George Smiley

Part 2 in my ongoing series of “biotech bubble proxies” — this is one I’ve added to the watchlist and can get loony when the capital cycle really turns.

$qure $clpt New WSJ article on Makary, got ripped to pieces and really laid out the entire soap opera from start to finish. The whole article is pretty remarkable. Some parts of the article. “My sources say that patience with Dr. Makary is wearing thin among Republicans in Congress and White House officials. It’s time for Mr. Trump to pull the plug on the Makary show.” “Has any Trump administration official caused more political headaches for the president than Marty Makary? His Food and Drug Administration has turned into a soap opera, with real lives hanging in the balance.” Ditto a gene therapy by UniQure for the brutal neurodegenerative Huntington’s Disease, which slowed progression by 75% in a clinical trial. The FDA has demanded the company run another trial in which some patients would have to undergo sham brain surgery to serve as a control group. This is unethical. To add insult to injury, after Huntington’s patients blasted Dr. Makary and the FDA, a spokesperson for the agency derided them on social media as “the swamp.” In a CNBC interview, Dr. Makary claimed the drug had “no benefit” and that the agency was being “pressured to approve” it by industry. Dr. Makary is slicker than a pharmaceutical salesman. In public interviews, he boasts about accelerating access to gene therapies and rare-disease drugs, even as he and his deputies block them. When FDA rejections draw criticism, he uses “industry” as a bogeyman. Lawmakers aren’t buying his act.

AG Merrick Garland, March 7, 2023: "Our complaint alleges that JetBlue’s proposed $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act. We allege that if allowed to proceed this merger will limit choices and drive up ticket prices for passengers across the country. "And we further allege that the impact of this merger will be particularly harmful for travelers who rely on what are known as ultra low cost carriers in order to fly. Those include working & middle-class Americans who traveled for personal as opposed to business reasons & who must pay their own way. By acquiring Spirit JetBlue will eliminate the largest ultra low cost carrier in the United States.”

6/I mentioned interstate on call. Yes it's controversial, and yes some will get hurt, but that's thinking too small imho. Rationalization is accelerating: like what we saw in Canada (3+ yrs ahead of US), defaults inside $IIPR portfolio, on top of the "capital suck" that's been going on since Q2 2022. And unlikely no new (net) capital is going into grow ops anytime soon (esp indoor). Rationalization will be massively accretive for some. CA (SB 1326 in fy'22) and other states prepared for state "off take" agreements...this falls into "common sense" bucket...and while we don't want to admit it this is how hemp-derived spread like wildfire.