Latest / Making Medicine / MassBio’s 2025 Snapshot: VC Gravity, Policy & a Competitiveness Playbook | Kendalle Burlin O’Connell

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MassBio’s 2025 Snapshot: VC Gravity, Policy & a Competitiveness Playbook | Kendalle Burlin O’Connell · Making Medicine

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Making Medicine Podcast
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: or Science Policy and Innovation Meet. As always, I'm your
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: host John Stanford. This week we're talking with Kendall Berlin O'Connell,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: who is CEO and President of mass Bio. Leads the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: world's largest biopharma membership organization. Under her tenure, mass Bio
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: has responded to the needs of emerging companies by expanding
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the drive entrepreneurial accelerator, launched a leadership community for founders
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and first time CEOs, and is tailored mass Bio's aligned
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: summit to today's complicated landscape. She's an outspoken advocate for government
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: policies that enable innovation, unlock patient access, and protect American dominance.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Kendall also serves as the chair of the Eastern New
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: England Regional Board of the American Cancer Society and as
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: an Incubate Advisory Board member. We have her on hot
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: off the release of their twenty twenty five industry Snapshot,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: which is painting a vivid picture of biotech in Massachusetts.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: With that, let's get into the show. Kendall, thank you
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. John thrilled to be here.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: We could talk to you about any number of issues.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But hot off the press is your twenty twenty five
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: industry Snapshot, which dropped last week. So thank you one
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: for clipping us in on your media tour. Saw some
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: great coverage already and just want to dive into this
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: moment in time for the industry. But I'm really curious,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: as CEO, what are What's a compelling data piece that
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you found really interesting that stood out to you.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this year's snapshot looks a lot different than
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: it has in the previous years. Right, we used to
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: be able to tell a story of rainbows and unicorns
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: and a lot of positivity. This story definitely looks different
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: when you're purely looking at the numbers. When you peel
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: it back and look at the story behind the numbers,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: it's still quite a compelling story for why Massachusetts. So
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: there's two data points that I'm really interested in, and
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: one of them is that Massachusetts headquartered companies still receive
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: twenty two percent of all venture capital investment. Right, so
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: we punched way above our weight class, second only to California,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: And when you look at all the other states, no
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: other state received more than four percent.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So again, when you're thinking about R and D early
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: stage biotech.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: You're thinking Massachusetts still, or investors are thinking Massachusetts still,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: and that's really good news. The other piece that I
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: really liked was despite all of the headwinds that we've
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: faced this year, and there have been many, Massachusetts still
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: increased our percentage of the drug development pipeline, particularly in
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: advanced modalities. So again, when you think of the heart
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: of what we do here in Massachusetts, we do really innovative, novel,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: risky science, and that was reflected in the number.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So two pieces of data. I always think of you
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: as an eternal optimist, and I think anyone in this
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: industry kind of has to be. So I like those
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: two pieces that look Massachusetts clearly is one of the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: leading players, if not the leading player. One proxy for
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that being the really outsized VC investment, and that your
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: share of the global pipeline. I think it's such an
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: interesting way of thinking of it. All these drugs being developed,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: so many of them in Massachusetts, but especially the advanced modalities,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: which we've talked about before. It's harder and harder to
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: make the case for an advanced modality, and we're going
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to talk about that in a second. But okay, I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: love those two takeaways because it was kind of a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: gloomy report, Like you said, rainbows and sunshine and unicorns.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It wasn't. We've been so used to that. But I
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: like that you still still found two kernels, you know,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: as the leader of mass bio that says there's still
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: good things happening, and they're happening right here in Massachusetts.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're not uniquely feeling these challenges, right. They're
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: felt all around the country and all of our competing clusters.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: But I you know, sort of the underlying message I
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: read there is when there's uncertainty, you naturally retract back
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: to what works right, and Massachusetts works. We're a trusted
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: partner when it comes to research and development.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Massachusetts Works. I think you might have come up with
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a new new slogan for the state. I think the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I hope the Governor's office is tuned into this travel
