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Biogen officially began reporting revenue from the $5.6 billion acquisition of Apellis in the second quarter, shaking up analysts’ consensus estimates and leading to a beat.

New mid-stage data from Biogen’s Ionis-partnered therapy diranersen served to both validate the tau hypothesis in Alzheimer’s disease and raise questions that could soon be elucidated by anti-tau candidates from Denali Therapeutics, Eisai and Eli Lilly.

Biogen’s new data, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, supports a tau-focused approach to the intractable neurodegenerative disease; psychedelics are back in the news with more positive data from Compass Pathways and final guidance from the FDA; and the ATTR-CM space got a major shakeup with the late-stage failure of AstraZeneca and Ionis’ antisense therapeutic.

With so many unknowns, Biogen is carefully eyeing its next-gen Alzheimer’s treatment diranersen as a high-risk, high-reward project with the potential for a major payout around 2030.

Biogen touted an “unprecedented” drop in tau in a Phase 2 trial, backing the company’s decision to take diranersen to Phase 3 despite a missed primary endpoint and seemingly supporting the anti-tau approach.

If Biogen has shown that tau can impact cognition, Denali’s technology—validated with an FDA approval in Hunter syndrome—could ensure the medicine gets where it needs to be for the greatest therapeutic impact, analysts said.

RayThera will bring three preclinical assets into the Biogen fold, all with anti-inflammatory activity. The most mature of these assets is expected to enter Phase 1 development in Q3.

Key dosing differences between Eli Lilly’s Kisunla and Biogen’s Leqembi are about to come to a head in the Alzheimer’s market as patients end their 18-month course of Lilly’s product.

While Biogen’s tau-targeting therapy didn’t demonstrate improvement on a dementia severity scale, the company touted biomarker and cognitive improvements from the Phase 2 study, leaving analysts eager for more data.