'What it takes': As Lilly's Alzheimer's drug approaches FDA, launch leader feels 'amplified' sense of excitement

Back when Brandy Matthews, M.D., was seeing Alzheimer’s disease patients as a behavioral neurologist, she found the most important thing she could offer was information.

What is my diagnosis? What does it mean? What can we do? They would ask. And that last one was particularly tough to answer.

Now, Matthews is overseeing a team at Eli Lilly that’s hoping to soon launch donanemab as the second new Alzheimer’s treatment believed to actually address the underlying cause of the devastating neurological disorder. The Indianapolis Big Pharma is following in the footsteps of Biogen, which got Aduhelm approved under the accelerated review pathway based on biomarker data in June after decades of a new-medication drought.