Biogen halves price of Alzheimer’s drug after sales fall short
Biogen has halved the price of its Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm after sales fell short of expectations because health insurers have been reluctant to pay for the first treatment designed to slow the neurological disease in decades.
The Massachusetts-based biotech said it would now charge a list price of $28,200 a year for a patient of average weight.
Experts have been divided over whether the drug has a significant benefit. The US Food and Drug Administration approved Aduhelm in June, despite a vote against it by its scientific advisers. But last week a key European Medicines Agency panel rejected the drugmaker’s application for approval in the bloc.
Michel Vounatsos, Biogen’s chief executive, said on Monday that the company had listened to feedback and was “now taking important actions to improve patient access”.
“Too many patients are not being offered the choice of Aduhelm due to financial considerations and are thus progressing beyond the point of benefiting from the first treatment to address an underlying pathology of Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.
“We recognise that this challenge must be addressed in a way that is perceived to be sustainable for the US healthcare system.”
The original high price reignited a long-simmering debate over how to address the cost of medicines in the US. While politicians on both sides of the aisle believe drug prices in the world’s largest pharmaceutical market need to be cut, they disagree on how to do it.
The unusual price reduction comes as the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is considering whether to cover the drug within Medicare, the programme for senior citizens.
Vounatsos said this was a “critical time” not just for Aduhelm, but for the new class of Alzheimer’s therapies.
Biogen said it believed that about 50,000 patients might start treatment with Aduhelm in 2022. In the third quarter of this year, it reported sales of $300,000 for the drug, far short of the consensus forecast of $10m.
The company also said it would cut costs by $500m, after being hit by the lower than anticipated demand for Aduhelm and generic competition entering the multiple sclerosis market, although some of this sum will be offset by investments in its pipeline.
A key European Medicines Agency panel, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), on Friday recommended refusing the drugmaker’s application for marketing authorisation in the bloc. It said that while Aduhelm reduced amyloid beta in the brain, “the link between this effect and clinical improvement had not been established” and that the drug’s benefits did not outweigh its risks.
“Results from the main studies were conflicting and did not show overall that Aduhelm was effective at treating adults with early stage Alzheimer’s disease,” the EMA said.
Additionally, there were safety concerns. Images of brain scans of some patients suggested potentially harmful swelling or bleeding. It was not clear, the agency noted, whether these could be properly monitored or managed in clinical practice.
Drugmakers can appeal CHMP decisions and have 15 days to do so. As of Friday, Biogen had not lodged an application. Appeals have a relatively low rate of success.