BioArctic’s Leqembi Begins Patient Treatment in Sweden Outside Clinical Study

24 September 2026 | Thursday | News

First Swedish patient starts Leqembi following EU approval as BioArctic and Eisai work to expand access to early Alzheimer’s disease treatment

 BioArctic AB (publ) (NASDAQ Stockholm: BIOA B) announced  that Leqembi is now available at a private clinic in Sweden and that the first patient has started treatment. This is the first time a patient in Sweden has been treated outside of a clinical study since Leqembi received EU approval in April 2025.

"I am very happy that we are now starting to help people diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease in Sweden as well. There is a significant unmet need for new treatment options that slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease from its early stages and reduce the overall burden for patients affected by the disease, their care partners, healthcare providers and society," said Gunilla Osswald, CEO of BioArctic. "It is great to see that this innovation, based on Professor Lars Lannfelt's research at Uppsala University, is finally, after more than 20 years of research and development, beginning to help patients in Sweden, where it all started."

Leqembi was approved in the EU in April 2025 as the first therapy that targets an underlying cause of Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with a clinical diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia due to AD (early AD) who are apolipoprotein E ε4 (ApoE ε4[1]) non-carriers or heterozygotes with confirmed amyloid pathology.[2]

Following the EU approval, Eisai and BioArctic have worked to enable patient access in Sweden. However, in April 2026, the New Therapies Council, NT-rådet, gave a negative recommendation for inclusion of Leqembi in the publicly funded health care system. Following NT-rådet's recommendation, Executive Health in Stockholm, where the first patient was treated today, has been working to offer treatment to patients with early Alzheimer's disease.

Leqembi is the result of a long-standing collaboration between BioArctic and Eisai, and the antibody was originally developed by BioArctic based on the work of Professor Lars Lannfelt and his discovery of the Arctic mutation in Alzheimer's disease. Eisai is responsible for the clinical development, applications for regulatory approval and global commercialization of Leqembi for Alzheimer's disease. BioArctic has the right to commercialize Leqembi in the Nordic region together with Eisai.

 

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