How a Japanese Drugmaker Got The Clean Win Over Alzheimer’s (1)

Three decades after the presumed cause of Alzheimer’s disease was identified, a Japanese company little known outside of the pharmaceutical industry has become the first drugmaker to prove the debilitating condition can be slowed.

Eisai Co., a Tokyo-based pharmaceutical company with a family bent and market capitalization of more than $14 billion, crossed the finish line before behemoths valued nearly 20-fold higher, including industry leaders Roche Holding AG and Eli Lilly & Co. The results of its Clarity-AD trial this week showed the medicine it’s developing with Biogen Inc., lecanemab, curbed the most common type of dementia -- ...