Eisai expects 1,500 Alzheimer's patients in China launch, sees 'huge'
growth
Send a link to a friend
[February 05, 2024]
By Julie Steenhuysen and Andrew Silver
CHICAGO/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Japan’s Eisai aims to roll out its
groundbreaking Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi to 1,500 people in China later
this year, but expects growth to accelerate significantly in 2025 as
diagnosis methods change, a company spokesperson told Reuters.
More convenient Alzheimer's blood tests expected to be ready then could
help Eisai reach a bigger share of China’s estimated 17 million people
with early-stage disease, the spokesperson said.
“China is one of the fastest-aging countries in the world and is one of
the most important countries in the area of Alzheimer’s disease for
Eisai,” a company spokesperson said. “The potential growth for Leqembi
in China is huge.”
Eli Lilly, which is developing a similar treatment called donanemab,
told Reuters it has filed for approval in China. The Indianapolis-based
company is now testing its drug in a 1,500-person trial with volunteers
in China, Taiwan, South Korea and the EU, a spokesperson said.
The size of Eisai's planned China rollout and the filing of Lilly's
approval application have not previously been reported.
Leqembi, which works by removing a toxic protein called beta amyloid
from the brain, is the first Alzheimer's treatment proven to alter the
course of the fatal, brain-wasting disease. China approved Leqembi in
January.
Eisai and U.S. partner Biogen have already rolled out Leqembi in the
United States and Japan, and it is under review in Europe.
The treatment, given by infusion twice a month, slowed progression of
the disease by 27% for patients in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's in
a clinical trial.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Feb/05/images/ads/current/castlemanor_sda_FINANCIAL_2017.png)
Current treatments available in China have limited effect, and Eisai's
trial results give patients "a lot of hope," said Alzheimer's expert Dr.
Liu Zhou of Guangdong Medical University.
Eisai said it expects to start using the drug in China by September, and
forecast a total of 1,500 patients there by March 2025, a number limited
by the country's diagnostic capabilities.
Leqembi's sales could "increase significantly" in 2025, the company
said, with the expected introduction of blood tests to assess a
patient's amyloid burden rather than PET scans or invasive lumbar
punctures, which require access to specialists.
“If treatment were to become possible based solely on blood tests, we
think it would generate significant interest,” Citi analyst Hidemaru
Yamaguchi said in a research note. He did not have an estimate for China
but expects Leqembi sales outside of Japan and the U.S. to peak in 2030
at 126 billion yen ($1.08 billion).
Rates of Alzheimer's diagnosis and treatment in Asia's biggest economy
remain low, and medical specialists and public awareness of the disease
is limited, according to The China Alzheimer Report 2022, published in
BMJ General Psychiatry.
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/020524PIX/health22.jpg)
A scientist looks at scans of brains 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
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Feb/05/images/ads/current/library_lda_EDUCATION_2024.png) China's health ministry did not
respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Experts said the country has been ramping up imaging capacity.
Siemens Healthineers, which sells imaging equipment in China, said
the market in China for molecular imaging has grown more than 45%
over the past four years.
'ILL PREPARED'
Initially, Eisai plans to launch Leqembi on China's private market,
where it is priced at about 200,000 yuan ($28,180) per year, about
$2,000 more than in the U.S.
Eisai said it will decide whether to seek government coverage after
it assesses private market demand.
Inclusion on China’s National Reimbursement Drug List typically
means a steep price cut. A 2023 analysis estimated the average
negotiated price cut ranged from 44% to 61%.
To be eligible for treatment, patients undergo cognitive testing,
genetic testing to assess whether they carry a gene that increases
the drug's adverse side effects, and testing to confirm abnormal
levels of amyloid, the sticky substance in the brain targeted by
Leqembi.
Once on treatment, suitable patients undergo a series of MRI scans
to monitor for potentially fatal swelling and bleeding in the brain.
Economist Dr. Soeren Mattke, director of the University of Southern
California Brain Health Observatory who has consulted for both Eisai
and Biogen, said China lacks a system of primary care physicians to
do preliminary testing and refer appropriate candidates to
specialists.
Mattke and colleagues published an assessment of China's readiness
for disease-modifying treatments in July in the Journal Alzheimer's
& Dementia that concluded that China is “ill prepared to provide
timely access to an Alzheimer’s treatment.”
"In China," Mattke said, "specialty care is almost absent in the
rural areas."
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Andrew Silver in
Shanghai; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jul/22/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png) |