Biogen Bet the Ranch... Alzheimer’s Setback

BIOTECH

Biogen Bet the Ranch...

But the harvest couldn’t make it out of the lab. The biotech giant announced yesterday that its experimental Alzheimer’s drug was unlikely to be effective, halting research and ending two late-stage studies for the treatment.

The news sank shares as much as 25% for their biggest intraday drop since '05, plus it knocked off about $18 billion from Biogen’s market value—the equivalent of losing an entire Expedia.

It stings for a couple reasons.

1. The failure of this Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab, is another dose of bad news for the estimated 5.7 million Americans affected by the disease.
2. It was a “transformative failure for Biogen’s pipeline,” said RBC. Analysts had expected aducanumab to do about $3 billion in sales come 2023—and represent nearly one-fifth of Biogen’s top line for the year. Biogen itself has recently spent $743 million on aducanumab R&D, along with $93 million marketing the drug.

Zoom out: The company is one of several big biotechs that’ve staked their futures on the outcomes of only a handful of drugs. But it doesn’t always work out—Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer have all recently ended quests for Alzheimer’s treatments.