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: tourism Massachusetts works. We had, you know, all the incredible
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: work of our teams to prepare for this episode. We're
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: going to throw it all by the wayside because I
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: had all these questions. But I you know, in catching up,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you said something super interesting that I think ties together
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: so much of what we talk about here, and you
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: talked about how this industry, this economy is a bit
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of a flywheel, and that part of where where you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: see these headwinds is uncertainty. And I wondered if for
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: all of our listeners you might talk through that flywheel
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: example we were talking about, because I think it brings
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: everything together across the ecosystem.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll talk about it and sort of give
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: you the brass tax example of Massachusetts and why I've
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: started to talk about in a flywheel. So when you
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: thought about why was Massachusetts a world leading ecosystem for
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: research and development, Well, we had this density of stakeholders, right,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: one thousand biotechs, eighteen of the top twenty biopharma, a
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: rich representation from our innovation ecosystem, over one hundred academic institutions,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: so all of the key stakeholders that you would want
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: in a healthy life science ecosystem and spades. So then
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: when you started to think about, well, what's happening, Why
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: are we having such challenges from the earliest stage of funding,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: you know, downstream. So it was like, Okay, when I'm
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: talking to our partners in government, I think it really
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: resonates when you think we've seen challenges at every with
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: every stakeholder and every stage of our life science ecosystem.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: So think about our academic institutions where this science starts, right,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: whether it's our academic institutions, our research hospitals, right, NIH
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: funding took some serious challenges and some serious cuts, as
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: the report reflects year over year, but it doesn't even
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: account for twenty twenty five. So okay, so that our
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: earliest stage science was seeing some challenges, and then let's
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: go more downstream.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: SBR poise for reauthorization.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: It's an absolute imperative that we continue to get that
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: early stage funding mechanism reauthorized and i'd argue increased. It's
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: so critically important for these early stage companies. And in
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Massachusetts where the second recipient of SBIR grants, over thirty
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: seven hundred biotechs in Massachusetts have received SBR funding since
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: two thousand and I think in twenty twenty three alone
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: it was like over one hundred and seventy million dollars.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: This is really important money going to the earliest stages
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: of research and development. And now let's think about what
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: happened with the FDA and all of the uncertainty swirling
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: around the FDA. So as these companies are poised to
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: hit a milestone, get feedback from the FDA, which positions
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: them for more funding, that was uncertain right. And then
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: let's look downstream, which what was happening with terriffs That
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: impacts every single company.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: And again, when you don't.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Know where your money is going to be going out,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: how are you going to be investing it into early
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: stage companies? And then sort of the nuclear option for
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: our larger biopharma companies was MFN and we're still uncertain
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: about what's going to happen there.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And so when there's a tight private.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: Investment market, venture capital and biofarm is not sure where
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: their money is going to be going out, how are
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: they going to reinvest it into the ecosystem in this flywheel. Well,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: so all of that created a completely stalled investment market
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: this year.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I want to stay there for a second because I
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: think you hit on something that's not breaking through enough
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: in my view in Washington, and in your letter you
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: explicitly called that accompanied the snapshot explicitly called out price
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: controls in most favored nations, And I think there's this
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance, a little bit of they're somehow separate that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: we can install price controls on large pharma and really
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: gut their profits and yet still be competitive with China
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and have all the latest great breakthroughs that come from biotechs.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And I keep banging my head against the wall explaining
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: small biotech has to have robust pharma. So I just
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: wonder if you might, you might say more, just how
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: dramatic if we weaken large pharma. How consequential is that
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: for the early stage ecosystem.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: It's hugely consequential about it?
