Biogen: What does the solanezumab miss mean for aducanumab?; readthrough to aducanumab is limited, as they have always argued -- H.C. Wainwright
H.C. Wainwright notes on Wednesday morning, Lilly (LLY; not rated) announced that solanezumab missed on its primary endpoint of slowing cognitive decline as measured by the ADAS-Cog14. While the news was certainly disappointing, firm does not find it to be surprising by any measure. They have always regarded the solanezumab story as a high-risk high-reward one that lacked two crucial scientific building blocks: evidence of target engagement and mechanism of action of Abeta clearance. The primary endpoint miss despite the overpowering of the study demonstrates to them, at least at first glance, that the field's skepticism surrounding the controversial target engagement data and proposed MOA of Abeta clearance (potentially peripheral sink mechanism?) were both relevant here. If that is true, these are two important factors to consider when thinking about the read-through potential of solanezumab to aducanumab (they believe it is limited). In contrast to solanezumab, aducanumab has both clear evidence of target engagement and clear clearance of Abeta from the CNS, and is additionally differentiated by a different patient population, prodromal rather than mild AD patients. These important distinctions are not left unnoticed by certain investors judging from the attenuated stock reactions by Wednesday close alone (LLY down by ~10.5%, BIIB down by only ~3.5%). Despite the knee-jerk hit on the AD sphere across the board, firm remains optimistic on the prospects of aducanumab and maintain their Buy rating and $360 PT.