With subpar sales for Leqembi, Eisai delays Alzheimer’s patient goal deadline

Ei­sai said it could strug­gle to meet up­take tar­gets for its Bio­gen-part­nered Alzheimer’s drug Leqem­bi by the end of March as it de­tailed dis­ap­point­ing fis­cal third quar­ter sales for the in­tra­venous ther­a­py.

Leqem­bi won US ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval in Jan­u­ary 2023 with full ap­proval fol­low­ing in Ju­ly. Ei­sai has high hopes for the treat­ment, pro­ject­ing it could reach $7 bil­lion in glob­al sales by 2030.

But Leqem­bi sales of al­most $7 mil­lion in the three months lead­ing up to De­cem­ber 2023 fell short of Vis­i­ble Al­pha con­sen­sus es­ti­mates of $9.3 mil­lion. The drug has been ad­min­is­tered to around 2,000 pa­tients in the US, with four times that num­ber on wait lists, Ei­sai’s glob­al Alzheimer’s of­fi­cer Keisuke Naito said on its earn­ings call Tues­day that was trans­lat­ed live from Japan­ese.

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