Am I My Cousin's Keeper? A Proposal to Protect Relatives of Genetic Database Subjects
April 29, 2021
Proposing a new regulatory mechanism, “Data Protection Review Boards” (“DPRB”), to balance genetic innovation and Users' privacy. Based on the model of Institutional Review Boards (“IRB”), that oversee the protection of human subjects in research, DPRBs would review data-sharing arrangements between database companies and other private entities with an exclusive focus on privacy risks to data subjects and their identifiable relatives.
Genetic Testing and Predictive Health Analytics
January 07, 2021
Featuring Sharona Hoffman, Case Western Reserve University
The ever-growing phenomenon of predictive health analytics is generating significant excitement, hope for improved health outcomes, and potential for new revenues. Researchers are developing algorithms to predict suicide, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cognitive decline, opioid abuse, cancer recurrence, and other ailments.
Integrating Health Innovation Policy
January 07, 2021
Featuring Rachel Sachs, Washington University
The United States healthcare system is highly fragmented. This fragmentation creates opportunities for multiple actors to make healthcare decisions that would be made better by a single actor, such as when patients receive care from many uncoordinated providers, or when patients move on and off of different insurance plans over time.
Balancing Wealth and Health
January 07, 2021
Featuring Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss
A talk about a book that focusses on the debates concerning aspects of intellectual property law that bear on access to medicines in a set of developing countries. Specifically, the contributors look at measures that regulate the acquisition, recognition, and use of patent rights on pharmaceuticals and trade secrets in data concerning them, along with the conditions under which these rights expire so as to permit the production of cheaper generic drugs.
The Cost of Novelty
November 23, 2020
Featuring Nicholson Price, University of Michigan Law School
Nicholson Price’s paper "The Cost of Novelty" argues that patent law advances new, rather than better. Market value, on which IP law relies, systematically values some goods differently than a social planner or a committee of scientists might.
The Case for Disclosure of Biologics Manufacturing Information
November 09, 2020
Featuring Yaniv Heled, Georgia State University School of Law
Yaniv Heled’s paper "The Case for Disclosure of Biologics Manufacturing Information" asks whether the law could require disclosure of manufacturing information of biologics. The discussion surrounds public use in data vs public good in incentivizing innovation by keeping information confidential.
Genetic Duties
October 28, 2020
Featuring Jessica Roberts, The University of Houston, Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute
Jessica Roberts’s paper "Genetic Duties" discusses genetic Variants of Uncertain Significance (i.e a finding that has been identified through genetic testing, but whose significance to the function or health of an organism is not known), whether patients should be informed about them once their significance is discovered, and whose duty it is to let patients know.