In a shocking reversal, Biogen on Tuesday said that it would resurrect an Alzheimer’s drug that the company previously said had failed and will ask the Food and Drug Administration to approve it.
The company said a “new analysis of a larger dataset” showed that the drug, aducanumab, reduced clinical decline in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease on multiple measures of the drug’s effectiveness. That directly contradicts a decision in March to halt studies of the therapy based on the recommendations of an independent monitoring board that was charged with protecting patients in the study.
Aducanumab’s failure sent shock waves far beyond Biogen. It was thought to be the last of a series of drugs — the previous ones, from many different drug companies, all failed — that targeted a protein in the brain called beta amyloid. After Biogen’s announcement in March, most researchers and biotechnology executives saw little hope for a drug that would help patients with Alzheimer’s disease even as cases mount.
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