Dr. John LaMattina, former President of Pfizer Global R&D and senior partner at Pure Tech Health sets out the increasing challenges of bringing life-changing medicines to the market in the current regulatory environment.
Speaking on the Pharma Source podcast at a time when US Congress is enforcing further regulations in the form of the Inflationary Reduction Act (IRA), Dr LaMattina says that this will have unintended consequences and directly hit R&D budgets.
“People have to realise that you make (drug development) tougher by putting all these limitations on.” he explains. LaMattina has first-hand experience of having to close R&D facilities, and how this will mean slowing the development of life-saving treatments.
LaMattina says he had hoped that the COVID-19 pandemic would show the world the value of the biopharmaceutical industry and the remarkable efforts by these companies to create vaccines and therapeutics. Yet while the industry was valued during the pandemic, recent polls have shown that people have returned to more negative perceptions of the industry.
His latest book, Pharma and Profits: Balancing Innovation, Medicine, and Drug Prices explores how drug pricing works and busts some of the myths perpetuated by media largely hostile to ‘Big Pharma’.
“Look, drug companies are pretty responsible in how they conduct their business, and how they price drugs. I don’t wish for another pandemic but if something like that would strike again, I can guarantee you people will turn to the biopharmaceutical industry for help.”
What advice does Dr LaMattina have to the regulators?
“Try to appreciate that this industry and try and help with thrive and not necessarily continue to try and shackle it.”
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