Lilly’s plans for differentiating in Alzheimer’s disease

Eli Lilly’s upcoming head-to-head trial comparing anti-amyloid mAb donanemab with Biogen’s Aduhelm won’t pit the drugs’ clinical efficacy against each other. Lilly is betting that positive efficacy data from donanemab and other anti-amyloid mAbs in ongoing Phase III trials will render cross-product biomarker comparisons meaningful.

“If it turns out the plaque lowering is an appropriate surrogate for predicting clinical efficacy, then I think that the degree and speed of plaque lowering could be the basis of comparison across different Alzheimer’s drugs,” said Chief Scientific and Medical Officer Dan Skovronsky on the pharma’s 3Q21 earnings call...