Skip to Content
How to Run a Hospital during a Pandemic image

How to Run a Hospital during a Pandemic: Hospital Administration Ethical and Legal Challenges in the Time of COVID-19

June 30, 2020

Event Description Hospital administration is complex during the best of times. Hospitals are now struggling to respond to the surge of COVID-19 patients, including obtaining enough PPE, ventilators, and other…

How Chaos at Chain Pharmacies Is Putting Patients at Risk: Pharmacists across the U.S. warn that the push to do more with less has made medication errors more likely. “I am a danger to the public,” one wrote to a regulator.

Ellen Gabler
New York Times

In letters to state regulatory boards and in interviews with The New York Times, many pharmacists at companies like CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens described understaffed and chaotic workplaces where…

‘A Supercenter for health’: Walmart places a big bet on cheaper, less intimidating primary care

Megan Theilking
STAT

[...] Interviews with Slovenski and other leading Walmart health executives revealed new details about the company’s strategy for the clinics, which it sees not only as a low-cost, less…

Hospitals Merged. Quality Didn’t Improve.: The quality of care at hospitals acquired during a recent wave of deal making got worse or stayed the same, new research found

Melanie Evans
Wall Street Journal

This article is behind a paywall. Harvard affiliates can access the full text via Hollis. The quality of care at hospitals acquired during a recent wave of deal making got…

Hospital Groups Sue to Block Price-Transparency Rule: Health-care providers say disclosure requirement pushed by Trump violates First Amendment

Stephanie Armour
Wall Street Journal

This article is behind a paywall. Harvard affiliates can access it via HOLLIS. Hospital groups sued to block a Trump administration rule forcing them to disclose secret rates, for the…

Optum To Provide More Than Half Of UnitedHealth’s 2020 Profits

Bruce Japsen
Forbes

[...] “With more than 50% of our earnings coming from Optum in 2020, it’s a good time to reflect on the accelerating impact diversification has had on the capacities of…

Health Law Workshop: Jacob T. Elberg: Corporate Health Care Enforcement at a Crossroads: Newly Available Data and the Need for Comprehensive False Claims Act Reform

December 2, 2019

Presentation Topic: "Corporate Health Care Enforcement at a Crossroads: Newly Available Data and the Need for Comprehensive False Claims Act Reform" About the Presenter Jacob T. Elberg is Associate Professor…

Once Upon A Time Everything Seemed Ready To Go For Trump’s E-Cigarette Flavor Ban.: Why Did He Reverse Course?

Kaiser Health News

KHN Morning Briefing: Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations President Donald Trump has been under intense lobbying pressure from the industry and faced warnings that there could…

How Vaping Snuck Up On Regulators

Jim Zarroli
NPR

[...] What's taken regulators so long? The passage of the Tobacco Control Act required the FDA to build an entire new regulatory infrastructure from scratch, and it faced numerous lawsuits…

FDA admits it goofed when granting orphan status to an opioid addiction treatment

Ed Silverman
STAT

In an unusual move, the Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged a mistake and revoked orphan drug status for an opioid addiction treatment that was approved two years ago, clearing…

Google to acquire Fitbit for $2.1 billion in major health tech deal

Megan Theilking and Rebecca Robbins
STAT

SAN FRANCISCO — Google parent company Alphabet announced on Friday it will buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion — a massive deal that will pit Google squarely against Apple (AAPL) in the…

China Effectively Bans Online Sales of E-Cigarettes: The move could effectively shut off one of the biggest markets for an industry that is facing pressure around the world.

Elsie Chen and Alexandra Stevenson
New York Times

SHANGHAI — China issued its starkest warning yet over electronic cigarettes, calling on the industry on Friday to stop selling and advertising the products online. Citing health concerns for minors,…

Research Associate (Health Care), The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School

Deadline: Open until filled.
Applicants should not reach out to Professor Porter directly.
>Read the full job posting and apply online!

Duties & Responsibilities The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (www.isc.hbs.edu) is a joint Institute of Harvard University and Harvard Business School, dedicated to supporting and extending the…

2019 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Consuming Genetics: Ethical and Legal Considerations of New Technologies

May 17, 2019
Watch Videos

Couldn't join us for the conference? Join the conversation on Twitter with #DTCgenome! And check out many of our speakers' slide presentations and our "Consuming Genetics" blog symposium! The…

Transparency in Health and Health Care in the United States

Holly Fernandez Lynch, I. Glenn Cohen, Carmel Shachar, and Barbara J. Evans (eds.)
Cambridge University Press

Read the full introduction online now! This edited volume stems from the Petrie-Flom Center’s 2017 annual conference, which brought together leading experts to reach better understandings of this health…

Provider Consolidation: Implications for Costs and Quality in Health Care Delivery: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

