, resulting in a progressive loss of cognitive and mental functions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

According to estimates, Alzheimer’s affects about 5 percent of the world’s population over the age of 65 and about 20 percent of those over the age of 85. However, early onset around age 50 can also occur. With an aging EU population,\u00a0the European Union faces a potential whole new challenge to manage.<\/p>\n

Alzheimer Europe<\/a>, the non-governmental organization that aims to raise awareness of all forms of dementia, estimates that<\/strong>\u00a0over 7.8 million men and women in the EU suffer from dementia<\/strong>, a figure that reaches over 9.7 million in Europe alone (EU countries plus non-EU European countries). The European Commission and Eurostat believe that deaths due to Alzheimer’s and dementia exceed\u00a0200 thousand each year, peaking at 265,386 deaths recorded in 2022<\/a>. Numbers in hand, there is the equivalent of a country more populous than Bulgaria with central nervous system disease and\u00a0one-third of Luxembourg’s population (661 thousand) dying each year<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The European Commission points out that\u00a0Leqembi is a drug intended for people with only one copy or no copy of the ApoE4 gene. The ApoE4 gene is a variant of the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene,\u00a0the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The European Medicines Agency (Ema) had\u00a0already expressed a positive view on Leqembi in\u00a0November<\/a>. After evaluating\u00a0the case and the agency’s green light, the European Commission felt it should follow up on the indications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commission gives the green light, under strict conditions, for the sale of Leqembi. The product was developed for early-stage care. More than 7.8 million people in the EU are estimated to have dementia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":424505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30961],"tags":[25871,31029,28259,31031,27047,28911,26640,31030,26392],"class_list":["post-424509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-salute-en","tag-alzheimer-en","tag-drugs","tag-ema-en","tag-eu-en","tag-european-pharmaceutical-agency-en","tag-health","tag-leqembi","tag-pharmaci-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424509"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424529,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424509\/revisions\/424529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}