Policy in Focus: Trump’s MFN deals, FDA vouchers, and the government shutdown
At the end of September, President Trump invited Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla to the Oval Office to announce that the company and the administration had reached a "deal" on most-favoured nations drug pricing. This was followed by similar announcements from AstraZeneca and Merck. But are these deals substantive policy or PR sleight of hand?
In today’s episode of the pharmaphorum podcast, host Jonah Comstock invites Hogan Lovells Partner Alice Valder Curran back to the show to help get to the bottom of that question, as well as to talk a little about TrumpRx. And this time she's brought along her colleague Elizabeth Jungman who gives us the skinny on the FDA's new priority voucher system and what exactly the government shutdown means for the pharma industry.
Despite the many press releases, oval office announcements, and guidance documents, there’s still a lot we don’t know about all these topics. But Curran and Jungman help clarify what we do know so far and provide context and analysis to fill in the gaps. For the rest, we’ll have to wait and see what US policymakers have in store.
Tune in for the whole illuminating conversation.
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Biotech’s biggest challenge isn’t scientific, but political – with James Roosevelt Jr
Amid historic advances in cell-based therapies and precision medicine, biotech’s biggest challenge isn’t scientific, it’s political.
In a new pharmaphorum podcast, James Roosevelt Jr, a longtime healthcare leader, former associate commissioner of social security for retirement policy, and grandson of FDR, as well as Advisory Board Member for Pluri Inc, discusses regulatory bottlenecks and their stalling effect on cell-based therapies, as well as the real dynamics behind FDA reform, and why biotech CEOs must become more fluent in policymaking now.
You can listen to episode 215 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it - and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.
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On targeted radiotherapeutics, with Marc Hedrick
Radiation has for over a century been considered one of the most powerful methods of destroying cancer. But, even now, ways to deliver significant doses to a tumour without damaging normal surrounding tissue are few. And this is where targeted radiotherapeutics come in.
In a new pharmaphorum podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh speaks with Dr Marc Hedrick, president and CEO of Plus Therapeutics, a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing targeted radiotherapeutics with advanced platform technologies for central nervous system cancers, today and for the future.
You can listen to episode 214 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it - and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.
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Towards one, cohesive AI workflow: In conversation with Ilya Burkov
In a new pharmaphorum podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh speaks with Ilya Burkov, global head of healthcare & life sciences at Nebius, a company building one of the world’s leading AI infrastructure companies.
Burkov discusses the deployment of AI and cloud-native infrastructure for improving the speed and indeed quality of drug development, as well as why access to compute not enough and how GenAI is helping pharma teams integrate real-world evidence into the pipeline.
You can listen to episode 213 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it - and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.
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Collaborating on a connected platform journey, with Alexander Alex and Florian Schnappauf
Bayer and Veeva have partnered for several years across commercial, R&D, and quality functions. But recently Bayer migrated to Veeva’s Vault CRM, taking that relationship, and Bayer’s connected platform journey, to the next level.
In order to discuss this migration further, pharmaphorum spoke with Alexander Alex, head of Veeva Platform at Bayer, and Florian Schnappauf, vice president of enterprise commercial strategy at Veeva.
Alex and Schnappauf explain how Vault CRM is a step-change for companies like Bayer, and discuss the benefits of being able to reflect the whole customer journey on a single platform, as well as the importance of collaboration.
You can listen to episode 212 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it - and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.
pharmaphorum is one of the leading global channels for insight into the pharma and healthcare industry – and is essentially a group of passionate people who like asking excellent questions. Our podcasts offer a chance to pose some of these questions to the keenest minds in our industry to look at the big issues and opportunities facing pharma, biotech and healthcare today. With interviews and contributions from a host of industry experts and insiders, the pharmaphorum podcast is a must-listen for those who want insight into the future of health and medicine.
Ireland