NEW YORK — A consensus may be emerging about how to prescribe the new Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, according to remarks made by both a critic of other Alzheimer’s medicines and the CEO of the company that developed it.
Ivan Cheung, the CEO of Eisai Inc., the lecanemab developer, said at a STAT event Monday night that if patients carry a particular genetic variant that increases the risk of bleeding in the brain when taking the drug, they should only take the medicine if they and their families are willing to submit to close monitoring from doctors.
“If they decide to get on lecanemab and they have two copies of APOE4, I would hope and all of us at Eisai would hope that the physicians and the families can commit to monitoring,” Cheung said. The potential benefits, he said, need to be balanced against the risks.
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