This is the Kader Daily Podcast for Sunday, April 19th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown. Under normal circumstances, medical facilities that want to develop diagnostic tests face some scrutiny.

But during a medical emergency, like a global pandemic,

the FDA typically goes into high gear to punish would be medical entrepreneurs for developing and

attempting to market diagnostic tests. Will Reinhart with the Center for

Growth and Opportunity says the harsh treatment aimed at people just trying to help is a puzzling case of bureaucratic

incentives.

We spoke last week.

Assume for the moment that we were not in a pandemic, what is the role of private labs, of hospitals, of universities and other medical

facilities when it comes to trying to develop diagnostic tests for some illness.

So in a non-pandemic setting, there's actually a lot of flexibility traditionally

that's been given to health care practitioners at the local

level working in labs and hospitals. But weirdly enough when a pandemic does occur, everything

actually becomes far more difficult.

The regulatory system changes slightly, but that's actually really critical and

everything just becomes far more difficult for practitioners.

All right, so we are in a pandemic.

Yeah.

What makes that change occur?

Why would hospitals or other medical facilities be less likely to develop diagnostic tests in a

setting when it appears, at least to my uneducated brain that we need that more than ever.

Yeah, the FDA when it comes to diagnostic tests has really taken a hands-off approach for a number of years, but the last time that they really did seem

...