Hey there, and happy Wednesday. STAT reporter Andrew Joseph here filling in for Mr. Pharmalot. It’s already been a busy day here at STAT’s London outpost. We hope wherever you are, you can find time to take a break for a snack or a walk. To the news we go. …
For biotech investors, the risks seen with the rise of the Make America Healthy Again movement are fading, the Wall Street Journal says. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a critic of the industry, is still health secretary, and MAHA still has sway over parts of the American public. But for Wall Street, the political risk of investing in drug companies has been demoted: It now sits well below interest rates, clinical data, and earnings in the hierarchy of concerns. Recent ousters of U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials who were seen as skeptical of the industry have helped the mood.
Even with all that tumult at the FDA, a former commissioner sees an inflection point whereby the agency can now make a turn for the better, STAT brings us. David Kessler, who led the agency from 1990 to 1997 and also worked on Operation Warp Speed during the Covid-19 pandemic, said at STAT’s Breakthrough Summit West on Tuesday that he had high hopes that the FDA’s newly appointed acting commissioner, Kyle Diamantas, will be able to serve as a stabilizing force for the agency. While Diamantas is an attorney and not, like most FDA commissioners, a medical doctor, Kessler said he had “great confidence” in him, adding: “I think he understands the process.”
