There are a few facts about Derica Rice that are not only atypical of a Big Pharma CFO but warrant further exploration. Luckily he was very candid in his interview with our chief editor for this article.

Last October when we asked industry thought leaders, “What would be hot for 2016” (see our December 2015 issue), drug pricing was one topic consistently mentioned. Probably not much of a surprise considering the mass media’s fascination with portraying former Turing CEO Martin Shkreli as being everything that’s bad with biopharma.

Being the 2015 educational planning committee co-chair for BIO provided behind the scenes insights into what makes for a good industry session proposal at BIO. But beyond that I also learned how important it is for those interested in putting together an educational session for a conference to begin the planning process early. So when Bayer’s VP and Head of the company’s east coast innovation center, Chandra Ramanathan, Ph.D., and I sat down at last year’s annual BIO conference to discuss what type of educational session might be needed for BIO 2016, we did so armed with a wealth of wisdom.

Three days before the 2015 Christmas holiday, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and the Norton, MA, city council decided to exchange presents. The council signed off on a 13-year tax incentive (i.e., a $7 million tax break) in exchange for Alnylam agreeing to build a proposed $100 million facility that will eventually employ up to 220 workers.

When I wrote the opinion piece on the U.S. government’s successful killing of the planned Pfizer Allergan merger, it was on the heels of a March Editor’s Note on the current state of U.S. corporate taxes. There are those who argue that U.S. companies aren’t seeking to invert due to high U.S. tax rates. And while we can dispute the rationale behind why companies have been seeking to relocate outside the United States, what can’t be debated is that prior to the recent move by the U.S. Department of Treasury to block the practice, inversions were on the rise. Since 1982, 51 U.S. companies have reincorporated in low-tax countries. But more telling is that of these, 20 (inversions) happened in just the past three years, despite 2004 legislation intended to abolish the practice.

At a recent conference* I overheard an executive comment that the clinical trial space remains one of the biggest bottlenecks to successful drug development. Sure, companies are developing much more sophisticated and targeted therapies. However, ...

In the March 2016 issue of Life Science Leader magazine, my Editor’s Note, The U.S. Tax Man Cometh, The U.S. Corporations Leaveth, referenced the Pfizer-Allergan merger as pretty much a done deal. Little did I know then that the U.S. government would stoop to implementing government policies more familiar to those living in the former U.S.S.R., than a country founded on freedom and famous for supporting free enterprise. While not losing Pfizer (an American institution older than major league baseball) to Ireland can be considered a win for the good ‘ole US of A, I lament that the ends don’t justify the means. It seems the U.S. government has begun shifting its focus from “too big to fail,” to “too big to leave.” I for one wonder what will be the eventual outcome of such government activities in a free market society. Well for starters, Ireland-based Allergan will receive $150 million from Pfizer after the companies terminated their anticipated $150+ billion merger. A leading expert from Frost & Sullivan’s Transformational Health practice, Sangeetha Prabakaran, had this to say about the death of the recent deal.

I recently cracked open Leadership Vertigo, a book by S. Max Brown and Tanveer Naseer. I was immediately enthralled when the authors hit me with this tidbit. “Gallup research has found that the top 25 percent of teams (i.e., the best managed) versus the bottom 25 percent in any workplace (i.e., the worst managed), have nearly 50 percent fewer accidents and 41 percent fewer quality defects.”

Perhaps it is time for biopharma to take the lead in driving for a “moonshot” approach to reducing U.S. healthcare costs.