Patents harm medical innovation, only prizes solve

The current system for supporting innovation in the area of medical technologies is costly, inefficient, and leads to underutilization of new inventions, as well as unequal access. It is possible to do a better job of managing the current system, but it is also possible to radically refashion the approach, to provide for more innovation and more access, at a smaller cost. Unlike other reforms in the health care sector that rely upon rationing of access to control costs, the use of prizes to reward innovation would expand access and increase investments in areas where innovation is most important. It is not easy to change existing systems of innovation, but neither is it easy not to change. It is difficult to imagine a more expensive system of innovation that produces so little in terms of new medicines and vaccines. A reform of the reward system for new medicines has enormous potential to enhance innovation and access, not only in the United States, but everywhere. Those who object to change should have the burden of justifying the costly system of monopolies that we struggle with today.