Abstract
Patient-driven drug development is an emerging approach to pharmaceutical research that is forged in rare-disease communities and patient advocacy networks. Patients and their advocates increasingly engage in drug discovery and influence early-stage drug research as clinical trial participants or through compassionate-use programs. Some advocacy groups and patients also influence which therapies are developed by financing promising treatments that otherwise would not secure funding. Though some critics of patient-driven drug development worry about the ethical and scientific implications of this new approach to research, it also has several advantages over the current system. In this essay I argue that patient-driven drug development is morally permissible.
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Flanigan, J. (2017). Patient-Driven Drug Development. In: Ho, D. (eds) Philosophical Issues in Pharmaceutics. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 122. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0979-6_2
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