If best of biopharma industry were incarnated, would be as my friend Paul Hastings @phastings14, CEO of Nkarta, now Chair of BIO @IAmBiotech, & a good soul. Here’s his story & call for reforms: Lower OOP & make drugs go generic w/o undue delays. @NPLB_org vimeo.com/octo8er/review…
What Paul speaks to is very much aligned with the reforms supported by No Patient Left Behind (nopatientleftbehind.org), an organization I helped start and of which Paul is a personal supporter (see Life Science Builder page), as my firm and I support BIO. 2/8
Paul’s comments will make rent-seekers in our industry uncomfortable (companies that have gotten good at milking old drugs for high profits as if they still merit more reward for having been recently invented). Still, I know many within those companies who agree with Paul. 3/8
Our industry will evolve. We Builders (those who see that rewards for what we create/build should be finite, like mortgages) will eventually win over the Landlords who enjoy the easy street of collecting rents b/c we share the cause of winning insurance reform for patients. 4/8
Nothing in healthcare, not most drugs nor hospitals, is affordable to Americans w/o proper insurance. Out of pocket costs imposed by insurance/employers are just way of making insurance inaccessible, like a broken promise, even when one’s own plan agrees you need that treatment.
Paul has personal experience w/ inadequate insurance. He suffers from a chronic condition. He also knows what it’s like to wish for invention of a better medicine (& then make them). He’s speaking for best of our industry. Hopefully you’ll agree he’s speaking for you. 6/8
And personal addendum. Paul and I are both supporters of the Biotech Social Contract (what I discussed in my book thegreatamericandrugdeal.com & what he describes in the video above). However, we have different terms for it. 7/8
He refers to it as the Biotech Social Compact. If he can bring it about as Chair of BIO, we’ll makeup and I’ll switch to calling it that. Should be an open and shut case. (#dadjoke). 8/8 
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