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: This is now techs need big pharma to get a
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: therapy to a patient. Now, right, there's no such thing
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: as a fully integrated company anymore. Right. Biotechs innovate and
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: then pharma comes in and helps accelerate that final stage
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: of the process to get that drug or therapy to
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: a patient.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: That's the way it works now. And if there's uncertainty
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: with how.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: A big pharma company is going to be spending or
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: or you know, getting hit with tariffs or where their
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: money is going to be going out, they're going to
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: sit tight and sit on that and they're not going
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: to reinvest it. Into helping to accelerate innovation and science
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: with our biotech companies. And you know, when we talk
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: about this and we talk about our biotech ecosystem here
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: in Massachusetts, and then we say, and we have eighteen
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: of the top twenty biopharma companies here.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: They came here to partner with biotech companies.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: And you know, some of the interviews I did this
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: week about the report, I was going down the list
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: of are biopharma companies that have continued to make investment
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: in Massachusetts so expanding, right, And the list is so lengthy.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It's A Z and GSK and.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: Biogen and AMD and Lily and BMS and I mean
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: to CATA.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: The list goes on.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: They're doing this for access to these innovative biotech companies
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: to help partner and accelerate that science. And it's a
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: good everyone wins when that happens. But there has to
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: be an environment of regulatory certainty, political certainty for those
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: just like you as an you know, if you're going
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: to invest in something, you want a certain some type
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: of certainty on what that return is going to look
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: like and when you're going to receive that return, and
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: what's the environment surrounding that, like, why wouldn't a biopharma
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: company expect that as well?
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. I mean, it's just question
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: mark after question mark. I mean President Trump had his
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: cabinet meeting and out of nowhere. You know, we talked
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: about this on a previous episode. Tariffs meet MFN, MFN
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: meet tariffs, let's just mix it and if we're not
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: getting the price controlled drug, then we're going to slap
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you with a tariff. Well, besides that being frankly not
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a great way to think about policy, it's also just
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: a giant question mark. And so how can anybody move forward?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, in your flywheel, I think one of
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the glue elements is capital. So I want to talk
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: about capital for a second, because the positive note is
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Massachusetts continues to just dramatically bring in an outsized share
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a venture capital. I think that's outstanding. But the global
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: pool is shrinking and shrinking dramatically. I think we saw,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: you know, we're several billion invested behind in Massachusetts of
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: where we should be, and.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Then the lowest since twenty seventeen, actually, which should be
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: deeply concerning for all of us.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I think that's such a great I mean the lowest
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: level basically in ten years. And everyone's talking about how
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: great the and resilient the economy and the stock market. Well,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: this is an element where we are seeing the blinking
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: red light. And not only is it down, but I
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: was really intrigued by some of the snapshot data. It's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: concentrated the only ten companies I think accounted for something
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: like half of the venture investment. What do you see
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the consequence of that heavy concentration and is that making
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: it harder for individual maybe not the sexiest biotechs that
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: could have a great idea, but they're never going to
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: get the capital to really find out. How How is
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that concentration of a smaller pool impacting Massachusetts.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so in a time of uncertainty, investors are
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: looking for some type of certainty, right, so they're investing
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: later stage with more clinical data, and that's okay, but
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: there still needs to be that early stage investment happening,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: right because that's where new science and research happens. And
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: so I've heard from so many companies, I mean, the
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: preseed seed series A, series B market is incredibly challenging,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: if not impossible right now, and when you think about
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: an ecosystem like Massachusetts. That's our secret power are those
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: early stage biotech companies.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And so it's a chicken in the egg.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: How do you advance your science if you don't have
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: the funding to do it, And of course it's risky,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: but we have long bet on those companies and we've
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: been rewarded in incredible breakthrough innovations for patients.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Well, you reference maybe the earliest form of capital, or
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: at least two forms of it in your flywheel, and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that's the NIH and that's SBIR, and so maybe staying
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: there for a moment. NIH. The House Labor HHS Draft
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Appropriations Bill came out for the next fiscal year and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: frankly some positive news in the sense of the cuts
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: are only about a percent to the forty plus billion.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: There seems to be a little bit of a rejection
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of any idea to dramatically cut it. But they did
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: cut about half a billion dollars I think proposed to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: cut half a billion from ARPA. H maybe not. How
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: did those cuts to basic research plug into your flywheel?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And then I want to get to sbi R, which
