I don’t think so, no, in part because I don’t think that there’s a linear relationship between hypothesized market size and the like likelihood of a product being developed. A breast cancer vaccine could be worth like a hundred billion dollars, but of course, there are real scientific obstacles there. Maybe we can get something like a universal breast cancer vaccine some day, but in the mean time, it seems rather absurd to argue that chemotherapy is net harmfulbecause it suppresses the need for vaccine development.
Weight loss represents an enormous industry in the US. This has been true for decades. (Not devoting a lot of time to research, I found this figure cited in an FTC report based on research by the Atlanta Business Chronicle: ” consumers spent an estimated $34.7 billion in 2000 on weight-loss products and programs.”) But development of obesity drugs has been extremely difficult — historically, “a bottomless pit into which people shove money and time,” according to one journalist. In other words, there’s far more than market size at play.
That a relatively small number of kidney donors somehow suppress (tens of?) billions of dollars worth of value does not seem plausible to me, and moreover, I still don’t think that extra hypothetical market size is likely to substantially influence whether artificial organ transplants are developed faster.
I don’t think so, no, in part because I don’t think that there’s a linear relationship between hypothesized market size and the like likelihood of a product being developed. A breast cancer vaccine could be worth like a hundred billion dollars, but of course, there are real scientific obstacles there. Maybe we can get something like a universal breast cancer vaccine some day, but in the mean time, it seems rather absurd to argue that chemotherapy is net harmful because it suppresses the need for vaccine development.
Weight loss represents an enormous industry in the US. This has been true for decades. (Not devoting a lot of time to research, I found this figure cited in an FTC report based on research by the Atlanta Business Chronicle: ” consumers spent an estimated $34.7 billion in 2000 on weight-loss products and programs.”) But development of obesity drugs has been extremely difficult — historically, “a bottomless pit into which people shove money and time,” according to one journalist. In other words, there’s far more than market size at play.
That a relatively small number of kidney donors somehow suppress (tens of?) billions of dollars worth of value does not seem plausible to me, and moreover, I still don’t think that extra hypothetical market size is likely to substantially influence whether artificial organ transplants are developed faster.