Current Events > Why don't we set up a Super Fund for curing cancer and other goals?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sharing something I said in another topic, because this warrants a topic in itself. Basically I came across a really interesting concept in a book I was reading yesterday. A book called Adaptive Markets by Andrew Lo. Here's an article from 2012 about the concept:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/506916/economist-proposes-a-30-billion-megafund-for-new-cancer-drugs/

One of the premises towards the end of the book is that we could easily establish what he calls Super Funds / Mega Funds. Essentially, a massive crowd funding effort to amass some absurd sum like $30 billion that would be invested into a massive global fund. The fund would be dedicated solely to curing cancer, with investments going into any and every promising idea that might potentially cure cancer. That way we all share in the risk of any single investment, and the gains of any successful solutions that might emerge.

His argument was that we could easily amass that much money if we wanted to, and that it could be entrusted to experienced biotech investors and wealth managers. And that it'd be enough to guarantee that we get one or two cures for cancer.

And he was saying how we could then reinvest that massive fund into other ventures afterwards. And establish more of these funds, for any goal we have.
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Lmao if you think enough ppl will fund dis. Not only dat but da 1% of da 1% Will take like 98% of all dat
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I think people would contribute if we could just get a movement going. If every millionaire in America contributed $1,000 we'd have what...$11 billion in cash? And the rest of the population could contribute too, and we'd quickly get to $30 billion.

If we acquire the funds over a period of a few years and invest it and give it to proven wealth managers, it could be done. Then we could have a huge fund for curing cancer or w/e.
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seems kind of like an expensive bandaid for the problem of over-regulation and failures of IP law in drug markets
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Balrog0 posted...

seems kind of like an expensive bandaid for the problem of over-regulation and failures of IP law in drug markets

Or maybe crowdfunding at a global scale is the best way to accumulate capital for sustained investment so we can all share in the risks and the profits.

Hmmmm
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logistically crowdfunding on a global scale for some kind of tax efficient investment vehicle is nigh on impossible, regardless of the goals of the project

you'd find most of the investors in this fund would be big institutional investors like pension funds, endowments, etc

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Or maybe crowdfunding at a global scale is the best way to accumulate capital for sustained investment so we can all share in the risks and the profits.

why do you think that?
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

so we can all share in the risks and the profits.

We'd all benefit from being able to buy a cancer drug but there's no way you would share in the profits from a crowdsourcing project.

But we kinda have that already, it's called the stock market. Invest in whatever bio company you think is closest.
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Balrog0 posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Or maybe crowdfunding at a global scale is the best way to accumulate capital for sustained investment so we can all share in the risks and the profits.

why do you think that?

Because of how much money is floating out there, and because the global economy will likely continue to grow over the long term. So investing the super fund into the global economy ought to mean that it should grow and last a long time. Long enough for us to fund every promising anti-cancer effort until we find a cure. D:

If every millionaire contributed, instead of just America's millionaires, we'd easily amass the $30 billion Andrew Lo was aiming at.
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

so we can all share in the risks and the profits.

We'd all benefit from being able to buy a cancer drug but there's no way you would share in the profits from a crowdsourcing project.

But we kinda have that already, it's called the stock market. Invest in whatever bio company you think is closest.

I'd have to re-read the part of the book that talks about the cancer super fund because I glossed over the technical parts (since I'm not a finance major) but from what I understood people would literally be able to profit from it. In that there'd be a cure for cancer and also as a return on the dollars invested, once the winning solutions hit the market.

And the difference between a mega fund and the stock market is that there's too few investors / dollars chasing biotech companies right now, last I checked. At least according to the article I listed and what Andrew Lo mentioned in his book. A dedicated $30 billion fund would make short work of cancer.
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I don't get the structure of whatever you're talking about.

Are you saying people should pool money into a fund, to start just another new biotech company? Because again, we have those.
Or are you saying that super fund should be distributed between existing ones, presumably by buying into the companies, if this is what you're saying, how do you prevent fraud, waste, and determine allocation?

This is a half baked idea man.
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This is the sort of thing that sounds wonderful on paper but then you look out at the real world and the amount of money health care has become, especially for terminal disease. Even best case scenario without it being denied or sabotaged by outside interests (which there is a sadly a lot) you'll be creating a ripple effect that will screw with not only the economy (lots of people out of jobs) but population control as a whole (which we don't have a handle on even now).
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

I don't get the structure of whatever you're talking about.

Are you saying people should pool money into a fund, to start just another new biotech company? Because again, we have those.
Or are you saying that super fund should be distributed between existing ones, presumably by buying into the companies, if this is what you're saying, how do you prevent fraud, waste, and determine allocation?

This is a half baked idea man.

The latter. We amass $30 billion in cash and hire well-known and well-respected leaders in the industry to allocate funds to any and every promising idea that can cure cancer. Even if 99% of them fail, the 1% that won't fail will more than make up for the cash spent on the ones that failed.

We'd have to rely on proven wealth managers and biotech leaders to prevent fraud, waste, etc.
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yeah I mean I agree with AJ

of course you could solve whatever problem you want with $30b (maybe) but I don't get the appeal of this idea in particular

it isn't really feasible imo to try to use a super fund to solve all of these kind of problems so relaxing the regulatory apparatus of e.g., the FDA seems much more important to me towards the end of finding useful solutions to many things (and it would have the additional benefit of allowing for some more institutional diversity in who is seeking these problems than one large centralized fund which I personally appreciate)
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Balrog0 posted...

yeah I mean I agree with AJ

of course you could solve whatever problem you want with $30b (maybe) but I don't get the appeal of this idea in particular

it isn't really feasible imo to try to use a super fund to solve all of these kind of problems so relaxing the regulatory apparatus of e.g., the FDA seems much more important to me towards the end of finding useful solutions to many things (and it would have the additional benefit of allowing for some more institutional diversity in who is seeking these problems than one large centralized fund which I personally appreciate)

The $30 billion would be invested into the global market so that it grows. It wouldn't just stay at $30 billion. The idea would be to provide the best ideas for curing cancer with indefinite funding.

