Alright, that's fair. I'm not too familiar with the design of these trials, so I concede that my worrying about sample-poisoning is likely misplaced. Still, an

Alright, that's fair. I'm not too familiar with the design of these trials, so I concede that my worrying about sample-poisoning is likely misplaced. Still, and I realise I'm coming dangerously close to sounding like a tinfoil spouting "money corrupts" as I type this, I would still be wary about how introducing massive amounts of private donations of this sort might impact the process of bringing drugs to the market. For the moment, this sounds great as trials could now have a source of funding where there currently is none... but it seems to me that this would further exacerbate the problem with the pharma industry focusing on cash-cow meds. Things could get such that it would be more profitable to target an exotic ailment with wealthy backers than to target an affliction disproportionately affecting the plebes. Not that I'm saying that we must not explore alternatives to the current policy of denying experimental drugs to terminal patients. I'm simply cautioning that we have limited resources and researchers, so we ought to be careful how policy changes influences their priorities over the years.