Maker of Dubious $56K Alzheimer's Drug Offers Cognitive Test No One Can Pass (arstechnica.com) 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Do you ever forget things, like a doctor's appointment or a lunch date? Do you sometimes struggle to think of the right word for something common? Do you ever feel more anxious or irritable than you typically do? Do you ever feel overwhelmed when trying to make a decision? If you answered "no, never" to all of those questions, there's a possibility that you may not actually be human. Nevertheless, you should still talk to a doctor about additional cognitive screenings to check if you have Alzheimer's disease. At least, that's the takeaway from a six-question quiz provided in part by Biogen, the maker of an unproven, $56,000 Alzheimer's drug.
The six questions include the four above, plus questions about whether you ever lose your train of thought or ever get lost on your way to or around a familiar place. The questions not only bring up common issues that perfectly healthy people might face from time to time, but the answers any quiz-taker provides are also completely irrelevant. No matter how you answer -- even if you say you never experience any of those issues -- the quiz will always prompt you to talk with your doctor about cognitive screening. The results page even uses your zip code to provide a link to find an Alzheimer's specialist near you. Biogen says the quiz website is part of a "disease awareness educational program." But it appears to be part of an aggressive strategy to sell the company's new Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm, which has an intensely controversial history, to say the least. What's the controversial history you may ask? According to Ars, the drug "flunked out of two identical Phase III clinical trials in 2019." A panel of expert advisors for the FDA overwhelmingly voted against approval, yet it still was approved by the FDA on June 7. It also has a list price of $56,000 for a year's supply.
The report goes on to say that the company is basically making up the statistic that "about 1 in 12 Americans 50 years and older" has mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's. Experts say they know of no evidence to back up that statistic and it appears to be a significant overestimate.
Furthermore, two medical experts from Georgetown University said the company's quiz website "appears designed to ratchet up anxiety in anyone juggling multiple responsibilities or who gets distracted during small talk." They added: "Convincing perfectly normal people they should see a specialist, be tested for amyloid plaque, and, if present, assume they have early Alzheimer's is a great strategy for increasing Aduhelm prescriptions... [It] could lead to millions of prescriptions -- and billions of dollars in profit -- for an ineffective and expensive drug."
The six questions include the four above, plus questions about whether you ever lose your train of thought or ever get lost on your way to or around a familiar place. The questions not only bring up common issues that perfectly healthy people might face from time to time, but the answers any quiz-taker provides are also completely irrelevant. No matter how you answer -- even if you say you never experience any of those issues -- the quiz will always prompt you to talk with your doctor about cognitive screening. The results page even uses your zip code to provide a link to find an Alzheimer's specialist near you. Biogen says the quiz website is part of a "disease awareness educational program." But it appears to be part of an aggressive strategy to sell the company's new Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm, which has an intensely controversial history, to say the least. What's the controversial history you may ask? According to Ars, the drug "flunked out of two identical Phase III clinical trials in 2019." A panel of expert advisors for the FDA overwhelmingly voted against approval, yet it still was approved by the FDA on June 7. It also has a list price of $56,000 for a year's supply.
The report goes on to say that the company is basically making up the statistic that "about 1 in 12 Americans 50 years and older" has mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's. Experts say they know of no evidence to back up that statistic and it appears to be a significant overestimate.
Furthermore, two medical experts from Georgetown University said the company's quiz website "appears designed to ratchet up anxiety in anyone juggling multiple responsibilities or who gets distracted during small talk." They added: "Convincing perfectly normal people they should see a specialist, be tested for amyloid plaque, and, if present, assume they have early Alzheimer's is a great strategy for increasing Aduhelm prescriptions... [It] could lead to millions of prescriptions -- and billions of dollars in profit -- for an ineffective and expensive drug."
It's painfully obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't need pharmaceutical companies. Just have the government through the university system do the research. It's not like they're really spending all that much money on actual groundbreaking research. And worse when they do spend some money they'll do anything to make it back. Whether that's selling opioids until people are dying on Alzheimer's drug that's simply doesn't work. The profit motive and medicine do not mix. It's too complex and the stakes are too high for your run of the mill consumer to make adequate decisions.
Re:It's painfully obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd add much of this seems to be a side effect of direct marketing of prescriptions.
Free speech for corporations aside, short of penis enlargement or how ugly you look, commercializing disease is nearly repugnant.
Re:It's painfully obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an exploit of the way doctors talk to patients. The doctor will try to tell you all your options.
So the doctor will say, "You have Alzheimer's. There is no cure. There is a treatment, but it doesn't work very well."
