FDA Approved Biogen Alzheimer’s Drug Despite Some Staff Concerns

WSJ2021-06-23

The U.S. Food and Drug Administrationapproved the first new Alzheimer’s drug in decadesover the objection of agency statisticians who said there was insufficient evidence to support approval, ...

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Comments

breAkdaWn
2021-06-23
breAkdaWn
Bottom line is money in pocket for Biogen. do they really care for humanity? Why the drug so so so expensive
WTurtle
2021-06-23
WTurtle
Isn’t clinical evidence data the most important??
- KDL:
  What is more important differs from people to people, and unfortunately sometimes, status to status.
BABAMood
2021-06-23
BABAMood
That's wonderful
rxyce
2021-06-23
rxyce
thats a good start
Babaluke
2021-06-23
Babaluke
Good
Soksok
2021-06-23
Soksok
Good

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The 83 pages of memos appear to be a portion of the FDA’s deliberations, largely reflecting the exchanges of top officials.\nTristan Massie, a biostatistics reviewer for the FDA, “does not agree that the totality of the data provides sufficient evidence to support the efficacy of aducanumab in Alzheimer’s disease and does not recommend approval,” one of the internal documents shows.\nPatrizia Cavazzoni, the FDA’s top-ranking drug-evaluation official, wrote in another memo that the agency’s drug biostatistics office “provided documentation for its recommendation that substantial evidence of effectiveness had not been provided in the application.”\nThat office’s full dissenting analysis wasn’t included in the materials made available Tuesday, but portions of it were.\nDespite the objections, Dr. Cavazzoni wrote that Biogen had met the requirements for an “accelerated approval,” a type of regulatory clearance that allows a drug to be marketed even when there remains uncertainty about its clinical benefit if it fills an unmet need for a serious disease and has effects against a biological sign of the disease.\nDr. Cavazzoni wrote that Aduhelm met that standard because of its effect of reducing a sticky substance called amyloid which “is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit.”\nSome doctors and scientists saytargeting the amyloid plaqueshasn’t been proven to slow Alzheimer’s. Some members of a panel of advisers that recommended the FDA reject the drug haveresigned from the committee, citing the agency’s approval.\nBiogen listed the price of Aduhelm at $56,000 a year, and patients and Medicare could also face testing charges.\nAbout six million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, a progressive condition that robs people of their memories and cognitive abilities. Biogen has said that as many as two million of them may benefit from the medicine.\nThe FDA approval sent Biogen’s stock soaring. The company has said it expects only minimal revenue from the drug this year, in part because of the logistical challenges in administering the medicine, but that sales would begin to increase next year.\nAnalysts estimate sales of $946.3 million in 2022, according to FactSet. Sales are seen growing to $5.2 billion in 2026.\nThe memos show FDA officials attempting to balance the subpar study data for Aduhelm with the desire of Alzheimer’s patients and their families to try any new treatment that might help.\n“There remains residual uncertainty regarding clinical benefit,” Dr. Stein wrote. But if the FDA were to wait for the company to finish another clinical study, “any approval would occur after a multiple year delay” and patients “could suffer irreversible loss of brain neurons and cognitive function and memory,” he wrote.\nThe FDA said it plans to release more documents regarding its decision making as early as next week.\nThe FDA’s approval was based primarily on two large Phase 3 clinical trials launched by Biogen to prove its drug helped slow the cognitive decline of people with early-stage Alzheimer’s.\nIn March 2019, the companyhalted the studies earlyafter an independent monitoring board concluded the drug was unlikely to help patients.\nSeven months later, however,the company made a surprising reversaland said it was now planning to seek FDA approval after conducting additional analyses of trial data that came in after the studies were halted. The company said its analyses found the drug was successful in one study but failed in the second.\nThe FDA memos provide some new details on Biogen’s about-face. In June 2019, the company met with FDA officials and both sides agreed the studies shouldn’t have been stopped, according to a “summary memorandum” document.\nAt the meeting, FDA officials recommended that Biogen analyze the studies further to understand if it was still possible to draw conclusions from the data, despite the halt of the trials and conflicting results.\nSeveral months later, in October 2019, the agency and company met again and agreed that the studies could still be used to evaluate the drug’s effectiveness, according to the memo.\nThe following day, on Oct. 22, Biogen announcedit would seek approval for the medicine, sending up its share price and adding billions of dollars to its market value.\nThe company had been quietly re-examining the data for months, but didn’t have the confidence to move forward until the latest meeting with FDA officials, Biogen Chief Executive Michel Vounatsos said in an interview at the time.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":123574779,"gmtCreate":1624432270491,"gmtModify":1703836508375,"author":{"id":"3569809505691000","authorId":"3569809505691000","name":"breAkdaWn","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/4c3676c14de9bfcd6f45bcf7ba4ddb6c","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Bottom line is money in pocket for Biogen.&nbsp; do&nbsp;they really care for humanity? Why the drug so so so expensive&nbsp;","listText":"Bottom line is money in pocket for Biogen.&nbsp; do&nbsp;they really care for humanity? Why the drug so so so expensive&nbsp;","text":"Bottom line is money in pocket for Biogen. do they really care for humanity? Why the drug so so so expensive","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/123574779","repostId":1174011543,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":123517307,"gmtCreate":1624429164409,"gmtModify":1703836424743,"author":{"id":"3561975721283567","authorId":"3561975721283567","name":"WTurtle","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f365603f5d6014baec364bc1bdd93afd","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Isn’t clinical evidence data the most important??","listText":"Isn’t clinical evidence data the most important??","text":"Isn’t clinical evidence data the most important??","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/123517307","repostId":1174011543,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":4971072,"gmtCreate":1624430669524,"gmtModify":1663229790462,"authorId":3555537259700212,"author":{"id":3555537259700212,"authorId":3555537259700212,"name":"KDL","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":123517307,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"What is more important differs from people to people, and unfortunately <u>sometimes</u>, status to status.","text":"What is more important differs from people to people, and unfortunately <u>sometimes</u>, status to status.","html":"What is more important differs from people to people, and unfortunately <u>sometimes</u>, status to status."}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":123516980,"gmtCreate":1624429020340,"gmtModify":1703836418648,"author":{"id":"3577696729570792","authorId":"3577696729570792","name":"BABAMood","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/96b29f4c8dbfccd6ec29c42b17c7361e","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4c5ceab71416b120bab4604c0754b52a","crmLevel":9,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"That's wonderful&nbsp;","listText":"That's wonderful&nbsp;","text":"That's wonderful","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/123516980","repostId":1174011543,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":123594171,"gmtCreate":1624428328793,"gmtModify":1703836394935,"author":{"id":"3574944594970257","authorId":"3574944594970257","name":"rxyce","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"thats a good start","listText":"thats a good start","text":"thats a good start","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/123594171","repostId":1174011543,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":123592828,"gmtCreate":1624428233064,"gmtModify":1703836392333,"author":{"id":"3584774162933077","authorId":"3584774162933077","name":"Babaluke","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/cf1bdc263bcb63f2412eb36286eaedda","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Good","listText":"Good","text":"Good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/123592828","repostId":1174011543,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":123505579,"gmtCreate":1624427818991,"gmtModify":1703836378884,"author":{"id":"3579684763801587","authorId":"3579684763801587","name":"Soksok","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/03c4a8d2787d3c5042bccff3b0bb60f1","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Good&nbsp;","listText":"Good&nbsp;","text":"Good","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/123505579","repostId":1174011543,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":64,"commentSize":16,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; 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