CMS to re­strict cov­er­age of Bio­gen's con­tro­ver­sial Alzheimer's drug to on­ly clin­i­cal tri­als

The Cen­ters for Medicare and Med­ic­aid Ser­vices on Tues­day said it will on­ly pay for Bio­gen’s Aduhelm and oth­er FDA-ap­proved an­ti-amy­loid mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies for Alzheimer’s dis­ease un­der CMS-ap­proved ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­als.

The draft na­tion­al cov­er­age de­ci­sion, which in­sur­ers na­tion­wide are like­ly to fol­low, makes clear that CMS will be look­ing for ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­als that “demon­strate a clin­i­cal­ly mean­ing­ful ben­e­fit in cog­ni­tion and func­tion.” That will be a tough task for Bio­gen, which pre­vi­ous­ly showed con­flict­ing ben­e­fits from past Aduhelm tri­als that were ini­tial­ly cut short due to fu­til­i­ty and then res­ur­rect­ed for the ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval.

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