Karim Lakhani, Network member and Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and partners at MIT, Harvard, CancerCommons.org and Global Cures organizing the Last Resort Clinic Working Group. The Working Group will explore “ways to treat terminally-ill patients through the use of novel and experimental therapies, drawing on the collaborative work of scientists around the world.”
“A ‘last resort clinic’ (LaRC) in which clinicians and bench scientists around the world collaborate intensively, in some cases remotely, and on a case-by-case basis to help save terminally ill patients, one at a time. This clinic would use the most advanced therapies, some of which are so experimental that they are based on as-yet-unpublished research and are not yet part of any clinical trial. Such therapies do exist, but the LaRC does not. Not yet.
We aim to establish a working group tasked with exploring the possibility of creating a LaRC by conducting applied research on the medical, financial, business, and legal challenges involved in launching and sustaining such an endeavor. The end product of this working group will be a business plan and/or supporting research documentation for a LaRC (or why such a business is not feasible).”
