Japan's Eisai eyes blood test for Alzheimer's drug eligibility

TOKYO -- Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai is developing a blood test to determine whether patients with Alzheimer's disease can benefit from lecanemab, marking another step in its efforts to expand its dementia treatment and care business.

Lecanemab, a biopharmaceutical treatment co-developed by Eisai and Biogen, is designed to remove amyloid beta, a protein that accumulates in the brain and is hypothesized to be one of the causes of Alzheimer's disease. The drug, marketed as Leqembi, was shown in a clinical trial to slow the progression of the disease by 27%.