BioBonds Would Use Wall St. Tools to Fund Medical Research
By Ephrat Livni
In the development of disease treatments, the stage between basic research and advanced clinical trials is known as “the valley of death.” While ample public grants fund early-stage research and pharmaceutical companies are willing to fund studies on proven solutions, research at the “translational” stage, when basic findings are applied to potential treatments, is notoriously difficult to finance. Some promising treatments are never pursued as a result. The pandemic made this perilous valley “a whole lot deeper,” said Karen Petrou, the co-founder and managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a financial services consulting firm in Washington that created a new financial instrument designed to help solve this problem. During the pandemic, clinical trials were halted, resources were diverted from labs, attention was focused on immediate needs, and much funding dried up. New research projects were difficult to kick-start….
