VA to cov­er Ei­sai's new Alzheimer's drug af­ter de­clin­ing to cov­er Aduhelm

The Vet­er­ans Health Ad­min­is­tra­tion will cov­er Ei­sai and Bio­gen’s new Alzheimer’s drug Leqem­bi (lecanemab), re­vers­ing on an ear­li­er de­ci­sion to not pay for vet­er­ans to ac­cess Bio­gen’s oth­er amy­loid-tar­get­ed drug Aduhelm (ad­u­canum­ab).

The de­ci­sion to cov­er Ei­sai’s ex­pect­ed $7 bil­lion block­buster, an­nounced Mon­day, fol­lows an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval in Jan­u­ary, and now the FDA has un­til Ju­ly 6 to de­cide on a full ap­proval for the re­duc­er of Aβ plaque in the brain. The con­ver­sion from ac­cel­er­at­ed to full ap­proval is like­ly to bring cov­er­age from Medicare, open­ing up oth­er pri­vate in­sur­er cov­er­age, and a steady stream of sales that Aduhelm has nev­er seen.

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