About

Matthew McCoy, PhD, MBE, is an Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and serves as the Assistant Faculty Director for the Master’s in Bioethics (MBE) program at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His educational background includes a B.A. in English and Politics from the University of San Francisco, an M.Sc. in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Ph.D. in Political Theory from Princeton University, and an M.B.E. in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on issues at the intersection of medical ethics, health policy, and political theory. His work explores topics such as the ethics of healthcare organizations, patient organizations, venture philanthropy, and the ethics surrounding pursuit of cures over care. McCoy has contributed to the academic discourse through publications on research integrity, public engagement in health financing decisions, and the ethical implications of emerging health technologies. His scholarship aims to inform ethical practices and policies in healthcare and biomedical research.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Medicine
• Business
• Computer Security
• Public relations
• Virology
• Engineering
• Economics
• Law
• Mathematics
• Medical emergency
• Internet privacy
• Psychology
• Engineering ethics
• Family medicine
• Operations research
• Psychiatry
• Nursing
• Management science
• Law and economics
• Environmental health
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• What Can We Ask of Hospitals? Conceptual Foundations for an Ethics of Healthcare Organizations

  The American Journal of Bioethics · 2026-02-27

  article

  obligations of organizations that provide patient care.

  PublisherDOI

• ‘Why Do You Ask?’ Revisiting the Purpose of Eliciting the Public’s Moral Judgments About Emerging Technologies

  AJOB Empirical Bioethics · 2025-03-24 · 1 citations

  article

  It is increasingly common for bioethicists to consult with the public to solicit their judgments and attitudes about ethical questions and issues, especially ones that arise with new and emerging technologies. However, it is not always clear what the purpose of this engagement is or ought to be: do bioethicists seek the input of the public to help them arrive at a morally correct justified policy position, or do they seek this input to help them shape and frame their already-established moral position, or something else entirely? In this essay, we discuss four distinct possible functions of collecting moral judgments from the public: issue spotting, messaging for adherence and social stability, substantive moral guidance, and procedural fairness. For each function, we offer core examples from the literature before discussing the strengths and weaknesses attendant to each. We conclude with several preliminary questions bioethicists can ask themselves to clarify their own purpose for soliciting moral judgments from the public.

  PublisherDOI

• A Framework for Assessing the Permissibility of Academic Leaders’ Outside Activities

  Milbank Quarterly · 2025-06-04

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Policy Points Many have urged academic institutions to rethink conflict of interest policies governing leaders' outside activities, which pose not only individual conflicts for leaders themselves but institutional conflicts for their academic employers. Although the American Association of Medical Colleges and Association of American Universities have provided guidance on managing such conflicts, neither offer a structured approach for determining when and under what conditions it is appropriate for a leader to engage in specific outside activities. To address this gap, this article develops a decision-making framework that institutional oversight bodies can use to assess the permissibility of academic leaders' proposed outside activities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mapping the Landscape of Medical Venture Philanthropy

  AJOB Empirical Bioethics · 2025-10-02

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: A number of patient organizations have recently embraced venture philanthropy, a model of patient advocacy that purports to use practices from venture capitalism in pursuit of philanthropic goals. However, a clear understanding of what venture philanthropy entails and what these organizations do remains elusive, hindering efforts to assess ethical implications of the model's growth. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative content analysis of self-reported profiles of 130 organizations in an affinity network promoting principles of venture philanthropy. We analyzed organizations' research goals, funding strategies, activities, and patient engagement efforts. RESULTS: Despite finding substantial variation in age, revenue, and disease focus, we identified shared assumptions and approaches that represent defining characteristics of venture philanthropy. First, organizations consistently present facilitating the development of new therapies as the most urgent need for patients. Second, organizations participate in financing and managing research across the development pipeline, rather than focusing on basic research as many patient organizations historically have done. Third, organizations seek to position themselves within established research and drug development networks, fostering collaborative relationships with key stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies. We also find that some of the most transformative practices associated with venture philanthropy, such as direct investment in for-profit companies, remain relatively uncommon. CONCLUSIONS: Venture philanthropy represents an evolution in the ambitions and activities of patient organizations, with organizations becoming more fully enmeshed in the drug development process. Our findings raise ethical questions about how patient organizations conceptualize and advance patient interests and about tradeoffs inherent to the venture philanthropy model.

