Bill Gorham MAR 5 1973
SRN
Wi, Bill.

I'm sorry our correspondence feded away
since your return from the Greek cruise last
summer. All the usual reasons; and Nixon's
carpet=-bombing of NIH the last few months all
the more. I don't often get to Washington,
except for hasty overnigitts; but I look for some
exceptions-- and hope you might turn up the
corresponding.

I will be on sn NAS "FORUM" panel on May 15,
concerning risk-benefit analyses in drug safety,
and the overall economics of drug development;
and I think this might impinge on your own
interests end methodology. In fact, I badly
need help-~ how to "price" benefits (+ and -)

in the fece of the kind of uncertainty that
attends s)drug hazards, b) drug benefits, end

c) the intangible, second-order effects of regu-
latory behavior on patterns of investment in
drug R&D. Any leads or parallels you might
have to suggest would be most welcome. (I know
the liéepeture in the N&E/COPEP "Perspectives

on benefit-risk decision meking" reasonably well)

(And if yeu could perticipate in the audience thet
day, that would be a benefit too.)

It seems almost inevitable thet we have to

netionelize drug R&D if the regulatory procedures
(which seem only slightly too restrictive) ere
going to meke the payoffs so problematical, and
so long deferred, that private capital won't
invest (and the public rarely allows full pro-
fit-teking when a health-rehated investment
pays off.) But do we have any encouraging pre-
dedents for efficient and feir resource-alloca-
tion ameng major technological alternatives,
comparable to the choices that industry now
makes on drugs, by public agencies? D OD?