Latest Tokyo Brief coverage on Eisai Co., Ltd., tracking filings, financial news, and market signals from Japan.
TSE:4523
Eisai's newly approved subcutaneous Leqembi pen lets patients self-inject weekly at home instead of visiting a clinic every two weeks for IV infusion, but a Central Social Insurance Medical Council review and listing on the injectable drug list must happen first, and Eisai says the approval's effect on its coming-year earnings forecast is minor.
China's NMPA cleared the self-injected, once-weekly formulation of Leqembi as first-line therapy, the second market after the US to allow at-home dosing for a disease that has mostly meant fortnightly hospital infusions.
Lenvima, Leqembi and Dayvigo again did the heavy lifting for Eisai's first quarter, with Leqembi's Americas sales up 71% masking a China pullback tied to last year's distributor stocking, while the drugmaker left its full-year targets exactly where it set them in May.
Eisai and Biogen can now sell a weekly, 15-second self-injection as the starting treatment for early Alzheimer's disease, not just the maintenance dose already approved last year.