Bio­gen de­fends slow roll­out of new Alzheimer's drug, crit­i­cizes neg­a­tive me­dia at­ten­tion

As Bio­gen ex­ecs be­moaned the neg­a­tive me­dia cov­er­age around Aduhelm’s ap­proval a month ago, the biotech isn’t gain­ing much trac­tion yet in us­ing its new drug, large­ly due to a lack of in­sur­ance cov­er­age, ac­cord­ing to an earn­ings call Thurs­day.

Man­age­ment in­di­cat­ed that of the near­ly 900 sites that were prepped and ready fol­low­ing Aduhelm’s ap­proval, 325 of those, or about 35%, have com­plet­ed a pos­i­tive phar­ma­cy and ther­a­peu­tics (P&T) re­view or won’t re­quire one. The re­view is a step some hos­pi­tals or health sys­tems take pri­or to us­ing a new drug. Some ma­jor sites, how­ev­er, have said they won’t par­tic­i­pate.

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