Biomedical Innovation and Health Reform

An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by John C. Lechleiter, CEO of Eli Lilly & Company, is recommended reading.  He makes some important points about how health reform needs to encourage biomedical innovation if we are to control costs by combating the economic impact of disease.  As Mr. Lechleiter writes:

Biomedical innovation is not incompatible with the health-care reform goals of universal access, quality improvement and cost control. On the contrary, without new, more effective medicines — along with new devices and diagnostic tools, and better treatments and surgical techniques — it will be impossible for larger numbers of Americans to obtain better health care at a manageable cost.