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Privatizing biomedical research—a 'third way'

Nature Biotechnology volume 26, pages 31–36 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The allocation of risks and benefits of publicly sponsored biomedical research is becoming increasingly skewed toward for-profit entities and against the public interest. A legitimate solution to this imbalance would be to levy compulsory government royalty fees on commercial products made possible by public efforts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank David Wolfe, Tim McTiernan and Moin Yahya for valuable comments at varying stages. This work was supported by grants to the authors from the CIHR and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (R.B.), Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute, Génome Québec and the Ontario Cancer Research Network ARCTIC project (T.L., R.B.), and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (T.L.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ron A. Bouchard is at the Faculties of Law and Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, 89th Avenue and 111th Street, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H5,

    Ron A Bouchard

  2. Trudo Lemmens is at the Faculties of Law and Medicine, University of Toronto, 78 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2C5.,

    Trudo Lemmens

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Correspondence to Ron A Bouchard.

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Bouchard, R., Lemmens, T. Privatizing biomedical research—a 'third way'. Nat Biotechnol 26, 31–36 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0108-31

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