  PublisherDOI

• Measuring Risks to Users' Health Privacy Posed by Third-Party Web Tracking and Targeted Advertising

  2025-04-24

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Patient organisations, venture philanthropy and the ethics of pursuing cures over care

  Journal of Medical Ethics · 2025-09-16 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Patient organisations aim to advance the interests of patient populations living with various diseases, disabilities and health conditions. However, because the members of a given patient population often have varied or even conflicting interests, the way in which a patient organisation pursues its mission can be contentious, as it typically involves prioritising the interests of some patients over others. There is some evidence to suggest that in recent years, patient organisations have increasingly directed resources toward supporting research, a trend that may be spurred by the rise of venture philanthropy-an emerging model in which patient organisations make high-risk, high-reward research investments with the goal of advancing treatments and cures. While venture philanthropy has garnered significant support, it has also faced criticism from patients currently living with serious illnesses, who argue that research investments benefit future patients at the expense of services for current patients. Against the backdrop of these developments, this paper investigates the ethics of patient organisations pursuing cures over care. I begin by identifying a key assumption shared by proponents and critics of venture philanthropy, which suggests that patient organisations can permissibly choose whether they aim to benefit current or future patients. Yet I go on to argue that even if patient organisations may permissibly prioritise future patients, their promissory, stewardship and representative obligations may, under some circumstances, limit their discretion to invest in research. Under other circumstances, however, these same obligations may give patient organisations reasons to prioritise research.

  PublisherDOI

• What justifies public engagement in health financing decisions?

  Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2025-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  represents an important effort to specify the benefits and criteria of fair processes in health financing decisions. Here we argue that the report's justification for increasing public engagement in health financing decisions, one of its most novel contributions, rests on a widely shared but flawed assumption that public engagement will produce more equitable outcomes. Examining evidence from national-level public engagement initiatives cited in the report, we argue that there is no reason to assume that engaged publics will prioritize equity over other relevant values such as the maximization of population health. We conclude that instead of seeing public engagement as a tool for advancing particular values, policy-makers should view it as a neutral way of assessing what the public values and gathering insights that can inform the design of health benefits packages. If policy-makers wish to prioritize equity, they should do so directly through substantive policy choices regarding the design and financing of coverage schemes.

  PublisherDOI

• Advancing Trust in Science: Institutional Obligations to Promote Research Integrity

  The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics · 2025-01-01

  article

  Abstract Preventing and addressing research misconduct demands more than imploring scientists to do better. It is also essential to address the structural issues that allow misconduct to flourish. With these structural factors in mind, this Special Issue explores the institutional obligations of journals and publishers, research institutions, funders, and the government to promote scientific integrity and advance trust in science. Articles from researchers affected by fraud, science “sleuths,” systematic reviewers, journal editors, academic officials, regulators, and leading experts on research integrity offer a range of ideas for responding to the research misconduct crisis, including increased transparency, stronger journal processes for review and retraction, improved scientific lab culture, and efforts to hold investigators prospectively accountable for scientific integrity, among several others.

  PublisherDOI

• A review of public comments submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to the 2022 National Coverage Decision on treatment for Alzheimer’s disease

  Journal of Law and the Biosciences · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with devastating personal and social consequences. In June 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to aducanumab (Aduhelm; Biogen), a first-in-class monoclonal antibody (mAb) for treatment of AD. In July 2021, responding to the significant controversy sparked by aducanumab's approval, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) opened a National Coverage Determination (NCD) analysis for mAbs intended for the treatment of AD. CMS received a record number of public comments on the proposed NCD, which included a proposal for coverage with evidence development (CED). We undertook an in-depth qualitative analysis of those comments. Broad themes included: the appropriateness of FDA's approval of aducanumab; the nature of the relationship between CMS and FDA; anticipated downstream effects of CED on innovation and health equity; aducanumab's cost, value, and affordability; and whether aducanumab offered patients hope. The aducanumab controversy occurred at the intersection of multiple contentious issues; in the discussion, we contextualize our findings within these broader debates. Though Biogen pulled aducanumab from the market in early 2024, the effects of the public discourse surrounding its approval and coverage have been long-lasting and far-reaching, affecting health law, policy, and clinical practice.

  PublisherDOI

• Difficulty With Binary Voting Among FDA Oncology Advisory Committee Members

  JAMA Network Open · 2025-07-23

  articleOpen access

  This qualitative study investigates the frequency of reports of difficulty in voting for drug approval by members of the Food and Drug Administration Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ari B. Friedman

  University of Pennsylvania

  8 shared

• Ezekiel J. Emanuel

  University of Pennsylvania

  7 shared

• Steven Joffe

  University of Pennsylvania

  7 shared

• Ezekiel Emanuel

  7 shared

• Govind Persad

  University of Bergen

  6 shared

• Cécile Fabre

  Science Oxford

  6 shared

• Genevieve P. Kanter

  University of Southern California

  6 shared

• Leah Z. Rand

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  6 shared

Education

• B.A., English and Politics

  University of San Francisco

  2003

• M.S., Political Theory

  London School of Economics and Political Science

  2008

• Ph.D., Political Theory

  Princeton University

  2015

• Other, Bioethics

  University of Pennsylvania

  2017