A New Group Launches to Fight FTC's Meddling in Biopharma M&A

It’s kind of a slow day today, which has me thinking ahead to the J.P. Morgan Health Care conference in January. My thoughts are swirling around a couple of things:

One is the release of my launch price almanac. More on that to come. The other is that the San Jose Sharks have a home game the Saturday before the confab kicks off. They play the Maple Leafs …

There is a new group -- a partnership between big pharma companies and organizations representing smaller biotechs -- launching today with a mission to push back against more aggressive FTC regulation of mergers and acquisitions.

The endeavor is called PULSE (Partnership for the U.S. Life Science Ecosystem). Here’s the press release, and here’s the website. Axios and Bloomberg have stories.

The push for PULSE follows new efforts from the FTC around merger guidelines and premerger notification rules, though it’s hard not to imagine that the FTC meddling in the Amgen-Horizon and Pfizer-Seagen acquisitions didn’t also play a part. For those who want to get in the game, the FTC has some workshops coming up, including one in Boston tomorrow.

PULSE is providing a worthwhile service, for a couple of reasons.

First, biopharma M&A is probably a net positive for patients.

The PULSE website noted this great STAT op-ed by Global Blood Therapeutics’ Ted Love that explains how the company’s buyout by Pfizer was the best way of guaranteeing that its sickle cell drug would make it to countries where the need was greatest. Small biotechs simply don’t have that reach.

That’s a point reinforced by a must-read STAT story out today about the wobbly fate of gene therapies in Europe. The piece argues that part of the reason that gene therapy companies have struggled is that they don’t have the expertise in dealing with complex reimbursement environments. Novartis the article says, “has been through the process many times before with other medications,” allowing it to be successful where smaller firms are failing.

Second, I can’t think of a single example in the entire history of biopharma M&A that has led to anticompetitive behavior. (I’m sure I’m missing some, and I’m hoping you all will correct me.) That’s not saying that M&A is always a good idea -- there is a long history of acquisitions screwing up innovative cultures -- or that pharma never acts in an anti-competitive way. It’s just hard to see how M&A is the vehicle for monopolistic practices.

Still, advocating in favor of buyouts is a tough job in a world where “big business” is a slur. So kudos for PULSE for flying the flag. Here’s hoping that their message breaks through.

• I flagged yesterday some content-free communications from the government celebrating the kickoff of the Medicare price-control negotiations. That’s prompted a bunch of content-free coverage of the content-free government PR push. If you don’t believe me, here is a representative sample, from the New York Times.

• Politico also covered the topic, but they, at least, noted what the next milestone will be: the patient input sessions that kick off at the end of the month. Much more on that to come.

• Colombia is breaking the patent of a GSK/Viiv HIV medicine, STAT reported. The drug is licensed through the UN’s Medicines Patent Pool, but Colombia is not one of the countries that has access to that IP.

• Once again, those of you interested in obesity meds have a choice. You can read this silly story about how Wall Street analysts think that investors should short the stocks of fast-food companies because obesity meds will destroy the market for Cheetos or whatever. Or you can read this serious Tradeoffs piece that gives thoughtful examples of how employees are -- and aren’t -- covering the drugs.