A “Best Choice Medicine” (BCM) Route to Drug Development to Solve the Aging-Associated Non-Communicable Disease Burden

Abstract

Objective: The Objective of this paper is to propose a new modality called Best Choice Medicine (BCM) to provide possible life-saving experimental treatments to patients suffering from Aging-Associated Non-Communicable Diseases (AA-NCDs) who would otherwise not survive without treatment. Likewise, BCM would expedite the drug approval process in the U.S. by generating immediate data from these patients. BCM resembles Medical Tourism in many ways except that it would be done within the U.S. To better appreciate Medical Tourism as a field patients were queried for their feedback on their own experiences with Medical Tourism. Method: Thirteen people who spent significant time and money participating in Medical Tourism were queried in a non-randomized non-controlled survey to understand their perceptions of the Medical Tourism field. Results: The thirteen people chose to participate in Medical Tourism mostly due to lack of treatments available through the regulatory system in their own countries. They also believed that they should be able to choose therapies for themselves. And all participants said that they would consider participating in medical tourism again. Conclusions: Although this is a small study the researchers believe that this research shows the need for a new and more assessable regulatory route, such as BCM, in the United States. This preliminary study is a launchpad for doing more in-depth studies to develop and evaluate the concept of BCM further.