Michel Vounatsos is on his way out as Bio­gen shut­ters Aduhelm ef­fort and launch­es pipeline re­org

Stymied by Medicare and forced to ad­mit the end of its once sky-high hopes in the con­tro­ver­sial Alzheimer’s med­i­cine Aduhelm, Bio­gen an­nounced this morn­ing that CEO Michel Vounatsos is be­ing re­placed as the big biotech re­struc­tures the pipeline, hunts deals and con­tin­ues to cut costs with lay­offs and more.

Vounatsos be­came a light­ning rod for in­tense crit­i­cism of the Aduhelm fi­as­co as Bio­gen did a sud­den about-face and sought an FDA ap­proval af­ter ini­tial­ly flag­ging a de­feat in piv­otal stud­ies. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the FDA group un­der Bil­ly Dunn of­fered an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval de­spite doubts about its ef­fi­ca­cy and safe­ty. And the drug failed to gain any trac­tion, with van­ish­ing ex­pec­ta­tions af­ter Medicare re­strict­ed cov­er­age to a small mi­nor­i­ty of po­ten­tial pa­tients.

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