Will Trump's policies kill Massachusetts' life sciences leadership?
Although the industry is centered in eastern Massachusetts, there's a statewide benefit from all the tax dollars those businesses and workers pay.
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In all, Massachusetts organizations — including universities, research institutes, and hospitals — received $3.5 billion in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Massachusetts-headquartered companies raised $3.26 billion in venture capital funding. Among all drugs in the development pipeline in the United States, 15 percent were being made by companies headquartered in Massachusetts.
But actions taken by President Trump and his administration — cutting funding for scientific research and universities, flirting with tariffs, fanning skepticism about vaccines — threaten to devastate the ecosystem. Today, the industry is at a precipice, and uncertainty abounds. Some companies are already feeling the pinch of terminated federal grants, while others are anxious about what might come. Taken together, Trump's policies could force some companies and scientists to take their money, talents, and products overseas.
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Christopher Locher, CEO of Lowell-based Versatope Therapeutics, which develops a platform to deliver vaccines and therapeutics, said he worries the Greater Boston life sciences ecosystem is 'being flushed down the toilet.'
For example, Trump is
Trump's funding cuts are already having a large impact on some local companies.
Part of the problem is the Trump administration isn't only cutting funding, but it's picking which technologies to fund — in some cases apparently based on politics more than science. Take flu vaccines.
The Trump administration recently announced a $500 million campaign to fund the development of a universal flu vaccine, which doesn't require annual updates, using technology being worked on
But simultaneously, he cut funding for other work on a universal flu vaccine. Versatope Therapeutics got $14 million in NIH funding and spent five years developing a universal flu vaccine. It had approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials
when
Trump terminated the contract's remaining $8 million, with the reason given being 'convenience,' Locher said.
Trump also
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Company executives say decisions by Trump officials to disinvest in vaccine-related technology — and concerns about whether government will approve new technology — means it's nearly impossible to find private investment funding to replace lost federal dollars.
'We're faced with bankruptcy in the very near future,' Locher said.
Ironically,
given Trump's stated commitment to bringing businesses back to the United States, one potential option Locher is eyeing is opening a subsidiary abroad. Conducting clinical trials would be cheaper in another country, whether in Europe, Australia, or China, Locher said, and some countries are offering financial incentives to American companies to relocate.
Companies also face a potential workforce brain drain. There have been
MassBio officials said China has less rigorous — but faster — safety and research protocols than the US. Australia allows a faster timeline for clinical trials. If regulatory approval of medicines is held up because the FDA is understaffed, companies may seek European regulatory approval instead.
The loss of talent to foreign countries will be compounded if the pipeline of local university graduates dries up. One draw for life sciences companies to Boston/Cambridge is the presence of elite schools like Harvard and MIT, with their potential for faculty collaboration and skilled graduates.
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Trump is trying to
Chip Clark, CEO at Vibrant Biomedicines in Cambridge, said cuts to university research funding both 'shrink the pipeline of great ideas' that form the basis for many biotech startups and translate to fewer available scientists.
Clark said the administration's policies 'seem like a deliberate attempt to try to cede scientific leadership to Europe and Japan and Korea and China. ... They will be delighted to capitalize on our talent, technology, and investment capital to make their robust biotech sectors grow and ultimately compete successfully against the US industry,' he said.
Don Ingber, founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, said he has postdocs with US visas applying for jobs in Europe, and others who were accepted to work at Harvard but are going elsewhere. 'The fact that places like Harvard and MIT and American universities are magnets for the best and brightest from around the world is what's driven our technology economy and certainly the Boston/Cambridge ecosystem,' Ingber said. 'With this uncertainty, I fear we'll lose a generation.'
Ingber, who was forced to stop work on two government-funded projects on drugs designed to prevent injury from radiation exposure, compared administration policies to 'eating seed corn' needed to grow crops.
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Trump's vendetta will undermine one of the most vibrant state economies in the country and set back American science by years. And it's not just eastern Massachusetts that will pay a price; the entire country will. As Ingber noted, it might take years to see the impact of medicines or technologies that aren't developed because of these shortsighted cuts.
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