Third member of prestigious FDA panel resigns over approval of Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug

A 3rd member of a key Meals and Drug Administration advisory panel has resigned over the company’s controversial choice to approve Biogen’s new Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, CNBC has discovered.

Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medication at Harvard Medical Faculty, stated the company’s choice on Biogen “was in all probability the worst drug approval choice in current U.S. historical past,” in response to his resignation letter obtained by CNBC.

“On the final minute, the company switched its overview to the Accelerated Approval pathway based mostly on the debatable premise that the drug’s impact on mind amyloid was probably to assist sufferers with Alzheimer’s illness,” he wrote in resigning from the FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Advisory Committee.

He wrote it was “clear” to him that the company will not be “presently able to adequately integrating the Committee’s scientific suggestions into its approval choices.”

“This may undermine the care of those sufferers, public belief within the FDA, the pursuit of helpful therapeutic innovation, and the affordability of the well being care system,” he stated.

Shares of Biogen surged 38% on Monday after the FDA accepted the biotech firm’s drug, the primary medicine cleared by U.S. regulators to gradual cognitive decline in folks residing with Alzheimer’s and the primary new drugs for the illness in almost twenty years.

Biogen’s drug targets a “sticky” compound within the mind often called beta-amyloid, which scientists anticipate performs a job within the devastating illness. 

The FDA accepted the drug underneath a program known as accelerated approval, which is often used for most cancers drugs, anticipating the drug would gradual the cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s sufferers. The company granted approval on the situation that Biogen conducts one other scientific trial.

The company’s choice was a departure from the recommendation of its impartial panel of out of doors specialists, who unexpectedly declined to endorse the drug final fall, citing unconvincing information. On the time, the panel additionally criticized company workers for what it known as an excessively optimistic overview of the information.

At the least two different FDA panel members have resigned because of the company’s choice on the drug. Mayo Clinic neurologist Dr. David Knopman and Washington College neurologist Dr. Joel Perlmutter have additionally submitted resignation letters.

“I used to be very upset at how the advisory committee enter was handled by the FDA,” Knopman informed Reuters. “I do not want to be put able like this once more.”

Federal regulators have confronted intense strain from family and friends members of Alzheimer’s sufferers asking to fast-track the drug, scientifically often called aducanumab, however the highway to regulatory approval has been a controversial one because it confirmed promise in 2016.

In March 2019, Biogen pulled growth of the drug after an evaluation from an impartial group revealed it was unlikely to work. The corporate then shocked traders a number of months later by asserting it might search regulatory approval for the drug in spite of everything.

When Biogen sought approval for the drug in late 2019, its scientists stated a brand new evaluation of a bigger dataset confirmed aducanumab “diminished scientific decline in sufferers with early Alzheimer’s illness.”

Alzheimer’s specialists and Wall Road analysts had been instantly skeptical, with some questioning whether or not the scientific trial information was sufficient to show the drug works and whether or not approval might make it more durable for different firms to enroll sufferers in their very own drug trials.

Some docs have stated they will not prescribe aducanumab due to the combined information bundle supporting the corporate’s software.

– Reuters contributed to this report.