📈 Alzheimer's amyloid hypothesis was built on fraud - the anti-amyloid franchise busts
The foundational 2006 Nature amyloid-beta paper that set the direction of Alzheimer's research is shown to contain forged Western-blot images after steering roughly $1.5B of NIH grants and billions more of private funding into anti-amyloid programs. Biogen's FDA-approved anti-amyloid drug already has no convincing efficacy data and no clinical uptake, so the anti-amyloid Alzheimer's franchise and the names levered to it get repriced while funding rotates toward alternative causal theories (viral/infectious precursors, mitochondrial dysfunction).
0
CONVICTION
peaked 48.4 WATCH
DORMANT
band
▼ SHORT BIIB
expression · bearish equities
MISS
outcome · R -23.3% · α -36.0%
2023-07-29
window closed
⚠ CONFLICTING IDEA ON THE SAME TICKER
— the board is arguing with itself; net it before trading (ticker view →)
LLY ·
Retatrutide: Lilly's premium peptide upgrade path
LONG
EMBER 29.0
← stronger than this idea (7.4)
⚖ Why this verdict
fully deterministic — evaluate.py replays this from daily closes; nothing below is editable or hand-set
- Window: 2022-07-29 → 2023-07-29 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
- The call: ▼ SHORT BIIB (primary play). BIIB rose 23.3% over the window → direction-adjusted R = -23.3% (the call lost money).
- Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +12.7%
→ α = -23.3 − (+12.7) = -36.0%
— what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the verdict uses.
Stock-selection read: -10.6% — did BIIB move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call was right about direction relative to the index but still cost money versus holding it.
- Rule fired:
· HIT — R ≥ +10% AND α ≥ +5· PARTIAL — R ≥ +5% OR α ≥ 0▶ MISS — everything else
- Credit: supporters of a MISS earn 0 each, opposers the inverse — this feeds the scoreboard weights. supported: Chamath, Friedberg
Conviction timeline
bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15
Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2022-07-29)
Plays
| expression | symbol | kind | relevance | rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▼ SHORT | BIIB | stock | PRIMARY | Aduhelm is the anti-amyloid asset the besties name directly; Friedberg says the data shows it does not work and 'the market has collapsed' |
| ▼ SHORT | LLY | stock | adjacent | donanemab is Lilly's own anti-amyloid bet, though the exposure is heavily diluted inside a mega-cap pharma |
| ▼ SHORT | PRTA | stock | adjacent | Prothena is the listed near-pure-play on anti-amyloid/anti-tau neurodegeneration programs, so it carries the thesis with the most beta - small-cap, so treat as high-variance |
Mention log
Friedberg
equities w=0.87 · n=120
· E89 (2022-07-29) · explicit_prediction · strength 3
▶ 1:08:55
SUPPORT
“And now the drug is in the market. Biogen gets approval and people start taking it. And we're seeing the data. It doesn't work. And no one wants to use it. So the market has collapsed and you kind of go back to the origin.”
Chamath
equities w=0.84 · n=160
· E89 (2022-07-29) · explicit_prediction · strength 2
▶ 1:07:52
SUPPORT
“No, what I'm saying is the NIH budget per year for Alzheimer's and dementia is 1.9 billion. Half of it, if you look at the tags, if you just search the tags, half the money has gone into Alzheimer's disease, amyloid beta.”
