Biogen is f’d.
It’s Eisai, not Biogen, pulling the strings on lecanemab
That was the through-line on Biogen’s third-quarter earnings call yesterday, as analysts again and again asked questions about the future of Alzheimer’s disease treatment lecanemab and each time got some variation of “That’s up to Eisai.”
Biogen’s Japanese partner was responsible for the development of lecanemab, and Eisai now has final say on interactions with the FDA, plans for commercialization, the drug’s list price, and an all-important appeal to the federal agency that governs Medicare, Biogen said on yesterday’s call. Underlining the apparent distance between the two partners, Biogen declined to comment on whether it had even seen lecanemab data beyond what was in Eisai’s September press release.
You might wonder, as Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat asked Biogen, whether the two companies are on the same page. “I can tell you that the relationship is very solid since many years,” Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos said. “I have had the opportunity to meet and to align with my counterpart on a very regular basis.”
It’s Eisai, not Biogen, pulling the strings on lecanemab
That was the through-line on Biogen’s third-quarter earnings call yesterday, as analysts again and again asked questions about the future of Alzheimer’s disease treatment lecanemab and each time got some variation of “That’s up to Eisai.”
Biogen’s Japanese partner was responsible for the development of lecanemab, and Eisai now has final say on interactions with the FDA, plans for commercialization, the drug’s list price, and an all-important appeal to the federal agency that governs Medicare, Biogen said on yesterday’s call. Underlining the apparent distance between the two partners, Biogen declined to comment on whether it had even seen lecanemab data beyond what was in Eisai’s September press release.
You might wonder, as Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat asked Biogen, whether the two companies are on the same page. “I can tell you that the relationship is very solid since many years,” Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos said. “I have had the opportunity to meet and to align with my counterpart on a very regular basis.”