Infinita is building early clinical access pathways for biotech acceleration such as Prospera and Montana SB535. This is the Infinita community's main channel for news, podcast episodes, event announcements & more.
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Ep. 119: Jess Flanigan on Why Patients Should Be Able to Choose Their Own Medicine
Jess Flanigan is a philosopher at the University of Richmond, where she holds the Richard L. Morrill Chair in Ethics and Democratic Values. She is the author of Pharmaceutical Freedom, which argues that patients should have the right to choose their own medicines, not just refuse them. Her work covers human challenge trials, seatbelt mandates, billionaires, and charismatic leadership, and she has won Richmond’s top awards for both teaching and scholarship.
Today, she is also part of the Montana Experimental Treatment Review Board (ETRB), where she serves as the bioethics and patients’ rights member.
More about Jess Flanigan’s work:
* Pharmaceutical Freedom (https://academic.oup.com/book/5869)
* Jessica Flanigan personal website (https://www.jessflanigan.com/research)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitatimes.com (https://www.infinitatimes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
8 Oct 2026
Ep. 118: Holly Fernandez on the Ethics and Practice of Pre-Approval Drug Access through Expanded Access vs. Right-to-Try
Holly Fernandez Lynch is is Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Law at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the most influential voices in US bioethics on questions of clinical trial ethics, patient access, and research participant compensation. Holly was an opponent of the 2017 federal right-to-try act, joined Niklas to debate the problems with right-to-try vs. expanded access, and the potential merits and risks of Montana’s approach.
Montana goes beyond federal right-to-try by dropping the life-threatening-disease requirement and lifting the ban on profit. Is a passed phase 1 trial enough protection against snake oil, how is paying a patient to access an unapproved treatment different from paying a research participant to accept risk, and can the data this generates might count as real evidence, or would it be just used as an excuse to skip the FDA process?
More about Holly Fernandez Lynch’s work:
* Holly on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly-fernandez-lynch/?isSelfProfile=false)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com (https://www.infinitacitytimes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
24 Sept 2026
Ep. 117: John Cochrane on Rethinking Healthcare, Markets, Regulation & the FDA
John Cochrane, economist and professor of finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business and fellow at the Hoover Institution, joins the podcast to discuss the first principles of healthcare regulation. John debunks three arguments most commonly used to justify heavy healthcare regulation: that the poor need protection, that patients lack the information to choose well, and that people in a health crisis can’t shop around. Instead under a free market solutions such as private certification and insurance would price in the risk for consumers, bundle and unbundle better options up like in airlines, retail and other consumer industries.
More about John Cochrane’s work:
* After the ACA: Freeing the Market for Health Care (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e6033a4ea02d801f37e15bb/t/5edfd923ac93325534bf13a8/1591728419897/after_aca.pdf)
* “Free Market Vaccines” on Cochrane’s blog (https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/12/free-market-vaccines.html)
* John on X (https://x.com/JohnHCochrane)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com (https://www.infinitacitytimes.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
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