Will slow uptake of Leqembi pose a risk to Biogen’s recovery?

If Bio­gen’s dis­mal stock per­for­mance on Tues­day is any in­di­ca­tion, Leqem­bi could be the sin­gle biggest fac­tor in the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to right the ship.

“A bet on Bio­gen growth is a bet on lecanemab,” Stifel’s Paul Mat­teis told End­points News, us­ing the Alzheimer’s drug’s sci­en­tif­ic name.

But he not­ed that it’s al­so a high­ly dif­fi­cult drug to mod­el. Bio­gen re­port­ed Tues­day that Leqem­bi’s fourth-quar­ter rev­enue came in un­der ex­pec­ta­tions — a fair­ly un­sur­pris­ing de­vel­op­ment af­ter part­ner Ei­sai re­port­ed lag­ging sales last week — and then it ex­pe­ri­enced the largest sin­gle-day stock drop over the last year, clos­ing 7% low­er.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.