Q&A: Carl Feldbaum, Biotechnology Industry Organization president
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He was a seasoned Capitol Hill staffer when he took the presidency of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in 1993. At the time, the decade-old biotech business had already gone through several cycles of great hype followed by great disappointment. The Washington, D.C.-based trade group was just forming, and there wasn't much power or prestige in representing 1,000 no-name companies.
Now, as Feldbaum plans to retire at the end of the year, the industry still has a lot of no-name hype-driven companies losing loads of money. But a few have hit jackpots with moneymaking products, federal funding for biomedical research has soared, and officials everywhere are pinning economic dreams on biotech.
Leading the industry's trade group has become such a plum job that some household names are said to be in the running to replace Feldbaum.
In an interview, Feldbaum reflected on the changes he's seen. Here are excerpts.
Q: How has biotech woven itself into people's daily lives during your time?
A: Government and media and public interest in biotech has surged enormously because it now touches life at every level. We now sleep on cotton sheets, eat our meals, take our medicine — all of which are either created or improved by biotechnology.
Q: Where will people see biotech's impact most — on visits to the doctors' office, new jobs in the economy or on the dinner table?
A: It will be felt most dramatically for people suffering from previously untreatable diseases in hospitals. In the economic sector, the growth of biotech clusters is likely in places like Seattle but also in unlikely places that aspire to be like Seattle. There will be jobs. In the industrial/environmental sector, there will be exponential explosion of biotech applications that take over chemical processes that create toxic byproducts.
Q: What's an example?
A: One is using bioengineered enzymes to produce indigo dye to color blue jeans instead of formerly toxic chemical processes. That will not be visible, but we'll accept that as environmentally friendly. You won't necessarily know it's because of biotech — it won't have a "biotech" label.
Q: What does the organization need in a new leader?
A: It's for the (BIO) board to decide. But my sense is because so much of our activity is Washington D.C.-based, it probably has to be someone with some experience with the interplay of government, the executive branch, Congress and the media. It could be an elected official, it could be the dean of a medical school.
In the current search, I wouldn't even be a candidate. If BIO were as robust a decade ago as it is now, I'd have recommended someone like former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell.
Q: Is he a candidate?
A: He's not a candidate now. But George Mitchell-types are certainly candidates now, which is a progressive step.
Q: What are you most proud of in your run at BIO?
A: I don't take personal credit for this, but collectively, the industry and BIO have created a political instrument, a hammer, we did not have before. We've also created a communications voice, a bell to ring, that we didn't have before. And, now we have a record. It's not just about the promise of biotech, it's about performance. You have a great list of accomplishments to point to as to why this young industry should get such positive political and public attention.
Q: How much clout does biotech have in D.C. and state capitols?
A: I wouldn't call it clout, but let's just say it's beyond our numbers. It's way beyond the political contributions we make, which are virtually nil. It's beyond the number of jobs we create.
Q: Why has biotech been unscathed by all the controversies over drug prices, the potential for genetic discrimination, the use of embryos for stem-cell research? Why are you still considered the good guy?
A: I'll tell you why. We have paid passionate attention to bioethics issues. We have taken them dead seriously. We have gone beyond narrow commercial interests, and we have tried to contribute, without commandeering, debates about Dolly (the cloned sheep), stem cells and gene therapy. We've become involved in issues of access and fairness, ethnicity, race, religion.
These are the issues the communities we live and work among are interested in. The mishandling of a bioethics issue could derail us in no time, but hopefully that won't happen.
Q: What's your biggest fear?
A: It's always been bioethics. It's not that we'll lose a legislative or regulatory battle, it's that the industry mishandles a bioethics issue, and we lose our credibility and our "white hat."
Q: What about overhype?
A: I believe we've learned our lesson there. When I came on board in 1993, the industry was way overhyped. Through the 1990s, the industry was going to pick the low-hanging fruit of genomics and proteomics, etc.
I think, I hope, we've helped manage to calm that down, and we'll succeed on a performance-based level. We don't make promises. We just point to performance, in drugs approved by the FDA, patients helped by them, period.
Q: In a place like Washington state, where a biotech industry has sprouted without a strategic or well-financed state initiative, what advice do you have for policymakers here who want to make it stronger?
A: (Washington) is doing it right. You're not taking orders or direction from Washington. D.C., you're organically growing a trade association and an industry cluster, given the local ingredients you have now. That's the only way to go.
Q: What have been some of your mistakes or missed opportunities?
A: (Pause) It's human nature for the largest, most successful companies to begin to forget their roots as startups.
My concern in the future is there become fault lines between the larger and smaller companies that would split the industry and erode our unified voice. That would be a grave mistake.
Q: What will it take to shift the stalemated debates on stem-cell research or drug pricing?
A: Let me take stem cells. My theory has been for years that it will take a success, probably in another country — could be the U.K., could be Korea — where stem-cell research goes forward with respect to a disease like juvenile diabetes or Parkinson's.
Q: What about the forces at work in drug pricing — what could bring (prices) down?
A: The forces in an election year, a hotly contested election year, with seniors being a major political force — the pressures on drug prices are enough to crack a diamond.
Q: But we don't see them coming down yet.
A: Right, but my suspicion is this will remain a political issue in 2004, with both parties posturing. It will become a real legislative and regulatory issue in 2005 when there is a new administration and a new Congress.
Q: Why do people still invest in startup biotech companies when they know it will take over a decade and $800 million — and even after 3,000 companies have been created, only a couple dozen have ever become profitable?
A: (Biotech investors) are not day traders. They have the long view. They want to hit the Amgens. They want to hit the Genentechs. They want to hit the Idecs. And there are just enough examples out there to keep them eager and interested.
And where does the money go? It goes to biomedical research. The stocks go up and down, the companies learn from their mistakes, and they keep going. Very few have folded. We're not talking about dot-coms or telecoms.
Q: What does the industry need to do better in the future?
A: We should continue our advocacy with an even broader, deeper sense of social responsibility.
We need to continue to find new ways to make drug discoveries, new food and environmental benefits to underserved minority and poverty-striken populations.
Some are here in the U.S., but mostly it's abroad. That's what we have to do.
Luke Timmerman: 206-515-5644 or ltimmerman@seattletimes.com
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