With Donald Trump now poised to become U.S. president for the second time in January, biotech and pharmaceutical leaders are preparing for the shift to an administration with a complicated history.
Trump has positioned himself as business-friendly, but has criticized “Big Pharma” over high drug costs. During the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was supportive of the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to develop vaccines, but his campaign has more recently embraced vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
STAT gathered reactions from leaders across biotech and pharma about what the new Trump era could mean for them. Many said they’d take a wait-and-see approach, but others took a more definitive stance. “I’m optimistic,” Bausch + Lomb CEO Brent Saunders told STAT. Zach Weinberg, CEO of Curie.Bio, said that while Trump’s policies on health care have been known to shift, “R.F.K. is scary and unqualified to lead anything but a trip to the supermarket.”
These interviews have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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