Kisunla – a decision is drawing near for Sweden’s Alzheimer’s patients

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23 October 2026

Before Christmas, the Swedish New Therapies Council (NT Council) is expected to decide whether the new Alzheimer’s drug Kisunla should be recommended for use in Swedish healthcare. After Leqembi was turned down this spring, this is a sensitive issue. Research shows that Kisunla can slow the progression of the disease. But how much is that effect worth, and what is the pharmaceutical company prepared to do about the price?

For the first time, the progression of the disease can be slowed

For many years, drug treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has mainly focused on relieving symptoms. With the new antibody drugs Leqembi and Kisunla, something fundamentally important has happened: it is now possible to influence the course of the disease itself.

Kisunla, whose active ingredient is donanemab, is an antibody that helps the body remove amyloid from the brain. Amyloid is a protein that accumulates in Alzheimer’s disease and is part of the disease process.

In the large phase 3 trial TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 2, clinical decline was slowed by around 35 per cent over 18 months in patients with low or intermediate levels of tau, as measured on the iADRS scale. Across the full study population, the effect was smaller, at around 22 per cent.

It is important to understand what these figures mean. The patients did not get better, and their memory did not improve by 35 per cent. Rather, their condition worsened more slowly than that of those who received a placebo.