U.S. House of Representatives hearing on tax policy impacts on the commercial application of renewable energy technology

The crisis in financing is having a chilling effect on biomedical innovation. As discussed in my last column, the main problem in our industry is that the sheer cost of drug development has become almost prohibitively expensive, effectively pricing almost everyone but the largest companies out of the market.

New data show that health spending over the past several years has been normalizing toward the rate of general inflation, rather than growing higher and higher, as had been the case almost continuously since the 1970s.

While biopharmaceutical companies may be thought of as mission oriented, they are almost certainly the poster children for adaptation. They need to focus on finding the most pressing relevant issues to help their patients.

If Romney were more adept and philosophically grounded, he could make the case that he’s the guy to turn around government. You can hear him trying, but he’s not there yet.

How can we reshape failing aspects of the traditional postsecondary system? What might we learn from emerging entrepreneurial providers?

Policymakers at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue want to get the American economy growing again. Growth can lower unemployment, and it can yield the revenues needed to fill federal coffers. The key to robust economic growth is innovation. So how do we get it?

By keeping the focus on better health for real people, perhaps we’ll develop both the humility to recognize how little we still understand as well as the drive to ensure — and emphatically demand — that our advances ultimately wind up not only in papers, but also in patients.