403: Biotech exec Jeremy Levin on the industry's strategic turning point
STAT's biotech podcast covers Eli Lilly's gene-editing cholesterol drug data going viral, ASCO conference previews, and an interview with biotech executive Jeremy Levin about his new book arguing that American biotech leadership is endangered by institutional decay, short-term investing, FDA upheaval, and China's strategic rise.
Summary
The episode opens with hosts Alison DeAngelis and Adam Forstein discussing the viral spread of data from Eli Lilly's gene-editing cholesterol drug, Verve-102, which showed a 62% reduction in LDL cholesterol in a Phase 1 trial. The hosts note that while the technology is exciting and brought gene editing into mainstream conversation, the data is early and from a small patient population with a genetic form of high cholesterol. They caution that comparable cholesterol reductions are already achievable with existing statins and PCSK9 inhibitors, and compliance rather than efficacy is the real clinical problem the therapy aims to solve. They also flag the risk of overhyping early-stage results.
The hosts briefly cover Retro Biosciences reaching unicorn status at a $1.8 billion valuation after closing a new financing round, and preview the ASCO oncology conference in Chicago. Key data expected includes Revolution Medicines' pan-RAS inhibitor deraxanracib for pancreatic cancer, which previously showed a doubling of survival in Phase 3 trials, and ivonescimab, a PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody from Akeso licensed to Summit Therapeutics, presenting lung cancer survival data. Adam notes skepticism about whether China-only trial data for the PD-1/VEGF class will translate to global populations.
The main interview features Jeremy Levin, founder and chairman of Ovid Therapeutics and former CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals, discussing his new book 'Biotech in the Balance.' Levin argues that while the science of biotech has never been stronger, the infrastructure supporting it — regulatory independence, long-term capital, domestic manufacturing, and institutional trust — is fracturing. He coined the phrase 'politics of unreality' to describe an environment where facts are treated as positions, expertise is seen as elitism, and institutions are only legitimate when they agree with one's political tribe, which he calls fatal to biomedical innovation.
On the FDA, Levin expresses serious concern about political interference, noting that 90% of top leadership has turned over in roughly 18 months and DOGE cut 20% of staff without understanding what was being eliminated. He argues the FDA must be fiercely independent — not anti-industry, not industry-captured, and not politically pressured — and that predictability at the FDA is not bureaucracy but fundamental infrastructure.
On China, Levin outlines a deliberate five-step strategic program China has executed over 25 years: building API and molecule capabilities, developing CRO infrastructure, attracting overseas Chinese scientists back home, developing novel medicines, and ultimately making biotech a geopolitical and trade leverage asset. He warns that within five years, without corrective action, China could become the dominant global provider of biomedical innovation, facilitated in part by large Western pharma companies investing in Chinese capabilities.
On manufacturing, Levin argues that past offshoring was 'industrial colonialism' driven by cheap labor arbitrage, and that the opportunity now is not to replicate old-style factories domestically but to build next-generation manufacturing capability — particularly for cell and gene therapies where the manufacturing process is the product. He argues that the current wave of reshoring announcements focuses on capacity rather than innovation.
On long-term investing, Levin argues the financial system has not evolved alongside biotech science, with too many investors treating the sector as a short-term trade. He advocates for tiered capital gains tax incentives that reward holding biotech investments for a decade or more, warning that AI-driven algorithmic trading will eventually displace short-term specialist investors entirely.
Levin closes with a prediction that biotech science will continue to accelerate regardless of geopolitics, but American leadership in biotech is not guaranteed and is increasingly threatened by short-term thinking, political interference, and institutional decay, with countries like Germany and Australia actively recruiting U.S. scientists.
Key Insights
- Levin argues that the 'politics of unreality' — where facts are treated as positions and expertise as elitism — is fatal to biomedical innovation, drawing an analogy to Soviet-era science suppression that led to mass starvation.
- Levin claims that approximately 90% of the FDA's top leadership has been removed or departed within roughly 18 months, and that DOGE cut 20% of agency staff without knowing what functions were being eliminated.
- Levin contends that large pharmaceutical 'titans' are staying publicly silent about FDA upheaval despite being aware of the damage, and that their silence enables the problem to continue.
- Levin outlines China's deliberate five-step, 25-year strategic biotech program and predicts that within five years — not immediately — China could become the dominant global provider of biomedical innovation, partly enabled by Western pharma investment in Chinese capabilities.
- Levin argues that current U.S. pharmaceutical reshoring announcements focus on building capacity rather than innovation, and that the real opportunity is to build next-generation manufacturing infrastructure for cell and gene therapies where, as he states, 'the factory and the manufacturing is the product.'
- Levin contends that the U.S. capital gains tax structure, which taxes a one-year and a twenty-year biotech investment at the same rate, actively disincentivizes the long-term investment that biotech's decade-long development timelines require.
- Adam Forstein notes that Verve-102's 62% LDL cholesterol reduction, while framed as revolutionary, is already achievable with existing statins and twice-yearly PCSK9 inhibitor injections, meaning the drug's core value proposition is compliance rather than superior efficacy.
- Levin predicts that AI will eventually displace short-term specialist biotech investors through algorithmic trading, and argues this makes structural reform of investment incentives urgent before that displacement occurs.
Topics
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