If you could invest $56 billion each year in improving health care for older adults, how would you spend it? On a hugely expensive medication with questionable efficacy — or something else?
This isn’t an abstract question. Aduhelm, a new Alzheimer’s drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration last month, could be prescribed to 1 million to 2 million patients a year, even if conservative criteria were used, according to Biogen and Eisai, the companies behind the drug.