Aducanumab goes to Davos

Today, beneath the snow and snipers in Switzerland, attendees of the World Economic Forum are going to hear Biogen’s controversial case for an Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

CEO Michel Vounatsos will be the sole drug-industry voice on a Davos panel called “Assessing the options for Alzheimer’s,” joined by the head of the NIH, the CEO of AARP, and the leader of “Asia’s leading STEM-focused media company.” The conversation will almost surely turn to aducanumab, Biogen’s debatably effective treatment for Alzheimer’s that will soon come under the scrutiny of regulators the world over.

Davos is aimed at people with private jets who pay for poverty cosplay, and thus its panel discussions don’t tend toward controversy. But it sure would be interesting to hear what AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins thinks about seniors potentially paying thousands of dollars a year for a drug that might not work, or what NIH Director Francis Collins thinks about Biogen’s scientific case for aducanumab. You never know.

The session starts at 8:45 ET, and you can find it on the conference website.