*shrug*
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there's also the uncomfortable matter that the person running the fund would be paid millions every year and the optics that surround that - and if you don't pay that person millions you won't get somebody good

FLUFFYGERM posted...

We'd have to rely on proven wealth managers and biotech leaders to prevent fraud, waste, etc.

Optimistic but sounds like a massive scam to pocket billions as their stake in the money.
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Trying to cure cancer is silly. PREVENTING cancer is what we need to do, and we don't do that because a single cancer patient can generate millions of dollars of revenue for a drug company from treatments.
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lesidesi posted...

there's also the uncomfortable matter that the person running the fund would be paid millions every year and the optics that surround that - and if you don't pay that person millions you won't get somebody good

Pay them millions per year if they increase the size of the fund. Tie their reward to the performance of the fund.
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

We'd have to rely on proven wealth managers and biotech leaders to prevent fraud, waste, etc.

Optimistic but sounds like a massive scam to pocket billions as their stake in the money.

Not if we tie their compensation to their performance the way large hedge funds do :O

r4X0r posted...

Trying to cure cancer is silly. PREVENTING cancer is what we need to do, and we don't do that because a single cancer patient can generate millions of dollars of revenue for a drug company from treatments.

Well if we can't trust the large drug companies and if we can't trust the regulatory bodies that are preventing new competition from entering the market, then why not try to fund an idea like this? Maybe we could actually cure it.
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

Tie their reward to the performance of the fund.

Performance of the fund =/= how well along the cure is. This would incentivize risk and profitability over cancer research.
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Pretty much a charity but the money is tied to some type of fund, like a mutual fund or something?
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FLUFFYGERM posted...

Well if we can't trust the large drug companies

I feel like this is getting into conspiracy territory. Are the arguments for this superfund ultimately going to boil down to, "current researchers don't want a cure"? Because if that's the case, this idea is beyond DOA.
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how to properly compensate and align the managers of the fund would undoubtedly be one of the most difficult parts of setting such a vehicle up. it's not as simple as just saying "tie compensation to performance" - you need to make sure managers are aligned on long term goals

as would how to properly set up the investment vehicle - such a determining capital liquidity - as the investments are long term in nature - it obviously wouldn't make sense for someone to be able to withdraw their capital at any time - you'd need to have pretty long term capital, which again means you need big institutional investors

lesidesi posted...

how to properly compensate and align the managers of the fund would undoubtedly be one of the most difficult parts of setting such a vehicle up. it's not as simple as just saying "tie compensation to performance" - you need to make sure managers are aligned on long term goals

which is more or less the current problem with the medical system anyway
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Tie their reward to the performance of the fund.

Performance of the fund =/= how well along the cure is. This would incentivize risk and profitability over cancer research.

The idea is that if there's a permanent amount of funding to allocate to any and every promising idea/team, we will get a cure sooner rather than later. Tying performance of the fun to the managers' compensation is necessary in order to secure the best wealth managers and in order to ensure that the fund continues to exist.

emblem boy posted...

Pretty much a charity but the money is tied to some type of fund, like a mutual fund or something?

Yeah, basically.

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

FLUFFYGERM posted...

Well if we can't trust the large drug companies

I feel like this is getting into conspiracy territory. Are the arguments for this superfund ultimately going to boil down to, "current researchers don't want a cure"? Because if that's the case, this idea is beyond DOA.

Eh I'm not sure. I think it's more likely the case that biotech angel investors aren't going to take on real risks, which is why funding isn't ideal.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2015/07/23/the-venture-funding-boom-in-biotech-a-few-things-its-not/#723056b23012

There's a venture funding boom in biotech but as mentioned in the article it's not really a boom tbqh.
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Blockchain will cure cancer
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lesidesi posted...

how to properly compensate and align the managers of the fund would undoubtedly be one of the most difficult parts of setting such a vehicle up. it's not as simple as just saying "tie compensation to performance" - you need to make sure managers are aligned on long term goals

as would how to properly set up the investment vehicle - such a determining capital liquidity - as the investments are long term in nature - it obviously wouldn't make sense for someone to be able to withdraw their capital at any time - you'd need to have pretty long term capital, which again means you need big institutional investors

Andrew Lo mentioned using government bonds in order to raise the long-term funding. Like how we did to finance war before.
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Turtlebread posted...

Blockchain will cure cancer

delusional cryptobros literally believe this btw
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2018/01/23/new-york-puts-up-100-million-asks-for-plans-for-a-biotech-hub/#35aec550392c

awwww yeeeeeh
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why don't we take the cancer and PUSH it somewhere else
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sounds pretty socialist because people who don't contribute will benefit from the research. the only way to make it "fair" (from a free market perspective) would be for everyone to contribute equally OR refuse the benefits of the research to those who didn't contribute, no?
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shockthemonkey with his trademark illiteracy and lack of context once again
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

sounds pretty socialist because people who don't contribute will benefit from the research. the only way to make it "fair" (from a free market perspective) would be for everyone to contribute equally OR refuse the benefits of the research to those who didn't contribute, no?

people who don't contribute to the development of smartphone apps benefit from them all the time. that's hardly socialist.
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