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Breaking news on the Alzheimer’s disease treatment lecanemab! Today we’ve heard important decisions from two UK regulators, MHRA and NICE. The MHRA, who review safety and effectiveness, have approved lecanemab for some people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. This is welcome news and the very first time an Alzheimer’s disease treatment that appears to slow progression has been approved. However NICE has not recommended the drug for use on the NHS for any patients as it doesn’t meet their criteria for clinical and cost-effectiveness. This is disappointing and will be disheartening to those who may be eligible for treatment and have been waiting a long time since promising trial results were first announced, but we respect the decision the regulators have made. So what happens next? Firstly, a drug for Alzheimer’s disease has never gotten this far. The MHRA’s decision to approve lecanemab is a defining moment and offers hope for many more potential treatments that are currently in the pipeline. There will be a month-long consultation on this guidance and a final decision made afterwards at a later date. The NICE recommendation reflects the urgent challenges which must be addressed regarding how we diagnose and treat people with dementia. A third of people affected by dementia have not received a diagnosis, and for those who have been diagnosed, it’s often not early or accurate enough for a person to be eligible for new treatments. Now more than ever, we are calling on Governments and health systems across the UK to prioritise dementia by improving early diagnosis in order to deliver ground-breaking treatments at scale.