If you're a patient, the treatment sounds better than nothing, and most patients don't have the ability to weigh the options. They will take it even if it's just a placebo, and often even if it makes the patient worse (for example, with known side effects).
Re:It's painfully obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
So the doctor will say, "You have Alzheimer's. There is no cure. There is a treatment, but it doesn't work very well."
At $56k per year, there will be plenty of money to incentivize doctors to be more positive than that.
Re: It's painfully obvious (Score:2)
I don't see direct marketing being a problem (Score:2)
Re:I don't see direct marketing being a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Because you can create symptoms wholecloth which magically your medication can address (part of the reason it is outlawed in Europe).
Just look at the expansion of the DSM V from its origins. Does that really mark a greater understanding of human psychology and mental illness, or more marketing opportunities available (especially for diseases which there are no readily available indicators beyond patient descriptions)?
Not to mention medical staff are regularly wined and dined by pharmaceutical companies as a
Re: (Score:2)
since you still need a doctor willing to prescribe it. And for that you need enough profit motive to buy off the FDA.
Yeah, that's what prevented the opioid crisis.
Maybe you were being sarcastic.
Re: (Score:2)
Now let us not drag penis enlargement into this. Some people are really helped by that stuff. I mean, so I hear.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember my first USA trip and watching TV, and there were all these drug ads which we don’t have in OZ.
It was hilarious. Praxaprome will increase your stamina blah blah, the funny bit was at the end when side effects were bring read out may cause death.
USA.. profits before people!
Re: (Score:2)
USA.. profits before people!
Spend a little time studying US history. Itâ(TM)s been this way since at least the mid-1800s. Itâ(TM)s what caused the country to be at the forefront of innovation for a decade ⦠I mean, air travel, the car, electricity, computers, the bomb, it all happened here for that reason. We pushed the envelope in what we allowed companies to get away with, and generally ended up pretty well off. You gotta admit, for the better part of the 1900s, we were the star
Re: (Score:2)
Was a good reply to my post. Pity you weren't modded up.
Having travelled a bit in the USA. You have some amazing natural landscapes but a lot of your infrastructure feels second world.
Like in new york where water pools half a foot deep on a pedestrian crossing.
NO single payer helathcare
Not much Metric
Phone companies allow spoofing
MM/DD/YYYY
HFCS instead of Sugar becuase Corn$$$,
Tipping (pay people a living wage)
Drip Cofee
Medicine prices
No easy bank to other bank transfer.
Voting on Tuesday, electronic voting
Re: (Score:3)
Or on the fed. level, look at the mess that is the IRS. Billions of uncollected tax are uncollectable because the IRS does not have the resources to plug the holes. And Conservatives threaten to hold their breath whenever talk of extra funding for the IRS comes up. The reason is that many Conservatives have been flouting the tax code for years and do not want to be held to account. So they gin up ridiculous arguments about "illegal" taxes.
Once they are through whining about their own taxes, they complain ab
Re: It's painfully obvious (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
As we get older, we become more forgetful, and there are studies that show the mere act of walking through a doorway can 'reset' the brain a bit and cause you to forget what it was you were looking for.
I call it "spending time in the hereafter", because I walk from one room to another and go, "What the fuck was I here after?"
Here's a little bit about the phenomenon:
https://news.nd.edu/news/walki... [nd.edu]
Honesty Always the Best Policy (Score:4, Funny)
The drug doesn't work and that they're just trying to make a fast Buck off of desperate people.
In that case, surely the only question on the test should be: "Would you give a company $56k for a drug to improve Alzheimer's that has not been proven to work?". That's arguably a better test for Alzheimer's and a good way for them to find the patients they want to hear from. Sometimes it can pay to be honest.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, Big Pharma is in bed with government conspiring to hold the country hostage to a fake Covid virus.
Hmm. . .I guess the lesson we must draw here is that the right-wingnuts are perfectly capable of conspiring to create their own "alternative facts" and then go on to believe in them.
Re: (Score:3)
We don't need pharmaceutical companies. Just have the government through the university system do the research. It's not like they're really spending all that much money on actual groundbreaking research.
The problem I see with such as system is politicians will demand answers when some agency spends say $1billion on a promising drug or two tah turn out not to work. That will make agencies risk adverse and tend towards what they believ eis a sure thing, so promising but speculative concepts may simply never get funded. Look at mRNA as an example. No one wanted to fund research into it for decades.
