Michael Milken discusses his work as chairman of the Milken Institute, including his thoughts on democratizing access to capital, the future of the global economy and the fight against cancer.
On capital structure: “The ability to bring capital to businesses, individuals, [and] let people directly or indirectly follow and recognize their dreams, whatever they might be, that’s the promise of financial systems in a free enterprise society.”
On the fight against cancer: “It’s only a matter of time, maybe it’s three years, before you won’t say, ‘I have breast cancer.’ You’ll say, ‘I have a certain type of mutation.’ … I visited with 42 patients in MD Anderson not too long ago – all with Stage IV melanoma – average life expectancy [of] six to nine months – who are all in total remission today. That was just one form of immunology, which was focused on turning on your immune system. So cancer is on the run as a cause of death in the advanced societies. Getting these proper treatments into the rest of the world has to be done.”
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