Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of death without a disease modifying therapy available. It is estimated that cases of Alzheimer's will increase threefold to 130 million by 2050 due to rising life expectancies. Alzheimer's contributes to 1% of global deaths and the economic burden in high-income countries from Alzheimer's exceeds all other countries combined. The percentage of disability-adjusted life years lost due to Alzheimer's increases from lower to higher income countries, with high-income countries seeing over 50% of Alzheimer's patients undiagnosed. Major issues include the high costs of dementia medications, lack of specialized healthcare in middle and low-income countries, and over-specialization of diagnosis and treatment.

1. Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer's Disease is the only leading cause of death for which
no disease modifying therapy is currently available“
Due to increasing life expectancy, it is estimated that the
incidences of AD will increase 3 folds, i.e. 130 million incidences
by 2050
Alzheimer’s Disease / Dementia
contributes to 1% of the total deaths
across the globe
The burden on the economy due to Alzheimer's in High income
countries is more than all other countries combined
Percentage of DALYs for Alzheimer’s and other dementias across income categories
10.48%
17.41%
19.28%
52.83%
Low
Lower middle
Upper middle
High
DALY : The disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure of overall disease burden,
expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death
Income Group % of DALYs
Major Issues
o AD is the 4th leading contributor to DALYs in high income
countries
o Medication cost for Dementia (of which Alzheimer’s is the
major cause) contributes to 1% of the world's Gross
Domestic Product cost
o 1/3rd of this cost for Dementia medication is from the US
o Diagnosis and treatment of AD is over-specialized and
difficult to scale up
o In middle/low income countries like India, there are just 100
specialized clinics which is 1 clinic per 37,000 people with
Dementia / Alzheimer’s
o In such countries, the waiting time for a patient to access
treatment can go up to 32 weeks
Worse is the case for low/middle
income economies, as the
percentage is lower than 10%
In high income economies,
only 50% of the patients
receive a diagnosis
Data Sources
iPlexus.co
World Health Organization (www.who.int)
American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org)
Cancer Research Institute
(www.cancerresearch.org)
Source: IMS Health, MIDAS, Dec 2015; Market
Prognosis, Mar 2016; IMS Institute for
Healthcare Informatics, May 2016
UICC global cancer control (www.uicc.org)
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Encouraging Facts
Scaling up dementia healthcare is affordable
In middle/low economies, pharmaceutical companies are alleviating burden from the government,
as 2/3rd of the specialized clinics are supported by them
Currently 80 drugs are under development and many more in the discovery phase
Beta-
amyloid
Tau
protein
Beta-
secretase
(BACE)
The 5HT6
receptor
Promising drug
targets for future
drugs