New drugs Leqembi and Kisunla may have a modest benefit, don’t cure Alzheimer’s, have a host of side effects (including brain bleeds), are troublesome to use (require IV infusion or injection) and multiple brain scans and cost 10’s of thousands to administer.

In 2020, Sue Bell became one of the first Alzheimer’s patients in the U.S. to receive the drug now marketed as Leqembi.

Four years later, she and her husband, Ken, halted the treatment. Sue’s Alzheimer’s had reached the point where her taking the drug no longer made sense.

“I think it helped,” says her husband, Ken Bell. “But I’m not sure.”

That sort of uncertainty is common when it comes to Leqembi and Kisunla, two new Alzheimer’s drugs approved since 2023.

https://www.stlpr.org/npr/2025-02-26/did-a-new-alzheimers-drug-keep-this-patients-brain-healthier-for-longer