Portal CEO on Health Care's Expanding Funding Sources

Bloomberg

Watch Portal CEO on Health Care's Expanding Funding Sources - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00We've been talking all year long about GLP-1 obesity. We know that's a big market here,

00:04but we kind of forget some of the progress that has been made in some of the other areas like

00:07neurology and, of course, with exact sciences, a renewed focus by a lot of these companies on

00:12oncology. Absolutely. I mean, oncology, you know, the beauty of some of the breakthroughs on the

00:17therapeutic side is new modalities that are, you know, improving and extending lives in cancer

00:23and previously untreatable tumor types. But as that happens, we've also learned that diagnostic

00:30tools can predict and using those tools and finding cancer early can lead to better outcomes.

00:37So if you look at what happened today with Abbott buying exact sciences from a commercial perspective,

00:42obviously it expands the cancer franchise for Abbott. But at the same time, it's kind of a fun

00:47story to think about when you go back to the origins of exact sciences. It's very much, you know,

00:52that classic story of an innovator. You know, a lot of the early science came out of Johns Hopkins

00:56University, Brett Vogelstein, and then a collaboration with Mayo Clinic, David Alquist,

01:04and then Kevin Conroy came along, put the package together and really built an amazing company that

01:09now is able to bring these diagnostic tools to patients since that's really the opportunity.

01:13Well, with regards to those diagnostic tools, I mean, in the past when we talked about the biotech

01:17industry, it was always about sort of that one killer, or actually the killer, but that one sort of big

01:21drug that was going to be the treatment for whatever was ailing you. And we're seeing a much

01:25more of a focus on preventative medicine, the idea of being able to diagnose and scan yourself

01:30way earlier in that process. So you don't end up with the more extreme version of whatever disease

01:36or ailment. And so much of that is a product of, you know, the genomics revolution, going back to the,

01:41you know, early days of, you know, deciphering the human genome. And fast forward to today,

01:46those discoveries and the ability to use those tools now at scale with supercomputing allows us

01:54to be much more precise with understanding what is the genetic mutation in a cancer type or other

02:00diseases, and how do we assign and prescribe the right drug to be able to be more effective? Because

02:05drugs themselves always will have some untoward or, you know, off target effect, which leads to side

02:12effects. So the more precise we can be with the capabilities of that drug by understanding the

02:17diagnostic tools will be more effective at treating patients. Well, I'd love to tie this

02:20conversation into what we're seeing in the political environment as well, because that's been one of the

02:25hot topics this year is what does funding look like, particularly at the NIH level. So when you,

02:31you know, think about all the smaller companies in this space, trying to develop these drugs,

02:36what does the state of funding look like, not just from private investors, but from the government as well?

02:41Well, there was a lot of noise early on. If you go back really almost a year to the day, you know,

02:46RFK Jr., you know, was brought in place, you know, to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. So

02:51the industry was somewhat concerned about that appointment. If you fast forward to today, you know,

02:58Marty Macri, the head of the FDA, had a bold vision, and his bold vision was to accelerate drug

03:04approvals, especially in rare diseases. And there's been some turmoil and turnover in the

03:11ranks of the FDA. Really good news. You know, we've got Richard Pazder coming in as the head of

03:15CDER. Right. But those things really, those fears have kind of waned off. As it turns out, NIH funding

03:21has continued to remain steady. It's certainly cast a lot of concerns. Is that eagerness and innovation

03:26there? Because, I mean, to your point earlier, I mean, we talk about, you know, the COVID pandemic and

03:31Operation Warp Speed, which probably is one of the greatest, you know, achievements that we've had

03:36as a country, certainly on the health care front. Yet you have an administration that almost seems

03:40hostile to the same science that the previous administration sort of lauded. Yeah. I mean,

03:47there's no question about it. We're living at a very confusing time when it comes to policy.

03:52What we're trying to look at from an investor perspective is, and back to look at the markets

03:57today, up 25 percent in the XBI index. And that came out of a deep hole. I mean, we've been in a

04:04really a nuclear winter for the past several quarters. So what's driving that? What's driving

04:09it is innovation. So these breakthroughs are leading to better treatments and better outcomes

04:12for patients. We predicted and are now seeing more funding coming from alternative sources beyond

04:18the government. Venture capitalists, but also like we have a company that's going after a Parkinson's

04:25disease. It just was awarded a $5 million grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. States are

04:30getting very aggressive and investing in innovation. So we're partnering with the state of New Jersey

04:34around the New Jersey innovation hub. So Rutgers, Princeton, a lot of cool stuff happening there.

04:40But in investing through the state instead of through the federal government is becoming more

04:45prevalent. Texas, the Cancer Prevention Research Institute is a $6 billion fund that's investing into

04:53companies. Three of our companies, Iterion, Crossbridge, and Novascan, were awarded $25 million. So

05:01where the federal government may be pulling back or confusing people, other sources are popping up.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended