'S­mooth and very much on track': Ei­sai re­ports first ship­ments of Leqem­bi

Ei­sai and Bio­gen be­gan ship­ping out dos­es of their new­ly ap­proved Alzheimer’s drug Leqem­bi ahead of sched­ule last month, ac­cord­ing to Ei­sai’s US chair­man and CEO Ivan Che­ung.

If all goes ac­cord­ing to plan, the chief ex­ec­u­tive hopes to achieve full ap­proval and ex­pand ac­cess to Leqem­bi lat­er this year, he said on the com­pa­ny’s re­cent quar­ter­ly call with in­vestors.

Leqem­bi won an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval back in Jan­u­ary for use in pa­tients with mild cog­ni­tive im­pair­ment from Alzheimer’s who have con­firmed pres­ence of amy­loid be­ta pathol­o­gy pri­or to treat­ment. It’s a sec­ond chance in Alzheimer’s for Ei­sai and Bio­gen, whose con­tro­ver­sial pre­de­ces­sor Aduhelm suf­fered a com­mer­cial flop fol­low­ing its ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval in 2021.

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