Aduhelm And The Power Of Doubt

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...

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