Reid Hoffman’s talk this week at Stanford (podcast and video available here) touched on several themes that collectively seem to comprise the Silicon Valley innovator ethos; most are relevant to healthcare and biopharma, and I agree with all his assertions except one.

(Hoffman, for...

Improved patient-focused measurement, while not perfect, could be profoundly enabling in the short term as well as beyond– but capturing this potential will require thoughtful science, involved patients, and inquisitive physicians, as well as the shared commitment to iterate and optimize around the common goal of improved health for real people.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued its majority report in January 2011, stating that the 2007-2010 crisis was "avoidable" and caused by widespread failures in financial regulation. Commission member Peter Wallison disagreed.

In order to prevent the next housing bubble, countercyclical loan-to-value limits in the form of increased down-payment requirements must be implemented in order to discourage the inrush of speculative inflation.

Improving healthcare will require increased focus on the gap between the clinical practice of medicine and health as it's experienced in real life.

We need good economics over politics, now more than ever. That means sensible tax reform, a Fed focus on maintaining liquidity, and rationalization of the European monetary system.

Wall Street stocks are rising again, but will a financial bounce boost the real economy in coming quarters?

In his latest Outlook, AEI scholar John Makin provides three lessons to be learned from the financial crisis to enable a quicker policy response to future crises.