(Reuters) – Biogen on Monday announced a drop in the price of its Alzheimer’s disease drug by around 50% in response to complaints from hospitals and US parliamentarians that the treatment was too expensive for the benefits of which are uncertain, which resulted in lower than expected sales in the United States.
The drug in question, Aduhelm, is the first treatment for neurodegenerative disease to hit the market in nearly 20 years, after US regulators cleared it in June despite questions about its effectiveness.
The $ 56,000 (49,693.85 euros) per year treatment will now cost $ 28,200 per patient per year, Biogen said.
The company is banking on Aduhelm to offset increased competition for its flagship products, but sales of the drug are struggling to take off as several private insurers await new guidelines from Medicare, the US government’s health insurance, before covering the drug.
“We are very pleased with Biogen’s decision to reduce the price of Aduhelm and, in our opinion, this makes some reasonable level of reimbursement by Medicare more likely,” commented Paul Matteis, analyst at Stifel.
Medicare has increased the monthly premiums that people aged 65 and over must pay under the health plan in 2022 because of Aduhelm. The federal program is due to announce a national policy on drug use in January.
Biogen said that with insurance coverage and access to diagnostics and specialist centers, around 50,000 patients could begin treatment with Aduhelm in 2022.
The company also announced a series of cost-cutting measures next year, which are expected to deliver $ 500 million in annualized savings.
Last week, the European Union’s medicines regulator rejected Aduhelm’s application to market, after a panel voted against the treatment in November.
(Report Manas Mishra and Amruta Khandeakar in Bangalore, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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