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you mentioned as well, which kind of the next step.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: But can can the private sector just pick it up.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: As we sometimes hear. If if NIH investment is substantially cut.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: There's no work blacement for that.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And by the way, it's worked for years and years
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: and years, why are we questioning whether or not it works.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: And you know, something like our age was so exciting
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: because we know what happens when we have concentrated financial
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: and time resource.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Right, there's there's a g that wins.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Right, when we can put more money and more concentrated
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: experts behind something, there's a great outcome at the end.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: And so we should be continuing to try to do
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: that if we're going to be a world leading innovation economy.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: And the same thing with NIH, right, that is where
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: the riskiest science is happening. And by the way, the
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: science is really hard, so a lot of times it fails.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: We've got to continue to sprinkle that investment to see
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: what's up there, to see where these the smartest people
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: in the world can you know, innovate and then spin
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: out a company. Right, This is the other thing that
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I think people don't realize when you think about that investment,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: it goes to the you know, academic institution for research, hospitals,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: what have you, but it's not just the science and
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: the postdocs that are doing it. Companies start from that,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: right Like in Massachusetts, our academic institutions in the last
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: ten years have started over five hundred companies, and I
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: guarantee you you can correlate all of them started with
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: NIH funding.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: That's I mean, I think that's such a good call out,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: particularly for oh, the government shouldn't be getting involved. It
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: is such a perfect seed grounding and to your point,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it works. And so if we zoom out and we
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: think about you know, incubates, all about where policy and
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the business of biotech or meeting. There are individual prescriptions
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: for policy, no pun intended, But broadly speaking, how do
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: you we have so many threats, so many misconceptions, so
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: many things out of this administration that we're wrapping our
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: heads around. If you boiled it all down to what
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: should our policy agenda be to a couple words, have
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: you thought about is there a unifying thing of FDA, SBI, R, NIH, tariffs,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: MFN what makes you make sense of all of it?
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: What we need to be doing collectively is thinking about
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: a comprehensive competitiveness package. Right if we want to be
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: a world leader, stay a world leader and innovation, and
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: not just because it's an and critically important economic engine
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: for the United States, but because it's a national security priority.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: We should be doubling down and having concentrated investment and stability.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Right We should be investing more through NIH.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: We should be clearly reauthorizing sbi ARE and doubling down
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: on that. You know, initiatives like our age lead to
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: successful outcomes for large patient populations. Potentially, that's a good
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: thing for the United States.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: We should be.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Continuing to invest in that. Things like we want to
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: onshore more. That's incredible. We want to do that, but
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: we've got to have vehicles to do that. We should
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: be prioritizing incentives around domestic manufacturing. We should be continuing
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: to incentivize research and development that's happening here. I mean
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: all of these pieces. We should be fixing the pill penalty.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: We should be modernizing FDA, you know, instead of sort
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: of hitting each stage of the life cycle and pieces
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and and sort of systematically dismantling it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: We should be continuing to.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Concentrate investment so we can continue to stay the world
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: leader in research and development.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I love that, and I will fairly attribute it to
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: you when I absolutely steal it on Capitol Hill. A
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: comprehensive competitiveness package, And I think that moment is palatable
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: for the politics of today. We're not asking for handouts,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: we're not asking for things. We're not asking to nationalize
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: an industry, which is a topic for another episode. But
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: we're just saying we need to stay competitive. And so
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: if we go down the path of MFN and messiness
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: at the FDA, can I take the logical step that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: we are, we would be less competitive in your view.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: You can see what's happened just in the last seven or.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Eight months, right and think about the traction that China
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: has had in this short period of time. And we
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: know other competing global clusters have taken advantage of these
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: vulnerable movements for us, whether they're recruiting our postdocs or
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: our scientists, or just accelerating some of that innovation in
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: times where we've had uncertainty and not making those investments
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: at the clip which we've been doing them over the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: last few years. So I think the time is now.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I think it's critically important if the United States wants
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: to stay the world leader for this biotechnology innovation.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Economy bonus question because you've been so generous with your time,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: but you are on the ground floor. I mean, you
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: are out in the hottest cluster in the world, but
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: other clusters around the world are coming. How much does China,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: whether it's from biosecure, conversation on shoring manufacturing, or even
