Beyond the grabby headlines, punchy tweets, and stock market bounces, Biogen’s surprise resuscitation of a once-doomed treatment for Alzheimer’s disease drew a hefty dose of caution — and even some skepticism.
The basis for Biogen’s decision was a re-analysis of data from late-stage studies of its drug, aducanumab. Those data, the company said, showed the treatment reduced the rate of patients’ cognitive decline.
STAT contacted multiple experts for their interpretation of the data. Many said their biggest concern is that Biogen’s parallel clinical trials, which the company calls Engage (launched in August 2015) and Emerge (September 2015), got different results, even though the hundreds of patients in each received the same drug and at the same doses.
