Inequality in healthcare R&D outcomes: a model of process disruption

Abstract

The developing world has substantively different healthcare research and development (R&D) needs than the developed world. In this paper it is argued that healthcare inequality is primarily an outcome of the incentives of an innovation system that privileges wealthy markets. Given the difficulties inherent in challenging these incentive structures, it might be the R&D process itself (rather than its incentive structures) that, if disrupted, may ultimately improve access to R&D outcomes for poor populations. The objective of this paper is to spur novel thinking about the problem of healthcare inequality by developing a provocative conceptual model of healthcare R&D process disruption, based on the application of novel technologies to the research process itself, to radically lower the costs of R&D. The model developed here suggests that healthcare inequality might ultimately be mitigated by substantial reductions in time and cost in the biomedical R&D process made possible by novel technologies.