When Provenge vaccine for prostate cancer is approved by the FDA, as most likely it will be on or by May 15, this decision to make this new therapy available immediately to any patient who can afford or whose insurance covers it -- rather than to delay approval until the results are in from a larger clinical trial -- will be due to Michael Milken. In Cora Daniels' blockbuster article for Fortune Magazine (November 2004), The Man Who Changed Medicine, reprinted at Cptech.com, Milken said:
I believe the person who waits for 110% of the facts to be in and all the information is a person who is probably not alive -- because it's too late for him. A lot of businesspeople have been forced to make decisions without 100% or perfect information but based on what they know. I worked in a field where ten seconds was a long decision process. Either you're buying the securities or you're not. Either you're selling them or you're not. Now people said, 'Well, gosh, that's a short period of time,' and I say, 'No, it's not.' I've prepared my entire life to make that decision. I think getting off that inertia of making a decision qualifies well in building something.