BIO-2025 – A Conference of Hope for the Future
I’ve attended most of the BIO (Biotechnology Innovation Organization) conferences over the last 15 years and each one is unique. While it is a great place for bringing together all of the different businesses involved in the biopharma eco system, it has also proven to be a valuable resource for those of us interested in public policy. It has always been a place where some of the brightest minds meet to better understand the impact of policy changes on the world’s healthcare.
The theme of the conference was “The World Can’t Wait” - which I expanded for my own purposes as meaning - we can’t let policy changes get in the way of innovation. It baffles me when our government considers making changes that would have even the smallest chance of having a negative impact on innovation. What better way could we spend our country’s treasure than in the pursuit of new medicines that prolong and save lives. Should we make sure that the medicines we discover are accessible to everyone? Yes! But let’s not do it in ways that limit innovation. Now you know where I stand, so let’s get to what I thought were the important things at this conference.
I’ll start off with something that is becoming very critical in healthcare . . . health span. Our life span is the number of years we are alive, health span is the number of years we live without debilitating illnesses or handicaps that severely limit our quality of life. Health span focuses on the quality of life in our later years. People are beginning to understand how important and valuable adding years onto our health span is. This subject came up in multiple sessions and I did an interview with someone who is venturing into this area of healthcare. I’ll go into more depth on this topic in a blog next month.
There were multiple sessions and panels on the cost of discovering a new medicine. We need to remember that only 1 out of 10 medicines are finally approved by the FDA - each one, approved or not, requiring research and resources from investors. The cost of developing a new drug is generally estimated at between 1 and 2 billion dollars. Sometimes we forget how much money has to be invested and how the investors are impacted by risk. Almost without exception when you read about drug companies in any communication they use the term “Big Pharma” - and it is always taken in a negative context. I was reminded that the small bio tech firms, who ,many times do the basic research, often come out of universities or start-ups and are financed by NIH grants and angel investors. These small firms do not have the resources to move their discovery forward and are almost always bought by “Big Pharma” – companies who has the knowledge, infrastructure, and money to move it forward and absorb the cost of failure. This eco system, energized by the Bayh/Dole Act, is what has made the U.S. the world leader in new medicine development. I pondered on how important it is that we are the ones in this role, and it drove me to think about the following scenario.
What if China, or some other dictatorship or non-ally country, had financed the discovery and development of the mRNA for 10 years like one of our big pharma companies did? 10 years of research that ultimately became the basis for the first COVID vaccine. What if this country was the leader in drug discovery and development in the world and they had developed and manufactured the first vaccines to fight COVID? Do you think the distribution of the vaccine to the world would have been the same as it turned out to be? I say all this because I think it is very important that we remain the leader in drug development, and it seems like our regulatory actions are working against this goal. Our government has chosen to fix the price of some medicines, which increases the risk for investors. We are cutting the grants for innovation from NIH, which will drive scientists to take their research elsewhere. We are discounting the importance of the small molecule drugs (the pill penalty), which has already reduced investments in these easy to take medicines and channeled investment into the more expensive large molecule biologics. Drugs which usually require more out-of-pocket money from the patient and often must be injected at the doctor’s office or hospital. The government shouldn’t be in the business of directing investment. We should get the benefits of new discoveries in either type of medicine. I heard from all quadrants of the healthcare eco system that we need to remain the leader.
I got to visit with scientists who once again impressed me with their unwavering perseverance in discovering new treatments. As I said in the Facebook live event a few weeks ago, scientists don’t focus on the policy, or the hype or the money - they just want to be part of discovering a treatment that improves and possibly saves lives.
I got to hear from patients whose lives were changed and preserved by medicines. I found out that the type of Leukemia that took my father’s life when he was 66 could have been controlled and possibly put in remission, most likely adding 15 or 20 years to his life. We often don’t focus on the importance of the impact these discoveries have in our own lives.
I try to keep my blogs short and concise so I’ll get into the ways we can work to restore innovation and ensure access next week. I’ll also do a blog next month detailing this relatively new concept of health span. The most important thing I got from this conference is that the world really can’t wait for new medicines. It’s these new discoveries that will give us more time with our loved ones. It’s what would have given me more time with my father.
Best, Thair