normative

AMCs can fund unpatentable but valuable innovation

Advance market commitments could address cases where socially beneficial innovation lacks a patent-based incentive — like testing whether mannose (an unpatentable generic sugar) could selectively starve tumors, or developing absent vaccines like Lyme disease — because no actor has the incentive to fund the work despite potential large benefit.

normativepending

Speaker

Patrick Collison

Evidence Quote

Mannose is like a generic sugar... importantly, you couldn't patent it. So it's not clear who has the incentive to even fund the work to test, whether or not this would actually work in practice... there are things of this shape

Source

Patrick Collison — Why Silicon Valley's most talented should leaveDwarkesh Patel Podcast
Created: 6/13/2026, 3:26:23 AM

My Notes

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