Funding drug trials

Monika Odermatt writes about the possibility of issuing Social Impact Bonds to fund certain drug trials: 

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Rick Thompson, CEO [of Reboot Rx]... [I asked] him about the drug repurposing social impact bond (SIB), the challenges he has encountered, and his perspective on the future of SIBs. According to Rick, the following ingredients are key to a successful SIB: flexibility, imagination, and funding. There is a need for flexibility in order to have an open mind and learn from the experiences of other organizations who have worked with SIBs before; imagination in order to overcome hurdles one encounters when trying to implement a SIB, and to find ways to collaborate with other countries and partners; and impact investors to fund the SIB and trials. Social impact bonds could fund drug repurposing clinical trials, Monika Odermatt

I agree, and intend to contact Reboot Rx, along these lines: The flexibility I'd like to see is the sort that would make the bonds tradeable. Finding cures for the rare diseases mentioned is inevitably going to be a long-term endeavour. The incentives on offer should encourage efficient new approaches, and terminate failing approaches. Funds should be channelled into organisations that are most efficient at achieving goals along the way to success; likely to be a multi-step process, in which each step is best taken by organisations with specific strengths. The cast of actors should be flexible enough to encourage efficiency at every stage of the path to success, which means that those who succeed at one step should be able to benefit from the incentives without having to proceed to the next step, in which they may have little expertise. 

I've written elsewhere about the need to make the bonds tradeable for long-term goals such as those of Reboot Rx, and other goals that will inevitably take decades to realise. These include nuclear peace and other forms of conflict reduction, climate stability and other environmental goals.