The Ethics of Failure: The Uncomfortable Bedfellow

The Ethics of Failure: Biotech’s Uncomfortable Bedfellow

Failure is biotech’s least glamorous partner. It doesn’t show up in glossy investor decks or Nobel Prize speeches, but it’s there, lurking behind every pipeline and press release. For an industry that thrives on audacity—curing diseases, rewriting DNA, conquering the mysteries of the brain—failure is less a surprise than a certainty. Yet biotech has a peculiar habit of stumbling over the same mistakes and pretending it learned something new.

As Nassim Nicholas Taleb might put it, biotech isn’t just bad at managing failure—it’s bad at imagining the ways it can fail. In a world governed by unpredictable biology, extreme risks, and lives on the line, ignoring failure isn’t just naïve—it’s negligent.

Failure Isn’t the Problem—It’s Ignoring It That Hurts

1. Extreme Risks and Predictable Missteps

Biotech loves to talk about innovation, but when it comes to risk, the industry seems stuck in denial. Extreme Value Theory (EVT)—a concept Taleb would eagerly deploy here—reminds us that outliers matter far more than averages. Yet biotech behaves as if its biggest failures are anomalies rather than inevitable features of the system.

Take Alzheimer’s research. Between 2022 and 2024, the field burned billions chasing the same flawed hypothesis: amyloid plaques as the root cause of the disease. Roche’s gantenerumab failed. So did Biogen’s aducanumab. While investors scratched their heads, anyone paying attention to the science wasn’t surprised. The amyloid hypothesis wasn’t just shaky—it was a house of cards built on wishful thinking.

2. The Cost of Ignoring Lessons

In biotech, failure is expensive. Each failed trial costs an average of $1 billion, according to a 2023 study by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). But the real tragedy isn’t the money—it’s the wasted time and effort. Patients are left waiting for treatments that never arrive, while the industry repeats the same mistakes under a new guise.

Theranos: The Fraud That Keeps On Failing

Theranos remains biotech’s most infamous cautionary tale, a reminder that charisma, overpromising, and magical thinking can spell disaster. Elizabeth Holmes’s spectacular downfall in 2018 didn’t just destroy her company—it shattered public trust in biotech. The fallout should have prompted deep introspection across the industry. Yet here we are in 2024, still grappling with many of the same issues.

A Culture of Magical Thinking

The real problem with Theranos wasn’t just the fraud; it was the ecosystem that allowed it to flourish. Investors prioritized storytelling over science. Regulators hesitated to ask hard questions. The industry’s collective willingness to believe in miracles over measurable results set the stage for disaster.

Biotech’s Love Affair With Optimism

1. Transparency Is Missing in Action

When a clinical trial fails, the reasons are often buried in opaque press releases or never disclosed at all. A 2023 BMJ study found that only 30% of failed Phase III trials published comprehensive analyses. The result? Future trials stumble over the same hurdles, and the cycle continues.

2. Short-Term Thinking Prevails

Biotech’s funding model doesn’t help. Venture capital demands quick wins, and public markets reward headlines over substance. This short-termism pressures companies to prioritize the next funding round over systemic improvements.

Take gene therapy. In 2023, a high-profile trial collapsed after manufacturing issues derailed production. Instead of using the failure as a moment to reassess its supply chain, the company rushed into its next trial with the same flawed infrastructure—and predictably failed again.

Can Biotech Learn to Fail Better?

The uncomfortable truth is that failure in biotech is not a bug—it’s a feature. The real test isn’t avoiding failure but learning from it in a meaningful way. Transparency, introspection, and a shift away from magical thinking are the only ways forward. If biotech continues to sweep its failures under the rug, it risks eroding the very trust and optimism that sustain its ambitions.

Biotech doesn’t just need to fail better—it needs to stop pretending it’s already learned how.