{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T06:50:51Z","timestamp":1791355851432,"version":"4.3.1"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1791331200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J. Law. Med. Ethics"],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>The $850,000 price for the gene therapy Luxturna is often framed as a story of private profiteering from publicly funded science. This paper challenges that narrative. Pharmaceuticals are a hit-driven industry: most projects fail, so the few successes must earn revenues well in excess of their own direct costs if the portfolio as a whole is to attract investment. Precision medicine intensifies this logic through two core economic challenges: (1) the \u201csticker shock\u201d of one-time cures, which compress decades of value into a single payment, creating a financing problem more than a value problem; and (2) the \u201ctargeting dilemma,\u201d in which precisely targeting drugs to smaller patient groups shrinks the market, requiring higher rewards per treated patient to maintain incentives to innovate. Rather than simply controlling prices, the paper proposes a policy toolkit that includes amortizing payments over time, bundling diagnostics with drugs and insurance, and streamlining regulation to lower development costs. The aim is to preserve innovation while expanding patient access.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/jme.2026.10294","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T06:05:39Z","timestamp":1791353139000},"page":"1-4","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The Price of a Cure: Luxturna and the Economic Dilemmas of Precision Medicine"],"prefix":"10.1017","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2200-2851","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alex","family":"Tabarrok","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/02jqj7156","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"George Mason University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"S1073110526102940_r1","volume-title":"Luxturna: Monograph Series on the Development of Biomedical Innovations","author":"Love","year":"2021"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1257\/aer.20131176"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r12","unstructured":"12. Lakdawalla, and Sood, , \u201cInnovation and the Welfare Effects of Public Drug Insurance.\u201d"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r23","volume-title":"The Case for Clinical Trial Abundance","author":"Chertman","year":"2024"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/0033553041382166"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r26","unstructured":"26. Love, et al., Luxturna."},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.healthpol.2021.11.005"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2202\/1558-9544.1102"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r11","unstructured":"11. Jones, and Summers, , \u201cA Calculation of the Social Returns to Innovation.\u201d"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r17","article-title":"The Effects of Pharmaceutical Innovation on Cancer Mortality Rates","author":"Dubois","year":"2016","journal-title":"Toulouse School of Economics"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/0033553041502144"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/rfs\/hhab024"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpubeco.2008.11.003"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1377\/hlthaff.2020.00284"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpubeco.2012.10.003"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r9","unstructured":"9. Philipson, and Jena, , \u201cWho Benefits from New Medical Technologies?\u201d"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.abg0889"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r3","volume-title":"Modern Principles of Economics","author":"Cowen","year":"2024"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r10","article-title":"Schumpeterian Profits in the American Economy: Theory and Measurement","author":"Nordhaus","year":"2004","journal-title":"National Bureau of Economic Research"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r22","unstructured":"22. Tabarrok, , \u201cGenetic Testing;\u201d Cochrane, \u201cTime-Consistent Health Insurance.\u201d"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r19","unstructured":"19. Murphy, and Topel, , \u201cThe Value of Health and Longevity.\u201d The original figures are in 2004 dollars over a year-2000 population base. Updating for prices (approximately 1.77), population (approximately 1.21), and real income per capita (approximately 1.34, raised to an income elasticity of 0.6 to 1.33) gives a multiplier of 2.6 to 3.2. Murphy and Topel\u2019s own calibration implies the upper end."},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2202\/1558-9544.1005"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMsa054744"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r25","volume-title":"Free to Choose Medicine: How Faster Access to New Drugs Would Save Countless Lives and End Needless Suffering","author":"Madden","year":"2010"},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r2","unstructured":"2. Bruce-Lockhart, Chelsea and Terazono, Emiko , \u201cFrom Bean to Cup, What Goes into the Cost of Your Coffee?,\u201d Financial Times, June 4, 2019, https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/44bd6a8e-83a5-11e9-9935-ad75bb96c849 (last visited August 19, 2026)."},{"key":"S1073110526102940_r24","volume-title":"The Cure in the Code: How 20th Century Law Is Undermining 21st Century Medicine","author":"Huber","year":"2013"}],"container-title":["Journal of Law, Medicine &amp; Ethics"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S1073110526102940","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]],"date-time":"2026-10-07T06:05:43Z","timestamp":1791353143000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S1073110526102940\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]]},"references-count":26,"alternative-id":["S1073110526102940"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/jme.2026.10294","relation":{},"ISSN":["1073-1105","1748-720X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1073-1105","type":"print"},{"value":"1748-720X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,7]]}}}