The rumor had been around for a few days, but the Minister of Health confirmed it: drugs against Alzheimer's will soon be trashed. "The date is not fixed but we are going to a cancellation," said Monday, May 28, 2018 Agnès Buzyn on RTL. "I should, in the coming days, announce, indeed, the fact that we follow the recommendations of the High Authority of Health," she added.

Indeed, in its "Care and Support Path" published on May 25, and in which recommendations on the management of Alzheimer patients are presented, the High Authority for Health (HAS) did not mention the four anti-Alzheimer drugs. Miss Aricept, Ebixa, Reminyl and their generics, whose role is to treat the symptoms of the disease.

Currently, they are reimbursed up to 15% by the Health Insurance. An invoice that amounts to 90 million euros in 2015 for the latter. But not for a very long time.

The anger of France Alzheimer

In October 2016, the Transparency Commission of the HAS, which evaluates the treatments with a view to reimbursing them, had already considered that these medicines had "insufficient medical interest to justify their care". At the time, the former Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine, had not wished to decide on a derogation.

Faced with this news, the association France Alzheimer did not hide his dissatisfaction: "It would seem [...] that in the economic balance, the quality of life of the sick and their loved ones does not weigh very heavy". In her statement, she also talks about the effectiveness of treatments. "If behind the term is meant to heal the disease, of course, they are not and have never been, but if we talk about an effect on the symptoms of sick people, then yes these drugs are effective. "

In France, more than 900,000 people have Alzheimer's disease , and 225,000 cases are diagnosed each year. By 2020, almost one in four French people over the age of 65 could be affected by these symptoms, according to the Medical Research Foundation.