Summary
- Biogen’s Alzheimer’s aducanumab failure heaps on more evidence that beta amyloid plaque is an effect of Alzheimer’s rather than the cause.
- Other companies pursuing the beta amyloid approach in Alzheimer’s are likely to fail as well, including Novartis and Amgen.
- Biogen is now a value stock and will likely stay dormant for the medium term, but could also be a value trap.
Alzheimer’s disease continues to confound scientists as failure after failure is taking its toll on investors in the space. Biogen (BIIB) is the latest victim, having had its worst day in a decade late last month when it collapsed almost 30% because the company decided to discontinue its Alzheimer's treatment aducanumab in Phase 3. Aducanumab targets beta amyloid plaques in the brain, which clump together in the brain in Alzheimer’s patients. The question is, are these plaques the cause, or the effect? It seems from the many failures of this approach that they are the effect.
Unfortunately, the failure was not surprising. Just one example, here’s a study done in 2008 that used the same approach and successfully cleared amyloid plaques in the brain, but without an improvement in cognitive function. The key line of this study reads, “Although immunisation with Abeta resulted in clearance of amyloid plaques in patients with Alzheimer's disease, this clearance did not prevent progressive neurodegeneration.”
