Tag: aducanumab

A male pharmacist is examining a drug from a pharmacy inventory.

Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy

Ameet Sarpatwari Leave a comment

By Ameet Sarpatwari, Alexander Egilman, Aviva Wang, and Aaron S. Kesselheim

Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, policy analyses, and editorials on health law and policy issues.

Below are the citations for papers identified from the month of April. The selections feature topics ranging from a discussion of manufacturer’s restricted delivery of 340B drugs to contract pharmacies and ensuing litigation, to an analysis mapping the European patent landscape for medical uses of known products, to an evaluation of the clinical benefit of novel drugs approved in the U.S. from 2018-2019. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.

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LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM- 1 APRIL 2015: A newspaper rack holding several international newspapers, such as The International New York Times, USA Today, Irish Times, Londra Sera and Corriere Della Sera.

Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy

Ameet Sarpatwari Leave a comment

By Ameet Sarpatwari, Beatrice Brown, Alexander Egilman, Aviva Wang, and Aaron S. Kesselheim

Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, policy analyses, and editorials on health law and policy issues.

Below are the citations for papers identified from the month of July. The selections feature topics ranging from a discussion of issues related to FDA’s approval of aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, to an analysis of the communication of survival data in cancer drug labels, to an evaluation of public-sector contributions to novel biologic drugs. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.

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Washington, USA- January13, 2020: FDA Sign outside their headquarters in Washington. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or USFDA) is a federal agency of the USA.

FDA Approves Aducanumab for Alzheimer’s Disease: An Unethical Decision?

Beatrice Brown Leave a comment

By Beatrice Brown

On June 7, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the accelerated approval of aducanumab (Aduhelm), a biologic manufactured by Biogen for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

The FDA’s decision, which went against the near-unanimous opinion of its own advisory committee following its meeting in November 2020, has been embroiled in controversy over whether the available evidence demonstrated benefits that outweigh the risks of the drug. Namely, questions remain whether: 1) the conflicting evidence from the two pivotal trials is sufficient to suggest clinical benefit worthy of approval; and 2) the surrogate measure used to justify its accelerated approval is actually correlated with clinical benefit.

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Hundred dollar bills rolled up in a pill bottle

Aducanumab: A Bitter Pill to Swallow

Emily Largent Leave a comment

By Emily Largent

On June 7, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used the Accelerated Approval pathway to approve aducanumab, which will go by the brand name Aduhelm, to treat patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Aducanumab, developed by Biogen, is the first novel therapy approved for AD since 2003. This news has left many experts stunned.

I have at least one colleague, Dr. Jason Karlawish, who has publicly stated that he will not prescribe aducanumab. Other clinicians have said they will only prescribe it reluctantly. These are individuals who have dedicated decades of their lives to treating patients with AD, to conducting path-breaking research and serving as investigators in clinical trials, and to advocating for public policies that will better serve AD patients and their families. Many have also seen their own families affected by AD. My colleagues are hardly indifferent to the suffering wrought by AD and would like to have a meaningful treatment to offer to patients and their families. But, they have concluded, aducanumab is not it.

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