Who built this conviction
each voice's total force on the score — supports and opposes from every mention, weighted exactly as the replay applied them · share = % of all mention-driven movement
⏳ decay drained -41.0 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one
Score events
| episode | kind | Δ | after | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E89 2022-07-29 | init | +36.4 | 36.4 | E89 born by Friedberg (explicit_prediction x3) [w=0.87] |
| E89 2022-07-29 | reinforce | +12.0 | 48.4 | E89 Chamath support x2 (new voice) [w=0.84] |
| E90 2022-08-05 | decay | -1.9 | 46.5 | E90 silent |
| E91 2022-08-13 | decay | -1.9 | 44.6 | E91 silent |
| E92 2022-08-20 | decay | -1.8 | 42.8 | E92 silent |
| E93 2022-08-26 | decay | -1.7 | 41.1 | E93 silent |
| E94 2022-09-01 | decay | -1.6 | 39.5 | E94 silent |
| E95 2022-09-10 | decay | -1.6 | 37.9 | E95 silent |
| E96 2022-09-17 | decay | -1.5 | 36.4 | E96 silent |
| E97 2022-09-23 | decay | -1.5 | 34.9 | E97 silent |
| E98 2022-10-01 | decay | -1.4 | 33.5 | E98 silent |
| E99 2022-10-07 | decay | -1.3 | 32.2 | E99 silent |
| E100 2022-10-14 | decay | -1.3 | 30.9 | E100 silent |
| E101 2022-10-22 | decay | -1.2 | 29.6 | E101 silent |
| E102 2022-10-29 | decay | -1.2 | 28.5 | E102 silent |
| E103 2022-11-05 | decay | -1.1 | 27.3 | E103 silent |
| E105 2022-11-19 | decay | -1.1 | 26.2 | E105 silent |
| E106 2022-12-03 | decay | -1.0 | 25.2 | E106 silent |
| E107 2022-12-10 | decay | -1.0 | 24.2 | E107 silent |
| E108 2022-12-16 | decay | -1.0 | 23.2 | E108 silent |
| E109 2022-12-24 | decay | -0.9 | 22.3 | E109 silent |
| E110 2023-01-06 | decay | -0.9 | 21.4 | E110 silent |
| E111 2023-01-13 | decay | -0.9 | 20.5 | E111 silent |
| E112 2023-01-20 | decay | -0.8 | 19.7 | E112 silent |
| E113 2023-01-27 | decay | -0.8 | 18.9 | E113 silent |
| E114 2023-02-04 | decay | -0.8 | 18.2 | E114 silent |
| E115 2023-02-11 | decay | -0.7 | 17.4 | E115 silent |
| E116 2023-02-17 | decay | -0.7 | 16.7 | E116 silent |
| E118 2023-03-03 | decay | -0.7 | 16.1 | E118 silent |
| E119 2023-03-11 | decay | -0.6 | 15.4 | E119 silent |
| E120 2023-03-17 | decay | -0.6 | 14.8 | E120 silent |
| E121 2023-03-24 | decay | -0.6 | 14.2 | E121 silent |
| E122 2023-03-31 | decay | -0.6 | 13.6 | E122 silent |
| E123 2023-04-07 | decay | -0.5 | 13.1 | E123 silent |
| E124 2023-04-14 | decay | -0.5 | 12.6 | E124 silent |
| E125 2023-04-21 | decay | -0.5 | 12.1 | E125 silent |
| E126 2023-04-28 | decay | -0.5 | 11.6 | E126 silent |
| E128 2023-05-12 | decay | -0.5 | 11.1 | E128 silent |
| E129 2023-05-19 | decay | -0.4 | 10.7 | E129 silent |
| E130 2023-05-26 | decay | -0.4 | 10.3 | E130 silent |
| E131 2023-06-02 | decay | -0.4 | 9.8 | E131 silent |
| E132 2023-06-10 | decay | -0.4 | 9.5 | E132 silent |
| E133 2023-06-16 | decay | -0.4 | 9.1 | E133 silent |
| E134 2023-06-24 | decay | -0.4 | 8.7 | E134 silent |
| E135 2023-07-01 | decay | -0.3 | 8.4 | E135 silent |
| E136 2023-07-09 | decay | -0.3 | 8.0 | E136 silent |
| E137 2023-07-14 | decay | -0.3 | 7.7 | E137 silent |
| E139 2023-07-27 | decay | -0.3 | 7.4 | E139 silent |