Prediction-market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are allowing users to bet on clinical-trial outcomes and US Food and Drug Administration decisions on new medicines. Critics say this creates ethical and scientific risks by giving people a financial interest in a treatment failing, potentially affecting patient trust and the integrity of research.

Kalshi says such markets could provide useful forecasts about promising drugs and help inform investment in development, while Polymarket offers similar bets. Bioethicists and trial specialists counter that participants’ health and access to future treatments are at stake, and warn that people with insider knowledge or influence over a trial could have incentives to exploit or manipulate the process; one critic called the idea “quite ghastly”.