The Wash­ing­ton Post points the fin­ger at Pfiz­er for stay­ing mum about an Alzheimer’s study. But there’s more to the sto­ry than that

The Wash­ing­ton Post on Tues­day raised some provoca­tive ques­tions about Pfiz­er’s R&D op­er­a­tions, pub­lish­ing a sto­ry that spot­lights their re­view of re­search an in­ter­nal group did that il­lus­trat­ed their block­buster drug En­brel could be ef­fec­tive in treat­ing Alzheimer’s — the ul­ti­mate Holy Grail in an in­dus­try that has lav­ished bil­lions of dol­lars on drug pro­grams in search of some­thing that could be used to bat back the dis­ease.

This is a sto­ry of a big, bad com­pa­ny and its ex­ecs who had their own self­ish rea­sons for not pur­su­ing the re­search them­selves. The drug is head­ed off-patent, say some un­named crit­ics, and why would Pfiz­er care to spend the mon­ey need­ed to test the the­o­ry that an an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry could re­duce risk of Alzheimer’s if it couldn’t stand to prof­it?

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