Biogen Mutations After Results of a ‘Best Case’ Alzheimer’s Drug Trial; Arrow gains many upgrades

Written by Sinad Karahimetovic

Shares of Biogen (NASDAQ 🙂 are trading sharply higher in premarket on Wednesday after the company reported positive results for its experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug.

Phase III results, developed with Japan-based biotechnology company Eisai (TYO :), showed that the experimental drug lecanemab significantly slowed cognitive and functional decline in the early stage of the disease.

“The positive result for lecanemab, an anti-Aβ protofibril antibody, a pivotal study after nearly 25 years since the launch of Aricept is an important milestone for Eisai in fulfilling our mission to meet the expectations of the Alzheimer’s disease community,” said Haruo Naito, president. Executive Officer at Eisai.

Lecanemab met the primary endpoint as well as all major secondary endpoints “with highly statistically significant results”.

“Today’s announcement gives patients and their families hope that lecanemab, if approved, can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and provide a clinically meaningful effect on cognition and function,” said Michele Vonatsos, chief executive officer at Biogen.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a biology license application for lecanemab under its Expedited Approval Scheme. The Food and Drug Administration agreed at the time that Clarity-AD’s results could serve as confirmation to verify the drug’s benefits.

Analysts reflected very positively on the news as today’s sharp rally is on track to help Biogen stock post its biggest daily gain in more than 30 years. The BMO analyst said the findings are “an unequivocal win for Alzheimer’s and Biogen patients.”

He upgraded BIIB stock to Outperform and raised his price target to $360 from $217 after a “semi-best case”.

“We believe the top-line data is as robust as possible, with high statistical significance across all endpoints – the data doesn’t get much cleaner than that in biotechnology. Importantly, this reduces the likelihood of a CMS rejecting broad drug coverage once approved. Given To the results, we increased unadjusted peak sales of lecanemab to $13.3 billion from $5.4 billion; PoS to 90% from 50%,” the analyst said yesterday.

Yesterday he told clients that Biogen stock could go up to over $300 if there are very positive results. Biogen shares are trading around $280 in pre-opening as of 05:30 EST.

The Mizuho analyst also upgraded Biogen stock when it went to Buy from Neutral with a target price of $270, up from $207 per share.

“We currently hold $8 billion (raised from $6 billion) in peak WW end-user, non-risk-adjusted end-user sales for lecanemab – this is a pre-50/50 profit split between Biogen and Eisai. We are currently in PoS lecanemab at 80% % (Raised from 40%.) TAM for Alzheimer’s is a key question here, but assuming 3 million moderate patients at $20,000/patient (price remains a question here, obviously), TAM could be $60 billion+ – it would be There is debate about this number, but the point is that TAM can be quite large,” he explained in the client note.

Baird analyst also upgraded BIIB shares with a new target price of $340 per share.