November 9, 2018

In the last decade, the traditional conception of individual physicians or medical groups has been increasingly replaced by consolidation under academic medical centers and other national or regional administrative organizations.…

Preventing Epidemics in a Connected World: Part of Outbreak Week at Harvard University

September 28, 2018
Watch Videos

Description Led by the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), Outbreak Week was a University-wide effort to commemorate the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people around the globe. As…

Health Law Workshop: Zack Buck

September 24, 2018

Presentation Download the Presentation: "The Price of Universality: Sustainable Access and the Twilight of the ACA" About the Presenter Zack Buck specializes in health law, and his scholarship examines governmental…

Health Law Workshop: Matthew J. B. Lawrence

September 17, 2018

Presentation Download the Presentation: "The Social Consequences Problem in Health Insurance and How to Solve It" About the Presenter Matthew J. B. Lawrence is Assistant Professor of Law at Penn…

The Networking Exchange at the Broad Institute

June 3, 2018

Description The Networking Exchange showcased life science technologies developed at universities, research institutions, and hospitals of Massachusetts. The event provided a range of opportunities to engage with Massachusetts technology licensing…

Sources and Consequences of High Drug Prices in the US: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

May 11, 2018

Description High drug costs reduce patient adherence and lead to worse outcomes. The process for translating a drug's price, set by the manufacturer, to cost paid by patients and…

The Future of the Affordable Care Act Following the Elimination of Cost-Sharing Reduction Payments

March 21, 2018

Michael Frakes is a Professor of Law at Duke Law School and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is generally interested in empirical research…

Rooting Out Health Care Fraud: Tales from the Front Line: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

March 9, 2018

Description By some measures, as much as 5% of health care spending can be linked to fraud, and dangerous practices from for-profit medical product companies have led to widespread negative health…

Tip of the Iceberg II: How the Intended-Uses Principle Produces Medical Knowledge and Protects Liberty

Christopher T. Robertson (Academic Fellow Alumnus) and Victor Laurien
11 NYU Journal of Law & Liberty 770

Abstract In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration’s pre-market approval process has come under increasing scrutiny as an infringement on liberty and a regulation of speech. In…

Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review

December 12, 2017
Watch Videos

Couldn't join us? Check out the conversation on Twitter: @PetrieFlom #healthlawpreview2018 and some of our speakers' slide presentations below! Description The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review…

Health Law Workshop: Allison K. Hoffman

November 13, 2017

Presentation Presentation: "Health Care’s Market Bureaucracy" This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for the workshop, please contact Jennifer Minnich at jminnich…

Fourth Annual Harvard-UCLA Food Law and Policy Conference: Food Innovation and the Law: Navigating the Next Frontier

October 13, 2017

The Food Law Lab at Harvard Law School and the Resnick Program for Food Law & Policy at UCLA School of Law hosted the 4th Annual Harvard-UCLA Food Law and…

What’s Next for the ACA?: A Lecture by Larry Levitt

October 3, 2017
Watch Videos

Larry Levitt delivered a lecture on the future of the Affordable Care Act and health care in America. Larry Levitt is Senior Vice President for Special Initiatives at the Kaiser…

Health Law Workshop: Alicia Ely Yamin

October 2, 2017

Presentation Topic: "Democracy, Health Systems and the Right to Health: Narratives of Charity, Markets and Citizenship" This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for…

As a competitor encroached, Mylan took one state to court to push EpiPen sales, documents

Ike Swetlitz, quoting Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow Alumna)
STAT News

From the article: Three lawyers who reviewed the case at the request of STAT said they could not think of another instance when a pharmaceutical company sued to protect the…

The Affordable Care Act: Past, Present, and Future: A lecture by William B. Schultz, General Counsel of HHS, 2011-2016

March 23, 2017
Watch Videos

Enacting universal healthcare was a 65 year project, which cost two Presidents control of Congress and jeopardized their chance for reelection. From the time the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010…

Research Associate - Healthcare, Harvard Business School

Deadline: Open until filled.
>Read full posting

Duties & Responsibilities The Research Associate works directly with Professor Michael Porter as one of his principal, full-time research associates. The role will focus almost exclusively on Professor Porter…

Health Law Workshop: Brendan Maher

February 13, 2017

About the Presenter Brendan S. Maher is a Professor of Law and the Director of the independently endowed Insurance Law Center at UConn School of Law. A graduate of Stanford…

International Trade and Access to Medicines: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

October 14, 2016

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement is intended to facilitate trade among 12 Asia-Pacific countries including the US, but its progress has been obstructed in part by ongoing controversy over provisions regarding…

EpiPen Maker Quietly Steers Effort That Could Protect Its Price

Eric Lipton and Rachel Abrams, quoting Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow Alumnus)
New York Times

