Biogen will change its CEO and largely abandon advertising of its controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm lower than a yr after the treatment’s launch triggered a backlash from specialists, docs and insurers.
CEO Michel Vounatsos will proceed to steer Biogen till a successor is discovered, the corporate introduced Tuesday. Vounatsos joined the corporate in 2016 and was the chief architect of Biogen’s technique constructed round Aduhelm.
For now, Cambridge-based Biogen stated it’s “substantially eliminating” spending on Aduhelm as a part of a $1 billion cost-saving plan designed to refocus the corporate’s flagging biotech enterprise.
Aduhelm was the primary new Alzheimer’s drug introduction in almost twenty years. Initially priced at $56,000 a yr, analysts predicted it might shortly grow to be a blockbuster drug that will generate billions for Biogen.
But docs have been hesitant to prescribe it, given weak proof that the drug slows the development of Alzheimer’s. Insurers have blocked or restricted protection over the drug’s excessive price ticket and unsure profit. Even the corporate’s choice to slash the drug’s value in half— to $28,000 a yr — did little to enhance uptake.
The largest setback got here final month when the federal authorities’s Medicare well being plan imposed strict limits on who can get the drug, wiping out most of its potential U.S. market. The overwhelming majority of U.S. Alzheimer’s sufferers are sufficiently old to qualify for Medicare, which covers greater than 60 million individuals, together with these 65 and older.
The infused drug introduced in simply $2.8 million in gross sales within the first quarter, which ended March 31.
Biogen stated Tuesday that it booked about $275 million in costs from Aduhelm stock write-offs within the quarter, and it might basically shut down its gross sales and advertising infrastructure supporting the drug.
Biogen executives stated the restrictive Medicare choice basically denied Aduhelm to most eligible U.S. sufferers. Last month the corporate introduced it was pulling its advertising software for the drug in Europe.
Biogen will proceed working a federally mandated confirmatory trial designed to determine if the drug really slows Alzheimer’s.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”