Patient-Funded Trials: Opportunity or Liability?

Danielle Marie Wenner, Jonathan Kimmelman, Alex John London, Patient-Funded Trials: Opportunity or Liability?, Cell Stem Cell, Volume 17, Issue 2, 6 August 2015, Pages 135-137, ISSN 1934-5909, doi:10.1016/j.stem.2015.07.016.

The goals of Patient-Funded Trials to empower patients, expand available research resources, and accelerate the pace of translation are worthy and important objectives. Because the current system lacks regulations or incentives that constructively channel the desires of patients, the ardor of investigators, and the profit motives of host clinics, this funding model harbors important liabilities for both patients and the broader clinical research enterprise.