Biogen’s answers only raise more questions

Going into yesterday’s quarterly earnings call, the world had two questions for Biogen: Why is your chief financial officer leaving, and what does the FDA think about your potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease? One hour and 13 minutes later, the answers didn’t seem any clearer.

First, the Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab. Biogen said it filed the treatment for FDA approval and requested a so-called priority review, which would shorten the process. Biogen also said that it had a voucher that could be cashed in for such a priority approval, but it refused to say whether it had redeemed that voucher for aducanaumab. Here’s why that’s troubling to outsiders: If, a few weeks from now, Biogen tells the world it’s getting a priority review, we’ll have no idea whether that’s because the FDA actually looks fondly on aducanaumab or because the company redeemed its voucher.

Then there’s Jeff Capello, Biogen’s CFO who, the company announced the night before its earnings, will be departing in August. No one on Biogen’s executive team gave what you might mistake for a substantive explanation of why he’s leaving. Even more bewildering, Mizuho analyst Salim Sayed spoke to management after the call and couldn’t get anyone to confirm that Capello’s departure was voluntary.