Biomedical innovation is moving faster than ever—and yet in 2019, the biopharma industry looks to be in for a bumpy ride.
A volatile stock market has slowed biotech’s multi-year bull run, dinging valuations and leaving prospects for future offerings less clear. Mixed signals from the White House have led to even more uncertainty surrounding the ongoing national drug pricing debate—and new legislation looks to be working its way through Capitol Hill. Two mega-mergers are sending ripples throughout the sector. The desperation for an effective Alzheimer’s treatment continues to grow, yet drug after drug has fallen flat, calling into question our most basic understanding of the disease. And news of gene-edited babies in China is testing the U.S. scientific community’s ethical guardrails as CRISPR therapeutics begin their journey through human testing.
How should the biotech ecosystem handle an unpredictable macro-environment, and prepare for a possible downturn? How can it ensure that the slew of emerging gene and cell therapies—one-time, long-lasting treatments—will be economically viable? That the U.S. healthcare system can afford the advances in cancer treatment the industry has to offer? What other trends and developments can we look forward to, and what’s the latest in Boston life sciences?