Business this week | The Economist
Jun 12th 2021
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The approval granted by America’s Food and Drug Administration to a new drug to combat Alzheimer’s disease was hailed as a breakthrough, even though the FDA conceded that the drug, aducanumab (to be marketed as Aduhelm), is not proven to work. It has shown success in reducing the build-up in the brain of a protein known as beta-amyloid, one of the possible causes of Alzheimer’s. Biogen must now conduct a large-scale clinical trial to determine whether it does also slow memory loss and cognitive decline.
A consortium of private-equity funds, which includes Blackstone, reached an agreement to take a majority stake in Medline, a privately held supplier of medical equipment. At $34bn the deal is one of the biggest ever buy-outs involving private equity.
The American Senate passed a mammoth bill that aims…
