Aduhelm And The Power Of Doubt

28 Oct 2021

• By Michael McCaughan

CMS is famous for not being able to negotiate prices – and its payment for physician-administered drugs notoriously incentivizes higher prices. Yet, as the Biogen/Eisai Aduhelm experience shows, CMS can on occasion have a profound impact on product launches when it chooses to.

Aduhelm - fear is the sales killer — Fear is the sales killer. • Source: Nielsen Hobbs; Pink Sheet | Alamy image

At first glance, the reported sales for Biogen, Inc./Eisai Co., Ltd.’s newly launched Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm (aducanumab) looks like a typo: $300,000 in the third quarter.

That, after all, is at least nine zeros short of the theoretical market size for the therapy at the time...