Bio:
Those are good true life stories. I am old enough to relate to the PT Barnum story for sure.
If I may, I will add to your post another element that may be illustrated by analogies of what goes on in nature. A Puffer Fish blows itself up to protect itself when it is threatened or frieghtened. Some animals protect themslves by making themselves look bigger by fluffing up their fur. Bears do this plus they stand up on their hind legs to make themselves look bigger and more powerful. When agnry they growl, pound the ground and sometimes they charge whatever is bothering. They may charge and retreat.
The way Biogen has been acting is strange as you surmised prior to AAIC 2018 and as you continue to do so now. It may be that Biogen feels threatened. It may be that it is desperate about its Alzheimer's pipeline. As you observe, we do not know the exact reason why Biogen did what it did relative to its Alzheimer drug on the eve of AAIC 2018, but we do know that it was an embarrassing flop. Much evidence shows that what Biogen published was sketchy, hurried, and plainly sloppy. Biogen opened itself and its drug up to criticism and it got it from experts and others. That cannot go unnoticed by the FDA and regulatory authorities in other parts of the world.
So, what we do know is that Biogen's ploy failed. Biogen attempted to use AAIC 2018 as an opportunity to make its Alzheimer's drug look like a big deal through a lot of huff, puff and fluff, but it failed. Perhaps its failure is a good thing -- for the benefit of patients and others such as Anavex and Christopher Missling. It does make Christopher look even more like a "Trusted Member of Industry".