[...] The idea being advanced is simple: If the EpiPen makes the federal preventive list, most Americans would have no insurance co-pay when getting the product. That means they could obtain…

EpiPen’s Dominance Driven By Competitors’ Stumbles And Tragic Deaths

Pauline Bartolone, quoting W. Nicholson Price II (Academic Fellow alumnus)
NPR

NPR recently called on Petrie-Flom Academic Fellow alumnus Nicholson Price to help explain how Mylan's Epi-Pen has come to dominate the market for epinephrine autoinjectors. From the article: The…

The GMO Labeling Fight Is Not Industry Versus Consumers

Steve Ansolabahere and Jacob E. Gersen (Director, Food Law Lab)
Forbes

From the article: In late July, President Obama signed a bill requiring some form of labeling of foods containing genetically engineered materials. The measure preempts state laws, like Vermont&rsquo…

Vaccines and Airline Travel:: A Federal Role to Protect the Public Health

Christopher T. Robertson (Academic Fellow Alumnus)
42 American Journal of Law and Medicine 543

Abstract: This Article explores two ways in which airline travel is an important vector for the spread of infectious disease, and argues that airlines have market-based and liability-based reasons to…

Resolving Reverse-Payment Settlements with the Smoking Gun of Stock Price Movements

Thomas G. McGuire, Keith Drake, Einer Elhauge (Founding Faculty Director), Raymond S. Hartman, Martha Starr
81 Iowa Law Review 1581

Abstract: The Supreme Court recently held that in reverse-payment settlements of drug patent disputes, anticompetitive effects can be inferred if the reverse payment exceeds the patent holder’s anticipated…

Promoting Healthcare Innovation on the Demand Side

Rebecca Eisenberg and W. Nicholson Price II (Academic Fellow Alumnus)
U of Michigan Law & Econ Research Paper No. 16-008; U of Michigan Public Law Research Paper No. 503

Abstract: Innovation policy often focuses on the incentives of firms that sell new products. But optimal use of healthcare products also requires good information about the likely effects of products…

Health Law Workshop: Nathan Cortez

April 11, 2016

Presentation Download the Presentation: "Regulation by Database" About the Presenter Nathan Cortez is Associate Dean for Research and Associate Professor in Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. He…

Negotiating for Health: The Role of Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in Healthcare

February 27, 2016

Harvard Negotiation Law Review Presents its 21st Annual Symposium Agenda Overview Keynote Address: Dr. Leonard Marcus, Founding Director of the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the…

A Conversation with Margaret A. Hamburg, FDA Commissioner 2009-2015

January 20, 2016
Watch Videos

Description The Petrie-Flom Center hosted a conversation with former FDA Commissioner (and former New York City Health Commissioner), Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, led by Peter Barton Hutt, former Chief Counsel…

Innovation Law and Policy: Preserving the Future of Personalized Medicine

Rachel E. Sachs
U. C. Davis Law Review

Academic Fellow Rachel E. Sachs has a new article forthcoming in 2016 on law and the future of personalized medicine. From the article: Personalized medicine is the future of health care,…

Are trade secrets delaying biosimilars?

W. Nicholson Price II (Academic Fellow Alumnus) and Arti K. Rai
Science

Petrie-Flom Academic Fellow alumnus Nicholson Price, now an Assistant Professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, has recently published an article in Science on the cost and…

Health Law Workshop: Thomas Greaney

April 6, 2015

Presentation Download the Presentation: "Medicare Advantage, Accountable Care Organizations, and Traditional Medicare: Synchronization or Collision?" About the Presenter Thomas L. Greaney is Chester A. Myers Professor of Law and Co-Director…

Robust Exclusion and Market Division Through Loyalty Discounts

By Einer Elhauge (Founding Faculty Director) and Abe Wickelgren
Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 14-12

Founding Faculty Director Einer Elhauge has coauthored an article Abe Wickelgren on loyalty discounts, which are often used in pharmaceutical and medical device markets. The article was awarded Best Academic…

Just Food?: Forum on Justice in the Food System

March 28 - 29, 2015

A conference exploring the intersections between social, economic, and environmental justice in the food system. Just Food? explored the legal, policy, health, and environmental aspects of modern domestic and international…

Health Law Workshop: Liran Einav

March 23, 2015

Presentation Download the Presentation: "The Response of Drug Expenditure to Non-Linear Contract Design: Evidence from Medicare Part D" (co-authors, Amy Finkelstein and Paul Schrimpf) About the Presenter Liran Einav is…

Founding Faculty Director Einer Elhauge Cited in SCOTUS Decision

Petrie-Flom

On February 25, 2015, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission. The majority opinion, handed down by Justice Kennedy, cited…

