Research Library

Data on revenues by payer type are used to identify the determinants of rising hospital prices in Texas between 2000 and 2007. By Vivian Ho, Jerome Dugan and Meei-Hsiang Ku-Goto.

Neglected tropical diseases are a significant public health problem in some parts of the southern U.S., including Texas, says Peter Hotez, fellow in disease and poverty.

For both generic and patented cancer drugs, the free-market economy has not worked well. Solutions are needed to maintain reasonable drug prices that allow for corporate profits and are affordable to patients and to the U.S. health care system.

In a recent commentary, Baker Institute science and technology policy experts described two international court cases that aimed to define “research” — and that ultimately arrived at two different answers. “What makes this interesting is that the courts’ definition of ‘research’ was based on politics — what the court wanted the end result to be,” said Kirstin Matthews, the institute’s fellow in science and technology policy. To reach a decision prohibiting human embryonic stem cell (hESC) patents, the EU court ruled that “research” occurs in a continuum. To reach a decision supporting federal funding of stem cell research, the U.S. court ruled that “research” involves a specific project.

In a genuine effort to protect patients from adverse events, regulatory burdens and research rigidity in clinical trials have increased to a point at which such protection is outweighing the benefits, and actually harming patients who are unable to be involved in clinical trials.

Allowing the producer-dominated market to set drug prices has spiraled the cost of cancer drugs out of control. Drug pricing can be reduced while preserving the profit-making incentive, by linking price to a true measure of quality: preservation and meaningful prolongation of life.

Rice students explore public policy in a new Baker Institute course featuring lectures from 19 fellows and scholars; and NBC health correspondent Robert Bazell joins the institute as the new nonresident fellow in science and technology policy.

The United States should assign a particularly high priority on science and technology over the next four years, especially for federal support of research.