Eisai eyes long game for Leqembi amid ‘dramatically’ increasing patient use

Full US ap­proval of Bio­gen and Ei­sai’s Alzheimer’s drug Leqem­bi — and as a re­sult, broad Medicare cov­er­age — has led to a surge in up­take, Ei­sai re­port­ed in its lat­est quar­ter­ly earn­ings. Now it’s about keep­ing up the mo­men­tum, CEO Haruo Naito said.

Ei­sai gen­er­at­ed near­ly $2.7 mil­lion (¥400 mil­lion) in Leqem­bi sales be­tween April and Sep­tem­ber as es­ti­mat­ed pa­tient use in­creased “dra­mat­i­cal­ly,” ex­ec­u­tives said on an in­vestor call. As most Alzheimer’s pa­tients are old­er, a lack of Medicare cov­er­age proved a sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­er to Leqem­bi (lecanemab) in the months fol­low­ing its ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval.

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