Ep201: Jeremy Levin on Biotech in the Balance
Jeremy Levin, founder of Ovid Therapeutics and author of 'Biotech in the Balance,' discusses the systemic decline in public trust toward the biotechnology industry, tracing it from the Shkreli scandal through COVID-19 and into the current era of hostile policy. He argues the industry must recognize itself as strategically vital and offers ten commitments—including transparency, patient-centricity, and long-term capital formation—to rebuild its standing with the public and policymakers.
Summary
In this episode of The Long Run, host Luke Timmerman speaks with Jeremy Levin, executive chairman of Ovid Therapeutics and author of 'Biotech in the Balance: Saving a Strategic Industry in an Age of Distrust.' Levin explains that the book emerged from a growing alarm he felt watching the biotechnology ecosystem buckle under political, regulatory, and reputational pressures—pressures he argues have been building for decades, not just in recent years.
Levin traces the roots of public distrust to a fundamental identity problem: the biotech industry has become indistinguishable in the public mind from Big Pharma, even though 70% of new medicines originate from small, innovative biotech companies. When Martin Shkreli gained notoriety in 2015 for price-gouging on a generic drug, the biotech industry failed to loudly differentiate itself, missing what Levin calls a 'canary in the coal mine' moment. That silence helped cement an unfair but damaging association in the public consciousness.
The COVID-19 pandemic further deepened the crisis. While the development of vaccines through Operation Warp Speed was a remarkable scientific and logistical achievement, the industry and government failed to educate the public about what vaccines could and could not do. Political interference—including pressure to approve vaccines before sufficient data existed—eroded scientific credibility, even as the FDA and industry temporarily aligned to resist that pressure. The result was a public that felt misled when vaccinated individuals still contracted COVID variants, fueling lasting distrust.
Levin argues this distrust has now translated into concrete policy damage: Medicare drug price negotiation authority under the Inflation Reduction Act, Most Favored Nation pricing threats, tariffs, gutting of the NIH, chaotic FDA restructuring, and an anti-science posture at HHS. He warns that large pharmaceutical companies negotiating individually with the current administration—rather than standing together with biotech—represents a critical strategic error that invites a divide-and-conquer dynamic.
The heart of the conversation centers on Levin's ten commitments, practical behavioral changes companies can adopt to rebuild trust. These include: an unwavering public commitment to scientific truth; treating patients as the primary beneficiary rather than a narrative device; adhering to ethical development standards; practicing radical transparency in communicating trial results, failures, and limitations; and supporting regulatory integrity by defending a strong, science-driven FDA. Levin emphasizes these are not cosmetic PR moves but genuine operational and ethical choices.
Levin and Timmerman also discuss structural reforms to support long-term capital formation, including tiered capital gains tax treatment favoring long-term holders, R&D tax credits modeled on real estate incentives, and replacing quarterly SEC reporting with biannual reporting to free up executive bandwidth for science and patient outreach. Levin stresses that biotech's capital needs are fundamentally different from those of the tech industry, where products can be iterated in-market—a failed drug trial can end a company, making patient capital essential.
The conversation turns to China as a cautionary mirror. Levin outlines China's deliberate five-stage strategy—from API manufacturing to regulatory learning, to attracting diaspora scientists, to producing biosimilars, and now to developing novel drugs—executed over 25 years with strategic discipline. He warns that by 2035, China may be the dominant producer of novel medicines, and could leverage that as a trade weapon, while the U.S. has treated its biotech sector as an afterthought rather than a strategic asset.
Levin closes with an appeal for the industry to launch a large-scale public communications campaign—not polished drug advertisements, but honest, patient-centered storytelling that explains what biotech actually is and does. He argues that the industry has the tools, the resources through BIO, and the stories to rehabilitate its public image, but has consistently failed to use them. He expresses optimism that the science has never been better, and that the window to act—before innovation simply migrates abroad—remains open, if narrowing.
Key Insights
- Levin argues that the biotech industry's failure to publicly differentiate itself from Big Pharma after the Shkreli scandal in 2015 was a critical strategic error that allowed an unfair reputational association to solidify in the public mind.
- Levin contends that during COVID-19, neither the government nor the pharmaceutical industry launched adequate public education campaigns explaining what vaccines could and could not do, leaving a vacuum that conspiracy theories and misinformation filled.
- Levin claims that large pharmaceutical companies negotiating individual deals with the current administration—rather than presenting a unified front with biotech—constitutes a divide-and-conquer vulnerability that the administration is actively exploiting.
- Levin asserts that 90% of FDA leadership has turned over in roughly a year, a pace he says would destabilize any organization and will likely require three to ten years of recovery regardless of future administrations.
- Levin argues that China has executed a deliberate five-stage biomedical strategy over 25 years—from API manufacturing to novel drug development—and by 2035 may use pharmaceutical exports as a geopolitical trade lever, mirroring its strategy with batteries and solar panels.
- Levin claims that 70% of all new medicines originate from small biotech companies, yet these companies remain invisible to the public, who conflate them with large pharmaceutical corporations when reacting to pricing and access grievances.
- Levin argues that biotech's capital structure is fundamentally incompatible with quarterly SEC reporting requirements designed for other industries, and that biannual reporting would free significant executive resources for science and patient engagement.
- Levin contends that the industry's commitment to scientific truth must be publicly stated and relentlessly upheld because if truth becomes negotiable, the entire downstream system—regulation, patient participation in trials, and investor confidence—collapses.
- Levin argues that cell and gene therapy manufacturing is so process-dependent and facility-specific that biosimilar competition will be practically impossible, making manufacturing innovation and domestic capacity a strategic imperative rather than a cost center.
- Levin claims that an estimated 10 to 15 million American lives were saved by COVID vaccines, but this figure goes largely unacknowledged publicly, while the 1.3 million who did die from COVID are treated as a 'silent set of graves' that nobody wants to discuss.
- Levin argues that the industry's habit of running expensive consumer drug advertising campaigns means it clearly has the resources and channels to run public education campaigns about biotech's identity and value—but has simply chosen not to.
- Levin asserts that the Genzyme manufacturing contamination crisis and COVID-era supply chain failures both demonstrate that just-in-time, cost-minimized manufacturing is ethically incompatible with life-saving medicines that patients depend on for survival.
Topics
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