Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Pink slips at the FDA will equate to red ink for biotech investors

Pink slips at the FDA will equate to red ink for biotech investorsSocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
David Miller

Andy von Eschenbach, FDA Commissioner, says he’ll have to issue 2,000 60-day pink slips at the FDA if Congress and the President don’t get the PDUFA IV bill passed by Friday. We think the chance that they will is good, but the early Presidential election season could very well create some unexpected events. There are more than a few folks who would like to hold this bill up for political gain.

If the pink slips go out, we doubt staffers will start running for the exits right away. The growing trend of the FDA asking for delays will increase immediately, however, as managers start changing existing review and especially meeting schedules.

One could argue some decisions might come early, but we think any such occurrences will be rare. The FDA already considers itself understaffed. Bureaucrats, in our experience, don’t work harder in the face of crises like this. They tend to want to punish those they regulate by delaying even more.

We’ll more than likely see additional delays. The silent delays will be in meetings, time to obtain SPAs, etc. The more public delays will be similar to what ZymoGenetics (ZGEN) recently experienced – 90 days here, a 2-month Class One response turning into a 6-month Class Two response there, etc.






As timelines slip, biotech valuations go down. Significant delays will start damaging biotech investor portfolios.

If the PDUFA IV legislation is tied up for quite some time – say towards Halloween no end in sight – then things will get frightening. The pharma, biotech, and financial communities will pirate the pink-slipped FDA staffers. Once Congress finally gets around to passing the legislation, Dr. von Eschenbach won’t have anyone to hire back. He’s already said the FDA is understaffed.

Even if he replaces people, the loss of institutional knowledge will be significant. Guidance to companies will shift as new people provide new opinions. Delays in regulatory decisions will abound as new review teams have to start from square one in reviewing the data.

Again, I don’t think we’ll get that far as Congress and the President know what’s at stake here. But keep it on your radar just the same.

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