February 9, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Chris Garabedian, the chief executive at Sarepta, is once again raising some eyebrows among biotech investors Monday, after saying at a conference that it is not in shareholder interest to keep investing the firm’s money in finding therapies to treat the deadly Ebola virus, despite its continued spread and devastating reach in 2014.
“Sarepta had its best stock day when we cancelled our Ebola program [in 2012]. Companies need governments to cover the costs for new drug development, and as a public company, I just don’t see investor interest” in advancing Ebola drugs,” said Garabedian. “Contract business alone is not enough to move the needle. Until we actually see those dollars flowing, investors are going to be skeptical on development.”
Garabedian quickly faced backlash from social media, with an almost immediate response rippling across Twitter.
“Did I hear ‘good citizenship’ cited as reason for companies to fight poor-market diseases?” tweeted closely-watched biotech consultant Wayne Koberstein in response, among other commenters aghast at Garabedian’s comments.
Garabedian made the comments as part of a panel at the 17th Annual BIO CEO and Investor Conference at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. Last year, BIO CEO, a well-known annual schmooze-fest, had more than 1,400 attendees from 26 different countries, with around 750 investors and around 1,820 partnering meetings scheduled, according to event organizers.
This year it looks to be even bigger, as investors flock to find out which early-stage companies are advancing the most interesting drugs and products into a biotech sector that saw the Nasdaq Biotech Index gaining 11.2 percent in the fourth quarter, adding to another solid total return of 34.4 percent in 2014.
Sarepta originally had fast-track designation for its injectible drug AVI-7537, which saw a 60 to 80 percent success rate when used in primates. But the development of the drug was stopped two years ago amid cost concerns, and although it may be revived as the Ebola health crisis continues, it is not a primary concern for the company, said CEO Garabedian.
“Unfortunately, we can’t operate as a biotech and advance an Ebola drug without government support,” he told the audience. “Let’s hope this is a wake-up call because we need at least two years of planning to roll out the creation and manufacturing, etc.”
Indeed, Garabedian took a dim view of most of Big Pharma’s massive effortsto end the disease, saying that despite a roster of drugs and companies currently targeting Ebola, the virus has continued to be a formidable opponent.
“Even if all biotech investigational drugs deployed against Ebola, we couldn’t stop it,” he said. “Ebola is here to stay.”
Other members of the panel, “Getting Ahead of Ebola and Other Infectious Threats—Overturning Assumptions,” seemed taken aback by Garabedian’s comments, with Peter Khoury, senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, quickly marshalling a litany of statistics about Ebola’s deadliness.
“I hear it all the time, ‘Ebola, isn’t that over?’” said Khoury. “But this past week there has been a concerning increase of 124 new cases while 22,500 have had Ebola during the outbreak, with at least 9,500 deaths. Of those, 488 were healthcare workers, out of 822 who became infected,” he said.
“Those are scarily high death rates,” said Khoury, who added, “We’ve seen the corner turned on funding for Ebola from the American government and private health foundations, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donating $55 million in September alone.”
BioSpace Temperature PollWho Do You Think Will Be Sanofi’s New CEO? French drugmaker Sanofi said Thursday that it will name a new chief executive in mere weeks, as it attempted to put to rest rumors that the company could not find any executives willing to take the reins after it unceremoniously ousted its previous CEO last fall. Who do you think will soon be crowned king? BioSpace wants your opinion!
