Biogen’s aducanumab pleases investors, confounds doctors

Biogen has only upside in the short term following its turnaround decision to push aducanumab down the regulatory path for Alzheimer’s disease. But physicians’ split responses to the apparently contradictory data could presage longer-term regulatory and commercial risk, and signal continued rifts among the amyloid believers and doubters.

Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) shocked shareholders on Tuesday when it announced that analysis of the full data from aducanumab’s Phase III program showed the anti-β amyloid mAb met the primary endpoint and secondary endpoints in one of its two trials, making it the first amyloid lowering agent to score a Phase III win. Biogen had stopped both trials in March after they failed a pooled interim futility analysis...