Bio­gen's high-stakes Alzheimer's gam­ble is be­ing roast­ed by the ex­perts. Is the amy­loid be­ta the­o­ry dead?

Bio­gen $BI­IB and its part­ners at Ei­sai had hoped to breathe some new life in­to the in­creas­ing­ly wob­bly amy­loid be­ta the­o­ry for the­o­ry for Alzheimer’s when they sound­ed an up­beat note about their lat­est da­ta cut on BAN2401. In­stead, the con­tro­ver­sy over the tri­al de­sign in the face of grow­ing doubts about re­searchers’ in­sis­tence about their suc­cess has on­ly beat­en down ex­pec­ta­tions that any­thing can work here. And the bleak out­look is al­so in­fect­ing Bio­gen’s odds of suc­cess for their crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant pro­gram for ad­u­canum­ab.

Ge­of­frey Porges, Leerink

Leerink’s Ge­of­frey Porges led the fu­ner­al pa­rade in a note out this morn­ing, cit­ing two “lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic Alzheimer’s dis­ease” KOLs who are back­ing even fur­ther away from the de­vel­op­ers’ drugs, low­er­ing al­ready slim chances of suc­cess and dous­ing the amy­loid be­ta the­o­ry in ways that will haunt every­one still fo­cused on their chances here. And that’s a no­table group of play­ers.

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