BioCentury
ARTICLE | Clinical News

Amyvid florbetapir regulatory update

December 24, 2012 8:00 AM UTC

CMS's Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) will meet on Jan. 30, 2013, to discuss a National Coverage Assessment (NCA) for PET imaging of brain beta amyloid for diagnosing and managing dementia and neurodegenerative disease. Medicare currently does not cover beta amyloid PET imaging at the national level. Eli Lilly markets Amyvid florbetapir as a PET imaging agent to estimate beta amyloid neuritic plaque density in patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other causes of cognitive decline. Lilly gained the imaging agent labeled with fluorine 18 (F-18) that binds to amyloid plaques through its acquisition of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals Inc. in 2010 (see BioCentury, Nov. 15, 2010 & April 16, 2012). ...