Eisai exec who helped steer Alzheimer's drug approval to retire in July

[July 11, 2023]  TOKYO (Reuters) - The Eisai executive who helped garner full U.S. approval for the Japanese drugmaker's Alzheimer's disease treatment Leqembi will retire at the end of this month, the company said on Tuesday.

Ivan Cheung, the global head of the company's Alzheimer's portfolio and chief executive of its U.S. subsidiary, will retire as of July 31, Eisai said in a release. Keisuke Naito, the son of Eisai chief executive Haruo Naito, took over as acting head of the Alzheimer's division as of July 10.

An Eisai spokesperson said that Cheung had met his primary mission in the approval of Leqembi and would now move on from the company, but will continue to offer some support after his departure.

Cheung had worked at Eisai in a variety of roles since 2005, according to his LinkedIn profile.

A scientist looks at hypometabolic and hypoperfusion patterns at the single-subject level from a patient suffering from Alzheimer's disease at the Memory Centre at the Department of Readaptation and Geriatrics of the University Hospital (HUG), in Geneva, Switzerland, June 6, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

Leqembi, co-developed with U.S.-based Biogen, won standard approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 6. But the FDA placed its strongest "boxed" safety warning on the drug's label, flagging the risk of potentially dangerous brain swelling in it and similar drugs.

(Reporting by Shinichi Uchida and Rocky Swift; Editing by Christina Fincher)

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