How an earnings call comment from Al Sandrock propelled an appeals court’s reversal on a Biogen investor suit

The US Court of Ap­peals for the First Cir­cuit yes­ter­day re­versed a low­er court’s rul­ing on one spe­cif­ic claim linked to in­vestor al­le­ga­tions that Bio­gen made mis­lead­ing state­ments about its Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm (ad­u­canum­ab), its dose-re­sponse re­la­tion­ship and the cor­re­la­tion (or lack there­of) be­tween amy­loid plaque re­moval and clin­i­cal im­prove­ment.

The in­vestors claimed Bio­gen con­cealed sub­group-lev­el clin­i­cal da­ta that con­tra­dict­ed ear­li­er state­ments around Aduhelm’s ef­fi­ca­cy. Aduhelm, which won an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval in 2021, has failed to take off in sales be­cause of a lack of in­sur­ance cov­er­age due to lin­ger­ing ques­tions about how well it works. It re­mains un­known what Bio­gen plans to do now with the drug since Bio­gen’s oth­er, new­er, amy­loid-tar­get­ed, Ei­sai-part­nered drug, Leqem­bi (lecanemab), is ready­ing for wider up­take.

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