High Net Worth Individuals Will Support Medical Research in a Big Way, But Only in Fields Already Mainstream

In this day and age, the biggest difference a billionaire can make to the near future is to fund medical research. The costs of that research are falling rapidly with progress across the board in biotechnology, and the foundation for transformative new medicine can be created with a fraction of one billionaire's net worth, if spent wisely. Perhaps a bigger incentive in some cases than making the world a better place is that research can move from start to finish rapidly enough for those who fund it to benefit. We all age and suffer from age-related disease in the same way, no matter what our net worth, and everyone wins or everyone loses together in the game of medical development. Thus there is every incentive for someone with enough money to make a difference to take aim at the medical conditions that he or she will likely suffer in the decades ahead, and in doing so fix the problem for everyone. In a way it is very surprising that so few people do this. That, I think, is changing slowly, however. A realization of the potential for near future medicine to effectively treat aging and age-related disease is spreading, even though most people pay little attention to this sort of thing until they need something done. Of course while the cost of research in the life sciences has fallen dramatically, the cost of regulatory compliance and commercial development has gone the other way. There remain tremendous problems and costs once at the stage of clinical translation, all ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs