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A busy day includes the Senate HELP Committee hearing with Moderna—here’s what we’re watching. Plus, today is World Water Day—and the first major UN water conference since the 1970s—so we’re looking at the role for biotech. (628 words, 3 minutes, 8 seconds) |
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What we're watching in today’s Senate HELP hearing |
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Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel will appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee today in a hearing titled, “Taxpayers Paid Billions For It: So Why Would Moderna Consider Quadrupling the Price of the COVID Vaccine?” The title is misleading: During the pandemic, “in exchange for the $1.7 billion in government support for clinical development, we have already provided $2.9 billion worth of discounts back to the government, relative to other vaccines being purchased at the same time,” Moderna’s President Stephen Hoge told Bio.News.
The commercial price of the vaccine must reflect “the value of the vaccine to patients, health care systems, and payers in terms of lives and costs saved,” as well as “the complexities of moving from a government-funded market to a commercial market,” like distribution and manufacturing costs, explained Dr. Hoge. So, what is the value of the vaccine? COVID vaccines prevented 3.2 million deaths and saved the U.S. $1.15 trillion in medical costs in the first two years of distribution alone.
What they’re saying:In a letter to The Advocate, the NOLA Business Alliance emphasized that “If the COVID-19 pandemic proved anything, it's that a thriving, innovative drug sector is one of our best defenses against health and economic catastrophe. Yet many in Washington are working to undermine the industry.”
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And keep an ear out for Bayh-Dole...
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“One of the concerns is that some of the committee members may try to say that you can misuse the Bayh-Dole Act to have the government set prices on products that have been successfully commercialized,” Bayh-Dole Coalition Executive Director Joe Allen, who helped craft the law, told Bio.News.
What is Bayh-Dole? The 1980 law enables universities, non-profits, and small biotechs to own, patent, and commercialize inventions developed under federally funded research programs—but was never intended to be used to set prices, said Allen.
Bayh-Dole is already in the news today—with Heath and Human Services (HHS) and Commerce announcing “a whole-of-government approach to review its march-in authority as laid out in the Bayh-Dole Act,” and NIH declining to use “march-in” rights on the Pfizer and Astellas Pharma prostate cancer drug Xtandi.
Why it matters: Misusing Bayh-Dole to control prices, he continued, “would have a catastrophic impact on innovation”—including innovations like Xtandi, which the company was able to commercialize, in part, due to Bayh-Dole. Read more about Bayh-Dole and the value of vaccines on Bio.News.
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Biotech pitches in for cleaner water |
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On World Water Day, the UN urges everyone to “do what you can”—and biotech can do a lot. What’s happening: The world is failing to meet its sustainable development goals to ensure clean water, says the UN’s Water Development Report 2023, published for today’s first major UN Water Conference since 1977. The report adds that 26% of the world's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water and 46% lack access to basic sanitation.
“Water scarcity is becoming endemic” due to higher demand and pollution, and climate change will create new shortages, says the report, which calls for collaboration and investigation into agriculture, environment, human settlements, industry, health, and climate change.
And pollution is effecting everyone: It is estimated that each of us has consumed approximately a credit card's worth of microplastics, and there are floating islands of plastic garbage in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, problems that biotechnology is working to solve. Learn more from our I am BIO podcast episode, Microbes, Bioplastics...and Art: Solutions to Plastic Pollution.
Biotech cleans dirty water: Bioremediation, including bioaugmentation, involves microorganisms that biodegrade severe contaminants, from heavy metals to oil spills on water and land. Companies like Microvi and Kurita America use this biotechnology for wastewater treatment.
Biotech prevents agricultural water pollution: Joyn Bio’s engineered microbes help corn, wheat, and rice crops fix nitrogen in the soil, replacing chemical fertilizers that cause nitrogen runoff.
Biotech prevents plastic pollution: BIO member innovations include Danimer Scientific’s biodegradable PHA, Virent’s biodegradable or compostable “drop-in” plastics, and Geno’s and LanzaTech’s sustainable versions of raw materials for manufacturing. Listen: I am BIO Podcast on how we can avert the looming water crisis
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