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While the drug companies are not angels, they have production capacity. University and gov. research often misses scalability. The Covid vaccines are a prime example. The U.S. has funded the RNA vaccine research for at least two decades. The government then had to provide enough economic backstop for companies to gear up and produce the vaccines. The companies were also assuming risk. And their existing capability to scale up was the result of years of their own investments.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. Big Pharma is rarely eclipsed in its greed and evil. Most actual research in the area is clinical and academic and could easily be government funded. Sure, some people would not get filthy rich that way, but many people would actually have a cure for their problems be found and many others would not suffer from problems created by the Pharm-Mafia in the first place.
Some times an industry must just be tightly controlled and limited because it goes all out of bounds on greed otherwise. Pharma is not the
Re: (Score:3)
And no, universities can not replicate the research Pharmas do - at least not without turning into Pharmas. Whether or not you respect the amount of time and effort it takes to turn the disco
Why bother? (Score:2)
Corruption? (Score:1)
I'd say it's time for someone t look into the finances or the individuals who decided to approve it.
Re: (Score:2)
No need. They all suddenly retired from their government positions and are now board members for Biogen.
This biogen drug is playing out like the fugitive (Score:2)
Without the fugitive
/. dupe checkers? (Score:1)
wouldn't hurt to try
Can’t blame them (Score:2)
This playbook worked like a charm for the opioid makers.
Re: (Score:2)
Except the vaccines approved for use in the USA have been approved by other highly respected agencies in other first world countries that are far less susceptible to the pressures that the FDA is.
Noting that in the UK at least (and I think the EEA) that this sort of behaviour would be illegal. You are simply not allowed to advertise prescription medicines in the first place, and the drug isn't approved last I checked.
Re: (Score:2)
Speak for yourself (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Fail. The correct answer is: Person, woman or man possibly transgender or cross dressing man or someone with a dress and boobs who identifies as a sexually unique being, errr one of those again, the icon to take a picture on my smartphone, TV.
If you find yourself... (Score:2)
Having waking hallucinatory dreams
Driving past a highway destination offramp for 100 miles without noticing
Driving erratically
Forgetting your bank pin code, permanently
Forgetting other long term memories, permanently
Unable to hold conversation - and just dropping wild completely off topic statements into the mix
Really old memories suddenly feel new - as if they are happening at that moment
Sure, then you have a problem.
Like so many other peoples parents, my Dad, who passed away recently, suffered from dement
No One Can Pass? (Score:3)
Are five of the answers: Person, woman, man, camera, TV?
(Asking for ... someone ...)
Re: (Score:2)
Are five of the answers: Person, woman, man, camera, TV?
(Asking for ... someone ...)
If yo can't remember who you're asking for then maybe you need to splash out $56k on this new miracle cure!
They're learning from the best (Score:2)
C'mon, this ain't the first snake-oil being sold on that scheme.
1. Create a test that shows that someone needs your drug.
2. Administer drug.
3. Use another test to show that patient is cured.
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon, this ain't the first snake-oil being sold on that scheme.
1. Create a test that shows that someone needs your drug. 2. Administer drug. 3. Use another test to show that patient is cured.
That's why we see ads on TV for drugs - once companies could no longer market to doctors with free trips to resorts and/or strip clubs, nice stuff for their officies, etc., they turned to patients to try to create demand for the drugs so they would ask doctors for their specific drug.
Re: (Score:2)
No, this drug is not FDA approved, it's FDA approved with conditions. Biogen must now conduct a Phase IV trail to prove that the drug is effective or the FDA will withdraw their approval. The Covid-19 vaccines needed no such conditions since they already proved their efficacy in their Phase II and Phase III trails before the FDA fast tracked them through the approval process.
woman, man, tv, dog (Score:2)
Easy!
Worst 'test' ever (Score:2)
I loved the question where they asked how often you feel depression, anxiety... and the last part was "and those feelings are not common or typical for you.
One of the answers was all the time. If you are feeling those things all the time, then they ARE typical and common for you.
Total bullshit test. Created by a total bullshit marketing team to sell more of the drug. Pity, as the real disease is so bad that the treatment is worth it for even the smallest chance it works.
Re: (Score:2)
A key point is that no matter how you answer (including never to every question), they offer you a "doctor discussion guide", basically a how to coach your doctor to prescribe our expensive drug guide.
Try it... (Score:2)
They need to try it on Biden.
Re: (Score:2)
Shutta your Face and Takka the Drugs (Score:2)
Shaddapa your face and takka the drugs. Obviously yous needs them.
good advice (Score:2)