Ethical Horizons: Sustaining Therapeutic Innovation Across Seven Generations
Therapeutic innovation often measures success in quarters or product life cycles. But what if we shifted the horizon to seven generations—roughly 140 years? This isn't a thought experiment; it's an ethical framework borrowed from Indigenous governance, applied to how we develop drugs, devices, and care models today. The decision isn't abstract: every patent filing, clinical trial design, and market access strategy either preserves options for future generations or forecloses them. This guide is for R&D directors, ethics board members, and sustainability officers who want to move beyond slogans and into structured decision-making. We'll compare three strategic postures, offer criteria to choose among them, and lay out a practical path—because the seventh generation is already watching. Who Must Choose and When: The Decision Frame The first question is not how to sustain innovation but who holds the lever and by when they must pull it.