Kalshi Expands to Biotech; Biogen Alzheimer's Drug Debated
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- Kalshi announced it is expanding its prediction-market platform into biotech, allowing users to bet on the outcomes of clinical trials and FDA drug reviews.
- Jonathan Kimmelman, a bioethicist at McGill University who has researched prediction in clinical trials, joins the podcast to discuss ethical issues raised by the expansion.
- Biogen presented mid-stage clinical trial data for an experimental tau-lowering Alzheimer's drug that reduced tau protein levels and slowed the rate of cognitive decline in patients.
- The Biogen trial data also raised unresolved questions that left experts and investors actively debating the drug's future, according to the source.
- The episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms, hosted under the title 'The Readout LOUD.'
Why it matters: Kalshi's entry into biotech means clinical trial results and FDA decisions will soon be tradeable in real time — a development a bioethicist studying prediction in trials is already being brought in to scrutinize. For Biogen, the mixed mid-stage data puts its tau drug at a crossroads where investor confidence and expert skepticism are openly clashing over whether the cognitive benefit is real enough to advance.
