Life Science Venture Capital Responds to President Biden’s State of the Union
We must bolster the scientific biopharmaceutical ecosystem, not abandon it.
02.08.2023
WASHINGTON, D.C.– Yesterday, February 7th 2023, President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address to a joint session of the 118th Congress and their guests.
John Stanford, Executive Director of Incubate, issued the following statement:
“In his State of the Union last night, President Biden celebrated the world-saving power of the U.S. biopharmaceutical system, as vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 truly pulled us out of the pandemic. Like the President, we are ready to tackle the next challenge – be it the ongoing threat of antimicrobial resistance, the enormous unmet need of rare diseases, and of course, the opportunity to truly bring forward a cure for cancer.
We agree with the President that the time for a cancer moonshot is now, with hundreds of companies, both large and small – all backed by private capital – on the verge of incredible discovery and development in the coming decade. We also agree with the President that capitalism needs competition. Fortunately, in the life sciences, nearly 5,000 companies compete every day to create not just economic opportunity, but hope for patients.
We must, however, address where rhetoric and reality are diverging. A key provision in the Inflation Reduction Act – the “Small Molecule Penalty”– is already steering investment away from the very science that could make the moonshot a reality. Knowing how important this is to this President and this Administration, we stand ready to work with them to fix this unintended consequence and ensure that Washington does not hamper science’s ability to brings us into a new era of human health.”