Kalshi and Polymarket bets on clinical trials criticized as 'ghastly'
Researchers are raising alarms over prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket allowing users to place bets on the outcomes of clinical trials, warning the practice could incentivize insider trading and interfere with drug development. Critics describe the trend as ethically troubling, with one researcher calling it ghastly. Kalshi and Polymarket defend the markets, arguing they provide valuable information to patients and the public.
The Atomic take
Betting markets on clinical trial results create a direct financial motive for people with access to unblinded data, from trial staff to investigators, to leak or trade on outcomes before they are public. That threatens the integrity of the trials themselves, since patient enrollment and endpoint reporting depend on participants and researchers who are not gaming a payout. Watch whether the FDA or SEC treats this as a variant of insider trading, and whether trial sponsors start writing anti-wagering clauses into their site agreements.
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