Eisai said the deaths were not due to the drug because “both cases had significant comorbidities and risk factors including anticoagulation contributing to macrohemorrhage or death.”
Still, the drug did cause brain swelling and bleeding in some people who received the drug in the trial, a side effect that can mostly be managed but will surely be weighed by physicians and their patients. And the risk associated with taking blood thinners could further complicate who will be eligible to take lecanemab.
None of this means lecanemab won’t be worthwhile for some. But there’s still much work to be done to understand for whom it will be a good fit, and, in the end, what that will even mean in patients’ daily lives.
By showing that getting rid of amyloid can alter the course of Alzheimer’s, lecanemab is clearly a scientific breakthrough. But it’s therapeutic impact is unlikely to be as monumental.
Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.