Amid an al­ready slow roll­out, Bio­gen's Aduhelm could soon face price com­pe­ti­tion — re­port

De­spite the snail-paced roll­out of Bio­gen’s con­tro­ver­sial­ly ap­proved Alzheimer’s treat­ment Aduhelm, CEO Michel Vounatsos in­sist­ed on the lat­est earn­ings call that he’s con­fi­dent in the drug’s long-term sales po­ten­tial, es­pe­cial­ly once a re­im­burse­ment de­ci­sion is made for Medicare pa­tients.

But soon enough, Medicare cov­er­age may be the least of Bio­gen’s wor­ries.

Com­pa­nies like Roche and Eli Lil­ly are al­ready lin­ing up re­views for their own Alzheimer’s can­di­dates. And even though Roche is still months out from a po­ten­tial ap­proval, the com­pa­ny says it’s plan­ning on of­fer­ing the drug at a steep dis­count to Aduhelm’s hefty $56,000 price tag — which helped stoke a tem­pest of con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the un­proven ther­a­py.

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