Biogen is not having a great week
A day after Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos called his company “courageous” for lowering the price of an Alzheimer’s disease treatment with questionable benefits, Medicare proposed a plan that would dramatically restrict its coverage of the drug and torpedo the company’s efforts to increase its sales.
As STAT’s Rachel Cohrs reports, Medicare is proposing to cover Aduhelm only for certain patients and only when they’re enrolled in a placebo-controlled study. Biogen estimates that roughly 80% of patients eligible for Aduhelm are Medicare beneficiaries. That means that unless Medicare’s feelings change between now and the April deadline for a final policy, the drug’s commercial prospects are negligible.
While Biogen’s escalating misfortune has been a constant subplot of JPM, the Medicare situation has implications for the whole drug industry, Matthew Herper writes. FDA approval, like the one Aduhelm received in June, used to be the major milestone for new drugs. Biogen’s Medicare saga will test what happens when the decision to pay for a drug in the U.S. is further decoupled from the decision to make it available for patients to purchase — a prospect that appeals both to libertarians and advocates for stricter controls on the price of medicines.
A day after Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos called his company “courageous” for lowering the price of an Alzheimer’s disease treatment with questionable benefits, Medicare proposed a plan that would dramatically restrict its coverage of the drug and torpedo the company’s efforts to increase its sales.
As STAT’s Rachel Cohrs reports, Medicare is proposing to cover Aduhelm only for certain patients and only when they’re enrolled in a placebo-controlled study. Biogen estimates that roughly 80% of patients eligible for Aduhelm are Medicare beneficiaries. That means that unless Medicare’s feelings change between now and the April deadline for a final policy, the drug’s commercial prospects are negligible.
While Biogen’s escalating misfortune has been a constant subplot of JPM, the Medicare situation has implications for the whole drug industry, Matthew Herper writes. FDA approval, like the one Aduhelm received in June, used to be the major milestone for new drugs. Biogen’s Medicare saga will test what happens when the decision to pay for a drug in the U.S. is further decoupled from the decision to make it available for patients to purchase — a prospect that appeals both to libertarians and advocates for stricter controls on the price of medicines.