Eisai shares fell the most in 16 months following a report of a second death potentially linked to theThe case involved a 65-year-old woman who died of a massive brain hemorrhage after suffering a stroke and a type of brain swelling and bleeding in an Eisai trial, according to a report inmagazine. The bleeding began after the patient received an anti-clotting drug, the report said. Brain swelling and bleeding have previously been linked to medicines that work like the Biogen-Eisai treatment.
The drug, lecanemab, is the first to slow progression of Alzheimer’s in a large clinical trial, a medical milestone that has fuelled hopes of. Biogen and Eisai have published only minimal data from the trial, however, with more results due to be presented at a conference this week. “We believe the drug will get approved, get reimbursed, and lead to good uptake over time,” he wrote.Experts were divided on whether the deaths were caused by the drug, while an Eisai spokeswoman said in a statement that all available information indicates that lecanemab isn’t associated with an increased risk of death overall.
Rudolph Castellani, a neuropathologist at Northwestern University who investigated the death, blamed it on the “one-two punch” of lecanemab and the anti-clotting drug, called tPA,“There’s zero doubt in my mind that this is a treatment-caused illness and death,” he told Science, saying that these were personal views and not reviewed or approved by Northwestern. “If the patient hadn’t been on lecanemab she would be alive today.