President Biden delivered his first address to Congress, which covered everything from America’s role in the world to addressing climate change to, yes, drug pricing. We caught up with Mike Mattoon, BIO’s VP of Federal Government Relations, to understand the key messages.
The policy: President Biden spoke for 64 minutes about the “Build Back Better” agenda, highlighting enacted provisions of the American Rescue Plan and explaining what’s in the American Jobs Plan and the just-released American Families Plan.
The key takeaway: “This may be the broadest delineation of progressive policies and biggest expansion of domestic spending and programs since FDR (or at least LBJ),” said BIO’s Mike Mattoon. "Let’s also not lose sight of the proposed tax changes the President discussed, which will have a significant impact on our companies' R&D investments.”
Now, let’s look at some of the details…
On climate change:
America “can and should lead” on the global climate crisis, Biden said.
“When I think about climate change, I think about jobs.” This includes “farmers planting cover crops, so they can reduce carbon dioxide in the air and get paid for doing it.”
BIO recently released its Biotech Solutions for Climate Report, which examines the many contributions biotech can bring to addressing the climate crisis and creating jobs, including in crop development and agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation. (The report was included in comments BIO just submitted to USDA on the Department's Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Strategy. We'll have more details in tomorrow's Good Day BIO.)
On health care:
The bottom line: the speech will embolden progressives on health care.
He’s still going for the cancer moonshot… “There is no more bipartisan issue than cancer,” he said, adding we need to develop breakthroughs in diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabetes, too.
However, there’s hardly a market failure here that the government needs to correct. The industry is investing billions in these diseases—more than $50 billion in Alzheimer’s alone—and there are thousands of cancer development programs in the clinic. We’re on the cusp of curing type 1 diabetes thanks to gene editing and CRISPR. There is one area of drug development where policy could help: new antibiotics to address antibiotic resistance. Also? His proposed drug price controls will actually hinder investment in these cures, as we've explained again and again. And on that note...
He’s calling for action to lower premiums, deductibles, and yes, prescription drug prices—the latter of which he called “outrageously expensive.”
“Let’s give Medicare the power to save hundreds of billions of dollars by negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs,” he said. “That won’t just help people on Medicare—it will lower prescription drug costs for everyone,” he continued, explaining that the savings can be used to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and expand Medicare coverage/benefits “without costing taxpayers one additional penny.”
On America’s competitiveness and R&D:
"We have to win the 21st century." We agree—and believe biotechnology is the way America does this.
“We will be guided by one principle: Buy American.”
“Let’s stand up to our competitors, stand up to the theft of IP.” We agree—which is why we must stop the proposed TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 intellectual property, which would result in supply and capacity problems and harm American workers.
He name-checked biotechnology: “We have to develop and dominate the products and technologies of the future: advanced batteries, biotechnology, computer chips, and clean energy.”
Masters’ Message: For the United States to lead the world in the 21st century, all parties must work together. The President’s speech outlined many areas where the federal government and biotechnology sector can partner, such as climate change. It’s clear, however, that we have a lot of work to do when it comes to educating the Administration about the destructiveness of price controls to scientific innovation.
We were extremely disappointed that the President pledged to end cancer while at the same time proposing a form of arbitrary price controls that will cripple the very industry that is already investing tens of billions of dollars to do just that. Our sector stands ready to work with the administration to bring forth the benefits of scientific discovery, but policies like price controls will stop some science in its tracks and destroy progress to cure thousands of diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, where patients desperately need cures.
Patients require innovation, not arbitrary policies. There is a way we can lower what patients pay at the drugstore without killing the innovation that helped the United States lead the world in battling COVID, and we look forward to working with the administration to achieve that shared goal. – Rich Masters, BIO’s Chief Public Affairs and Advocacy Officer
Did you miss it? You can watch the video on YouTube or read his prepared remarks.
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