European committee takes a second look at Alzheimer’s drug and now says it should be approved

A European regulatory committee now recommends approval of the Alzheimer’s treatment lecanemab a few months after rejecting the drug. Biogen said Thursday that the drug, known in the U.S. as Leqembi, received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use as a treatment for early Alzheimer’s disease. The European Commission is expected to decide authorization in the next few months. The committee had said in July that concerns about the drug’s potential side effects outweigh the impact it has in slowing the fatal disease. But drugmaker Eisai asked the committee to reconsider.