Biopharma Trendsetter Jeremy Levin Weighs In On What To Anticipate For 2016: Trendsetter Series Part 4 of 4
By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL
From The December 2015 Issue
Read the full magazine article: What Nine Of Biopharma’s Biggest Trendsetters Expect For 2016?
When Life Science Leader magazine first reached out seeking executive level participation for its 2016 signature 2016 Outlook issue published in December 2015, one of the first people we heard back from was Jeremy Levin of Ovid Therapeutics. As previously mentioned, upon setting out to create the December 2015 feature, What Nine Of Biopharma’s Biggest Trendsetters Expect For 2016?, we didn’t anticipate having so many trendsetters wanting to weigh in. While having too many is much better than having too few, the unfortunate reality is that there are only so many print pages with which to share all of the executive level insights we were able to gather. So rather than see this wealth of wisdom end up on the cutting room floor, never seeing the light of day, we created a four part trendsetter series as a compliment to Life Science Leader magazine’s 2016 Outook issue. In case you missed it, here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series. In part 4, we get to hear from another past Life Science Leader cover feature, Jeremy Levin. A former CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals, not only does he bring significant experience gained from leading a generic powerhouse, but when you combine Levin’s strategic alliance experience at Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb with the insights gathered from serving in the current role as chairman and CEO, Ovid Therapeutics, a pure play neurology company, you get a very different and global biopharma industry perspective. When we asked Levin, “What’s going to be big in biopharma in 2016,” he responded concisely, “Pricing, cancer immunotherapy, neurology, patient-centered drug development, and gene therapy, gene editing, and RNA-targeted therapies.” However, he had much more to share on the other questions we posed to this trendsetter. Here are Levin’s previously unpublished insights regarding the global macro trends he is watching closely in 2016.
What global macro trends do you think are going to have the biggest impact on biopharma in 2016 and why?
“Increasingly regional political and global economic uncertainty and change will introduce factors impacting the biopharmaceutical industry. The emphasis on cutting drug costs is continuing to accelerate in Europe and Japan and now this topic is gaining prominence again in the U.S. Long life expectancies and increasing competition among drug makers will require new drugs to have major health and socioeconomic benefits to justify their costs. Geopolitical conflict in the Mideast and the ongoing European economic crisis will continue to create volatility in monetary policies across the globe and inject uncertainty to non-USD linked currencies. This will make the U.S. a haven for investment. The lack of global economic growth will likely continue to keep global interest rates low. In such an environment, investment in high growth and innovative industries like biotech and pharmaceuticals should be very attractive. This should continue to promote innovation and maintain a healthy venture capital landscape for new companies that are developing innovative therapies. As growth in China and Japan remains sluggish, major investment should continue to flow into the US and as the initial promise of China as a future sizable market for branded medicines continues to fade, drug makers will reinvigorate their US and European investments. New entrants in innovation may seek to enter the US biopharmaceutical markets increasing competition for capital and also offering multiple partnership possibilities,” he affirms.
If you like what you are reading and would like access to more executive level insights throughout the year, be sure to become a Life Science Leader magazine subscriber by clicking here.