Over the past two decades medical innovation has helped to increase life expectancy, contain health spending growth and improve the quality of life for patients throughout the world by reducing hospitalization and allowing people to remain active and productive as they age. However, increasingly, in many developed countries, barriers to innovation such as price controls, inefficient regulatory reviews and access restrictions are making it more difficult for patients to exploit the benefits of medial innovation.

A recent analysis of over 40,000 patents that were all filed in three jurisdictions, Europe, the United States and Japan between 1988 and 1995 reveals the extent to which America dominates global medical research and development. During this period, the United States was home to the inventors of more than half of the health-related patents filed in all three of these jurisdictions.

The United States is one of few countries in the world that has continued to support the medical research and development that produces innovative procedures, diagnostic tests and pharmaceuticals by providing free market conditions that allow innovation to be rewarded. The result is that most of the global medical research effort continues to shift to the United States and patients throughout the world rely on American medical R&D for tomorrow’s treatments and cures.