19. Biogen $6.1B ▲up 59%
Global revenue: $9.7B (22nd); up 40.0%
Top brands: Tecfidera ($2.6B); Avonex ($1.9B); Tysabri ($1.4B); Alprolix ($72M); Eloctate ($58M)
Promotional spend: $41.6M (52nd); 0.7% of rev.
R&D spend: $1.9B (16th); up 31%; 19.6% of rev.
Planned launches: ocrelizumab (CNS.); zinbryta (CNS)
Patent expirations: Tysabri (2017); Tecfidera (2020); Eloctate (2024); Plegridy (2025)
Biogen enters the second half of 2015 with a shorter name—it dropped Idec in March—and with high hopes for its Phase-III Alzheimer’s compound aducanumab, which a small study showed can slow cognitive impairment in mild-case patients. This success is part of a bigger goal, which CEO George Scangos says is to push beyond Alzheimer’s and into other neurodegenerative diseases. MS will remain a Biogen mainstay; the firm found that even with the FDA’s new notice that Tecfidera is associated with the PML brain infection, patients have not stopped taking it. New-to-treatment patients, however, seem to be gravitating toward the company’s newer MS drug Plegridy.
Click here to return to main story.
From the May 01, 2015 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
