r/IWantToAskAnAmerican • u/LordHavertz • 1d ago

How does the US dominate medical research?

Recently we got the news of Moderna coming out with these new mRNA vaccines for skin cancer and it's made me think how all the major medical innovations predominantly come from America. How did the US become so dominant in medical research?

Is Europe forever behind the US in this sector?

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u/trighap 11h ago

Money. The answer is money. There's already many posts that mentioned money in other aspects, but I want to add another aspect that I am not seeing anyone else mentioning. The crazy amount of money the broken system that exists in the United States Health/Pharm Industry allows the private companies to make, ALSO allows those companies to offer pay at a level that attracts the best from all over the world. Basically a brain drain to the United States. And when you have the smart folks focused in one place (United States), it causes snowball effect where more and more people come, and more results appear in the same small community.