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 The Massachusetts-based company, which made headlines last week when
it announced better-than-expected clinical trial results for its
experimental Alzheimer's drug, aducanumab, said that it will drop
Idec from its name as of Monday and adopt a new logo. The company
merged with Idec Pharmaceuticals more than a decade ago.
Chief Executive George Scangos says that going forward he will keep
Biogen focused on developing drugs for some of the hardest-to-treat
diseases.
"Five years down the road, with some luck, we'll have an Alzheimer's
drug that's getting approved,” Scangos told Reuters. "I hope we can
transform the treatment of MS. By that time, we will have made
substantial progress on ALS and other nerve degenerative diseases,
spinal muscular atrophy in kids. All that stuff is on our plate," he
said.
"I am sure of two things," he added. "Not all of it is going to
work, and some of it will."
Investors, excited by the aducanumab news, sent Biogen shares up 9.7
percent on Friday, and the company's stock touched an all-time high
of $480.18 during the session.
The small trial showed the treatment significantly slowed cognitive
impairment in patients with mild symptoms, a rare bit of good news
in a field littered with high profile failures from the likes of
Pfizer Inc and Eli Lilly and Co
But some patients, especially those with a gene predisposing them to
Alzheimer's, developed localized brain swelling. The symptom was
most common among patients with the gene who were receiving the
highest doses of aducanumab, leading about 1/3 of the participants
in that category to discontinue the treatment. The company said the
swelling was generally "asymptomatic or with mild, transient
symptoms."
Biogen plans to begin a larger trial later this year. "If they can
replicate the Alzheimer's data in Phase III, they could conceivably
have the biggest drug on the planet," JMP Securities analyst Michael
King said. As many as 75 million people are expected to develop the
disease by 2030.
For Biogen, which is also working on Alzheimer's drugs that use
other mechanisms of action, research on dementia drugs represents an
expansion of the company's potential reach.
"If the Alzheimer's thing works, then we're not just an MS company.
We are broadly focused on neuro-degenerative diseases," Scangos
said.
The company is also developing a drug it hopes will address not just
symptoms but the cause of MS, potentially changing the way the
disease is treated.
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"The future looks pretty exciting for us," said Scangos, who became
Biogen CEO in July 2010 following a period of upheaval in which
activist investor Carl Icahn pushed for management changes and the
sale of the company. Scangos, who previously led the tiny biotech
firm Exelixis Inc, was recommended for the CEO post by Icahn
lieutenants on the Biogen board.
BIGGER MOVE INTO BIOSIMILARS
As it works on new medicines for unmet needs, Biogen is also
planning a bigger move into the fledgling field of biosimilars,
manufacturing cheaper versions of older biotech drugs as they lose
patent protection. Health regulators this month approved the first
such drug for the U.S. market, a biosimilar version of Amgen Inc's
white blood cell booster Neupogen.
Biogen previously disclosed plans to develop six biosimilar drugs in
collaboration with Samsung. "We will expand that to include more,"
Scangos said.
It has filed for European approval of biosimilars of two blockbuster
rheumatoid arthritis drugs, Amgen's Enbrel and Johnson & Johnson's
Remicade.
Scangos shrugged off the potential impact to Biogen of biosimilars
that replicate its own products, even though such competition could
result in far cheaper alternatives to its drugs.
"I view biosimilars as a good thing," he said. "When they come for
our drugs, they come."
Biogen's ambitions are not without risk. The company saw a
"spectacular failure," as Scangos put it, with a large trial of an
ALS drug a few years ago, highlighting the challenge ahead.
"There was no effect at all," Scangos said. "We've gone back to the
drawing board."
(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Sue
Horton)
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