The Cure in the Code ― How 20th Century Law Is Undermining 21st Century Medicine

Medicine has become a true information industry, with drug designers able to read every molecular letter of life’s code ? DNA ? and create miracle drugs to control it. Our understanding of DNA has advanced to the point that we can now build a medical system tailored to individuals. But these advances in science will not automatically translate to better patient care, argues Manhattan Institute senior fellow Peter Huber. Now that medicine takes place on the molecular level, massive public health initiatives designed to attack infectious diseases are no longer necessary, and government intervention has instead become a burden: stifling innovation and strangling industries with bureaucracy. Further, due to its reluctance to embrace the statistical methods of the information age, Washington is ill-equipped to determine which drugs are safe and effective for which patients.

In The Cure in the Code, Huber demonstrates convincingly that we are at the beginning of a medical revolution with the potential to dramatically improve the length and quality of our lives?but only if we abandon a regulatory framework that's a relic of the past.

Peter Huber is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he specializes in issues of drug development, energy, technology, and the law, and is also a partner at the law firm of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.