Ever get a letter from more than 400 people?
Not 400 letters…. 1 letter with four hundred+ signatories!
Over the last week more than 400 of the tippity topest brass in Pharma signed onto an open letter protesting the recent Texas court ruling blocking the sales of Mifepristone. Pharma’s response is generating as much news as the original ruling.
So what’s the unique motivation for so many big Pharma heavy weights to raise the alarm? Money and market stability
The primary worry is that a court could, on a whim (or a bias), rule that ANY drug approved by the FDA should be delisted nationally. A monkey wrench in the gears could cost a manufacturer a huge amount of money even in the short term due to loss of revenue while sidelined, the disruption of physician prescribing preference, and the loss of patient confidence in their therapy….. just to cite a few impacts.
Expand the theory a bit and the same ‘legal logic’ could be applied to drugs in development questioning validity of drug trials and the FDA review and approval process. Drug development is very expensive and ‘time to launch’ in a competitive market translates into BIG money. Even the specter of such events would make any Pharma CEO quake in their lab booties.
CLICK HERE to read the open letter….. and even add your signature while at it.
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300 Biotech and Pharma CEOs Call for a Reversal of the Abortion Pill Ban
An open letter calls for a potential ban on abortion pill mifepristone to be reversed.
April 10, 2023 — Conflicting court rulings by federal judges in Texas and Washington last week left the future of a commonly used abortion pill in doubt. Now, more than 300 executives from biotech and pharmaceutical companies have signed an open letter opposing a Texas judge’s decision to stop the pill from being sold.
“We call for the reversal of this decision to disregard science, and the appropriate restitution of the mandate for the safety and efficacy of medicines for all with the FDA, the agency entrusted to do so in the first place,” the CEOs wrote in the letter.
The CEO of pharma giant Pfizer, Albert Bourla, signed the letter, along with hundreds of smaller American biotech companies, including ReCode Therapeutics, Blackfynn, and Ovid Therapeutics.
Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court last summer, which had previously granted access to abortion health care nationwide. In the aftermath of that reversal, states independently decided whether or not abortion would be allowed or effectively banned.
Last Friday, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered a suspension of the federally approved mifepristone, a drug that has been used for over two decades to terminate pregnancies. On the same day, Washington State’s U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, who was appointed by the Obama administration, called for the opposite and directed the FDA not to roll back the abortion pill.
“If courts can overturn drug approvals without regard for science or evidence, or for the complexity required to fully vet the safety and efficacy of new drugs, any medicine is at risk for the same outcome as mifepristone,” the CEOs’ letter says.
By Prarthana Prakash, Fortune Magazine
