Car companies are doing it, banks are doing it, and magazines may (ahem) soon be doing it—bailouts are all the rage these days. Which makes it less surprising that the biotech industry is getting in on the action. Lobbyists for the biotech industry are pushing Washington to pass a law granting biotech companies that are currently hemorrhaging money (a.k.a. nearly all of them) a chance to get cash now in exchange for not taking tax credits in the future should they become profitable.
According to the New York Times, the proposed bill:
could enable the industry to receive potentially hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, on the condition that the money would be used for research and development.
The effort comes as many smaller biotechnology companies, particularly those trying to develop drugs, are facing a severe cash shortage that is forcing them to dismiss workers, curtail research and even file for bankruptcy protection or liquidation.
In fact, it’s so bad that BIO, the main lobbyist for the industry, is saying that a quarter of the 370 publicly traded U.S. biotech companies have less than six months of cash on hand.
And, of course, creating an effective drug can take millions of dollars and years—even decades—to accomplish. Not to mention that, if clinical trials go badly, it’s back to the drawing board, making biotech one of the riskiest industries out there. And risk is not something lawmakers are loving these days.
Still, the potential health benefits of the drugs biotech has/could/will produce are massive, and we do have that whole aging population and health care crisis to contend with. So if we’re already writing $850 billion checks, we may as well throw a little biotech’s way.
Related:
RB: Reality Check: Biotech
RB: Another Facet of the Health Care Crisis: Miserable Doctors
RB: Get Thee to Medical School!
December 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Have you ever played games such as SIM city with a cheat code enabled that gives you infinite sums of money? It’s REAL easy to create a metropolis that borders on eden. Everyone is happy, business is booming, and there’s plenty of beds at the hospital waiting to take care of any sick person walking in (even if the entirety of the multi-million population were to get sick). Unfortunately, America (and the rest of the world) is not in “God Mode.” We cannot just keep throwing money at dying industries without consequence. Yeah, Biotech is a good thing and pretty damned important in maintaining a healthy population and moving to eradicate as of yet prevailing diseases. But, as many peoples Dads have said, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” So where is all this bailout money coming from? What else are we sacrificing to keep certain industries afloat (industries that will not die despite major companies going under and closing. Companies that otherwise WOULD be replaced by new upstarts.)?
March 26th, 2009 at 10:51 am
It will certainly be interesting to see if and how funding becomes distributed to biotechnology companies in this kind of economy.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it with
November 20th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
The young prince told her that when they aion gold were married, he would take her to his own kingdom. So on the wedding day, a splendid carriage drove up to buy aion gold the door. It was drawn by eight white horses. They had white feathers on their heads and golden harnesses, and by the side of the aion power leveling carriage stood the prince’s faithful steward, Harry.