Big Government Stifles Biomedical Research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should make all federally funded biomedical and health research publicly available within six months of publication.

In recent years, the rate at which we translate basic biomedical discoveries into novel therapies has stagnated. In fact, despite a doubling of the federal budget for biomedical research and development, the number of new drug approvals fell from 53 in 1996 to 19 in 2009, and though 800,000 medical research papers helping to identify novel therapeutic targets were published in 2008, a paltry 21 new drugs found their way to the market.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the primary contributor to this so-called “Valley of Death” is “the centralization of authority within large, inherently cautious bureaucracies in government, universities, foundations, and companies…[which] disregar[d]…the diversity of approaches that are necessary for innovation.” This hyper-centralization exists in part because scientists, physicians, and biotech entrepreneurs lack access to cutting-edge research developments and data -- currently monopolized by large research institutions in government, academia, and industry -- to materialize their ideas...