Morning Rounds - STAT

Morning Rounds - STAT

Inside STAT: Sean Parker shares his perspective on drug pricing, science in China

Sean Parker is famous for his role as Facebook's first president and Napster's co-founder, but these days, the billionaire philanthropist has turned his attention to science. STAT's Rick Berke recently spoke with Parker about a range of issues in the field. Here's a few snippets of their conversation, which STAT Plus subscribers can read in full here.

• On federal research funding: “We should be doubling the budget of the NIH and the NCI. This is the engine that’s fueling American innovation.”
• On life sciences in China: “A failure to invest in new science could really impair our competitiveness — we would lose our market-leading position. China is doubling down on life sciences.”
• On drug pricing: “The way you bring down drug pricing is you make it easier to get drugs to market and you incentivize companies that are pricing drugs appropriately, and you create as much competition as possible between companies.”