Active Ingredient - European Bid to Attract Biotech

Welcome to a new feature I am calling Active Ingredient. I read an article and answer a few questions about it. It's shorter than the regular episodes. I try to get to the key points of the article - the active ingredient.

This episode is my off the cuff reaction to an article in Cure by Ryan Flinn called Europe Makes Bold Bid to Attract Biotech Amid FDA Uncertainty.

Here is a link to the article:

https://wewillcure.com/insights/entrepreneurship/europe-makes-bold-bid-to-attract-biotech-amid-fda-uncertainty

Let me know what you think of the article and of my take in Active Ingredient.

MUSIC:

Acid Jazz-Kevin MacLeod used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

TRANSCRIPT:

You are about to experience the life science effect season 2 brought to you by our presenting sponsor BPM association. Extraordinary people, relationships that matter, important change for a better. The joy of belonging. Life, science, leadership. Hello. This is Steve. Welcome to the life science effect. Starting a new feature segment today is a little more laid back. I'm calling it active ingredient and. I'm just, you know, I read about the industry and when an article catch. With my eye, I'm just going to hit record and cover some of the same things from it. This one's a little more off the cuff, a little less structured than what you may have come used to, but I will warn you ahead of time. So I hope you enjoy it. It's called active ingredient and it starts now. So I just read this piece in here. It's that we will cure.com it's a community ecosystem for life sciences, biotech in the New York City area. And it ran across my feet and it's called Europe makes bold bid to attract biotech amid FDA uncertainty. It's by Ryan Flynn. Of course there'll be. A link in the show notes. And it caught my eye. It got me to stop scrolling because if you've listened to this podcast, you know that I've been trying to follow the uncertainty at FDA and the shake ups and the differences that are happening. And this one caught my eye because my first reaction was, ah, this is what can happen. You know, FDA has led the world and led regulations in the US has LED an innovation for a long time since at least the 70s and 80's. the US has LED an innovation. And if there's uncertainty at FDA. I thought, hmm, who else in the world may you know? We've talked about China being the next big innovator in medicines and medical devices, while Europe seems like maybe they'll want to make a play as we. Well. It didn't. It sort of surprised me because Europe is known as sort of conservative on these things. Ever since, you know, kind of the thalidomide days, if you don't know about Thalidomide, Europe approved a drug before the US did, and it caused a lot of birth defects. It it was, it was to treat nausea during pregnancy. And horrifically and tragically, caused birth defects. Then that and then the US didn't approve it and they said, see, our conservative approach is better. So then Europe actually became more conservative. Part of this article is this is could be, could be a big deal or it could be just noise. I kind of think it's kind of it's kind of just noise because the FDA's talking about streamlining as well. And the thing that has led to uncertainty is just the type of people who seem to be putting politics over science sometimes right now, at HHS and at the FDA. But they are talking about streamlining and supporting innovation. So they're saying a lot of the same things that this. Medical says. But if I were in. R R&D early stage R&D if I if I were at a medical start up, I would be paying attention to this because some companies come to the US because the US is seen as more friendly to innovation. Some startups, you know, some early stage medical companies, but maybe Europe's wanting to make a play and maybe if they make a stream. If they streamline the regulatory side of it, if governments are willing to provide a more start up friendly environment, let's say. You know, it may be a more or or more science backed environment, a lot of our universities are being pressured for DI practices. For example, a lot of universities in the US are being pressured about that. And so some researchers who may have an idea for a product may want to take a look at Europe. So if I were in that kind of position. I'd I'd really be caring about that right now. And again, it's this really connects to what I'm seeing and doing because it made me think about what we've been saying about the uncertainty at FDA and how's that going to impact things moving forward. This is one of the ways, whether it's Europe or China or bricks, you know, Brazil and India and China. In in those areas. So what I'd love to. Hear. Is maybe somebody smarter than me? I would love to hear from a startup that or maybe even a VC, a venture capital firm that follows these things closely. Are they seeing more an uptick in investment in Europe or is this something that would cause them to want to? Maybe invest in Europe or European companies. In fact, I've met folks from Scotland who. I have startup companies. It makes me want to ask them now. Like what are you thinking? Are you thinking, you know, cause they told me they come to the US because it's more supportive of innovation. I wonder if this. If they're starting to think maybe that's changing, I don't know. How about you? If you read this article again, I'll put a link in the show notes. If you read it, what jumps out at you? What do you think? That's it. If you like this. Let me. Know. Shoot me an e-mail at [email protected] much shorter form. Not as big of a commitment for you as of maybe you like that better go ahead and like and subscribe wherever you get the podcast, because I will be doing the longer form ones, the more structured ones as well. Just I want to do one of these once in. A while the. Active ingredient. Thanks for listening. Go to thelifescienceeffect.com and never miss a single episode. Thank you. Stay strong out there.