A “Natural” Experiment: Consumer Confusion and Food Claims, a lecture by Efthimios Parasidis

January 29, 2015
Watch Videos

Video of the lecture and following discussion is available online. What makes food "natural"? Do consumers understand "natural" claims on food labels? In the absence of robust federal guidelines, are…

Academic Fellow Rachel Sachs Guest Lecturing in Reading Group at Harvard Law School

Petrie-Flom Center

Petrie-Flom Academic Fellow Rachel E. Sachs will be a regular guest lecturer in a reading group at Harvard Law School, co-taught by with Professors Terry Fisher and Mark Wu in…

No faith in health reform: Christians flock to the health-share model despite restrictions

Caroline Lewis, quoting I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
Crain's: New York Business

[...] Under the health-care-sharing ministry model, before coverage kicks in, a household pays a monthly fee that "is matched with another's eligible medical bills," according to Christian Care Ministry's…

Health Law Workshop: Leemore Dafny

November 10, 2014

Presentation Download the Presentation Topic Paper: "More Insurers Lower Premiums: Evidence from Initial Pricing in the Health Insurance Marketplaces" (co-authors, Jonathan Gruber and Christopher Ody) About the Presenter Leemore S.…

Health Law Workshop: Matt Lamkin

November 3, 2014

Presentation Download the Presentation Topic Paper: "Regulating Identity: Medical Regulation as Social Control" About the Presenter Matt Lamkin is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa College of…

Emerging Issues and New Frontiers for FDA Regulation

October 20, 2014

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Food and Drug Law Institute were pleased to announce this collaborative academic symposium. Agenda: …

Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare Start-Ups: (followed by Petrie-Flom's 2014 Open House)

October 6, 2014
Watch Videos

New healthcare start-ups face a range of legal and ethical challenges as they develop new products and services and solicit financial support from investors. Building on the success of the…

FDA Regulation of Mobile Health Technologies

Nathan G. Cortez, J.D., I. Glenn Cohen, J.D., and Aaron S. Kesselheim, M.D., J.D., M.P.H.
NEJM

Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has published a new co-authored article in the New England Journal of Medicine on FDA regulation of new mobile health technologies. From the article: …

California Counties Sue 5 Narcotics Makers

Robin Young interviewing I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
Here & Now, NPR

Two counties in California — Orange and Santa Clara — are suing five major drug companies, accusing them of causing the growing prescription drug epidemic across the country. The complaint,…

Reforming Brazilian Pharmaceutical Patent Policy: Lessons from the Past and the Road for the Future

April 23, 2014

Description In this lecture by Pedro Paranaguá, he discussed the report issued by the Brazilian House of Representatives in 2013 as part of an effort to revamp the country's…

The Presumption Against Expensive Health Care Consumption

Christopher T. Robertson (Affiliate Faculty)
Tulsa Law Review, Vol. 49

This essay, as part of a symposium in honor of Professor Einer Elhauge, starts with his recognition that, for both epistemic and normative reasons, it remains profoundly difficult to regulate…

Companies’ Global Health ‘Footprint’: Could Rating Help?

December 9, 2013
Watch Videos

Imagine a rating or accreditation system for companies' "global health footprint." Such a system would rigorously assess companies' overall impact on human health, including the health of the world's…

Do Fixed Patent Terms Distort Innovation?: Evidence from Cancer Clinical Trials

Eric B. Budish, Benjamin N. Roin, and Heidi Williams
Public Health Law & Policy e-Journal 5, no. 64

Abstract: Patents award innovators a fixed period of market exclusivity, e.g., 20 years in the United States. Yet, since in many industries firms file patents at the time of discovery (…

Video Now Available: Symposium Honoring Founding Faculty Director Einer Elhauge

Tulsa Law Review

On Friday, October 4, the Tulsa Law Review hosted a symposium titled "Health Law Policy: Legal Issues in the Evolving Healthcare Market" honoring the work of Petrie-Flom Center Founding Director Einer…

Anonymity, the Production of Goods, and Institutional Design

Jeffrey Skopek
Fordham Law Review

Abstract: In this article, I demonstrate that anonymity has been misconceived as an aspect of privacy, and that understanding this mistake reveals a powerful and underutilized set of legal tools…

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

September 19, 2012

Professor Michael Sandel introduced his new book What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, arguing that there should be norms that govern our relationship with certain…

Medical Prize Funds: An Alternative Reward Mechanism for Medical Innovation

2009-2010

Patenting and other rewards that rely on protected markets to encourage research investment in medical technology do not always provide the right incentives needed to optimize public health. In recent…

Pharmaceutical Research, Development, and Markets

June 12, 2009

Amidst this larger debate about drug prices and pharmaceutical innovation, there is a growing consensus of a need for reform in the industry and how it is regulated. The substance…