RIP amy­loid be­ta the­o­ry? Nope. Bio­gen part­ner launch­es a new PhI­II be­fore ad­u­canum­ab's corpse turned cold

A day af­ter Bio­gen rat­tled the bio­phar­ma world with the news that its lead late-stage ther­a­py ad­u­canum­ab proved worth­less in treat­ing Alzheimer’s — a dis­as­ter that may dri­ve a stake through the heart of the amy­loid be­ta the­o­ry once and for all — the big biotech’s part­ners at Ei­sai have come up with their next big move.

Right in the wake of a 35% plunge in their stock val­ue, Ei­sai $ESALY is start­ing a Phase III study in­volv­ing 1,566 Alzheimer’s pa­tients with mild cog­ni­tive im­pair­ment for the con­tro­ver­sial Alzheimer’s drug BAN2401. The an­ti-amy­loid an­ti­body was the cen­ter of a firestorm of crit­i­cism over a tardy re­veal that re­searchers had pulled high-risk pa­tients out of their last study, po­ten­tial­ly warp­ing the pos­i­tive re­sults that were claimed, leav­ing that drug un­der a dark cloud.

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