The decision was based on the results of a review conducted by a data safety monitoring board, which recommended discontinuing the trials as benefits from the treatment, elenbecestat, did not outweigh its risks
Biogen and Eisai Co are abandoning two late-stage trials for their Alzheimer’s treatment in a widely anticipated move that comes months after the companies scrapped trials of another drug for the memory-robbing disease.
The companies said the decision was based on the results of a review conducted by a data safety monitoring board, which recommended discontinuing the trials as benefits from the treatment, elenbecestat, did not outweigh its risks.
“This was widely expected by the investment community, including ourselves, and amounts to a further step in the unwinding of Biogen’s expensive, painful and ultimately fruitless investment in Alzheimer’s disease drug development,” SVB Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges said.
The companies in March ended two late-stage trials of another experimental Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab.
Aducanumab’s failure wiped out more than $18 billion of Biogen’s market value, as investors were betting on the treatment to buoy the drugmaker, which is mired in patent issues over its big-selling multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera and possible competition to spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza.
Elenbecestat belongs to a class of drugs called beta amyloid cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitors, which act by inhibiting the production of amyloid beta – a protein believed to be a major cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
However, drugmakers such as Amgen and Novartis, Eli Lilly and Co and AstraZeneca have all abandoned some of their BACE inhibitor trials earlier.
While there may have been similar failures in other companies, as a percentage of one large company’s value and its total R&D investment, it would be hard to find a bigger disappointment, Porges said.
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