Eisai sees huge growth potential for Alzheimer’s drug in China
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 percent for patients in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s in a clinical trial. 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.