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: some of your own members saying, hey, we need to
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: pay attention to the science coming out of China. I
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: know that mass Bio contributed to the Senate National Security
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Working Group Section two thirty two. I know y'all responded
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to how much would you say China as a broad
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: construct good bad otherwise is eating up your time and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: your thoughts and your leadership energy versus five years ago.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's night and day versus five years ago. I
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: mean it was sort of. China was hardly in the
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: conversation five years ago. I am hard pressed to have
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: a conversation where we're talking about investment and politics and
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: competitiveness where China isn't in the conversation.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: If that is an answer to that question.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: And I think the other thing that is starting to
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: be clear, and obviously this is something that the report underscores,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: is the fragility of our innovation economy, not just here
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: in Massachusetts but nationally, Like, we have to realize that
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: we could lose it, right. I think there's been this
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: assumption that we're the world leader, and we have the
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: best medicines, and we have the smartest people, and we
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: do it the best, and that is true.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: But you can see that when we can create all
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: of these additional hurdles and barriers in a.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Really difficult, challenging industry, that we're feeling it and if
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: we continue to do that, we're going to lose it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I think that's such a good capture of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: what was surprising to me about the snapshot is this
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be a steady drip, drip drip. We
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: get weaker and weaker, and in thirty years we look
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: around and say, oh, what happened to our really strong bioeconomy.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is a caution light.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Two years, five years, Yeah, truly, that isn't even I
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: don't even think that's being overly dramatic.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's truly realistic.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: If we stayed in the state that we're in right now,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: we should expect that we won't be.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: The world leading innovation economy in two to.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Five years, which in a place like Massachusetts isn't just
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a oh no, we're not getting more medicines, new innovation,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and this is the lifeblood of your state's economy, not
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: even just centralized to Boston. That was another great piece
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I saw as the map showing the bioeconomy has taken
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: over so many counties outside of the great.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Boston forty two and a half billion to GDP in
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, you know, just in biopharma almost one hundred.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And you know, eighteen thousand jobs.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's critically important to our economy, but more
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: importantly to the United States, our contribution and to patients
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: all around the world. And I don't mean that, you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: to say that, And I am optimistic, and I think
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: we're completely well positioned for when things rebound, because we do.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: We still are seeing that venture investment flow, and we
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: still are seeing our drug development pipeline representation increase. So
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: all of the sort of the stats of what you
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: would see as a healthy ecosystem.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Are still there. But we can't take many more years
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: of this.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I love ending on a positive note, and you have
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: found a way to take some pretty depressing numbers and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: valid numbers. I mean credit to you and your team
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: for the methodology that went into the snapshot. It should
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: be a clarion call to the entire industry into policymakers.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: We're on the right track, but following Kendall and mass
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Bio's competitiveness, I've got to get it right comprehensive competitiveness
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: package we can get back on the right ship and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: continue to be the leader globally. So I'm so grateful
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that you came on. I know how busy you've been
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: with the release of this and you have a big
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: event this week, and so we are so grateful Kendall
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: that you've joined us today.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: for giving, you know, creating a vehicle to have these conversations,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: because I think they're really really important, and sometimes they're hard,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: and they're not the conversations we'd like to be having,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: right we'd like to be saying things.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: Are doing great and we're helping, you know, creating so
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: many new innovations and helping patients, and we are doing
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: all of that.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: But I think it's really important that we have realistic
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: conversations too, and I think that's the approach we try
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: to take with the report, right, cause and effect.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: We're leading the story with the data, and then we're
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: going to talk around that and how we can continue
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: to improve.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: So thank you for giving me the opportunity to have
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that conversation.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: We'll have you back for the twenty twenty six snapshot
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: where we can see how you turned a lot of
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: these numbers around. Thanks Kendall.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Right, it's a perfect ending. Thanks John.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: That's all for this week's episode The Making Medicine Podcast.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: A special thanks to Kendall and mass Bio for joining
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: us today. Have a thought or a question about today's
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: topics or something Kendall said, drop a comment and we'll
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: feature it in next week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and follow us on LinkedIn, x and Instagram
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: using the links in the description. Thanks for listening, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: as always, keep innovating.