Promising Alzheimer’s drug provides second chance for Biogen, and a debated theory about the disease

Promising results from a trial of an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s made by Biogen and its Japanese partner Eisai are reviving hopes that an effective treatment for the devastating condition that’s long baffled the medical world may finally be at hand.

In what some researchers are calling the biggest advance ever in treating Alzheimer’s, the companies reported late Tuesday that the drug, called lecanemab, appeared to slow the progress of the debilitating illness more significantly than any of its predecessors.

The results come a year after the commercial failure of the two companies’ first Alzheimer’s medicine cast a pall over Cambridge-based Biogen’s future and sowed further doubt over a leading theory of the disease. Now, with the prospect of approval for lecanemab coming in as soon as a few months, the two companies have a second shot at a multibillion-dollar drug.

In a clinical trial of nearly 1,800 people with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, lecanemab was able to slow the decline in their conditions by 27 percent, compared with a placebo.

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