If you read Beating the Dementia Monster, you know that I was a bit skeptical of the prospective Alzheimer's disease antibody treatment aducanumab (marketed as Aduhelm). But I was more hopeful about another one, BAN2401, also known as lecanemab. We wrote about lecanemab most recently this past July, noting that Esai and Biogen had launched the phase 3 (final) trial, and we were waiting on results.
Well, the wait is over ... almost. Biogen's stock price spiked yesterday on the news in this press release. Things are looking pretty good for lecanemab, and for Biogen. The news is that lecanemab reduced clinical decline by 27% in the trial compared to the placebo. OK, so that's great. But what does it mean?
First, reducing decline is not curing the disease. I got much better results by joining the gym, getting better sleep, changing my diet, reducing stress, etc. From what I can see, lecanemab just slowed the progress of the disease, it did not improve memory and cognition.
Also, like all of the anti-amyloid antibody treatments (including Aduhelm), some patients experienced microhemorrhages of different types. It was not clear if this was as much as with Aduhelm or better, but it was there.
We have yet to see the FDA's evaluation of the results, but they will be giving it priority review.
The good news is (the very good news) there is no cloud over the results as with aducanumab. At least not so far. The results seem far less ambiguous than with aducanumab, so I think it's reasonable to expect the review process to go much more smoothly.
It sounds like we may see lecanemab on the market as early as March 2023. What will they name it? How much will it cost?
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