- Reputation Decline: Once respected, the pharmaceutical industry’s reputation has fallen due to perceptions of profit-seeking, off-label marketing, overcharging, and data concealment
- Impact of Poor Reputation: A damaged reputation hinders hiring top talent, recruiting patients for trials, ensuring medication adherence, and acceptance of health interventions like vaccines. The current unsustainable pricing model also makes therapies unaffordable and caps out payers
- Proposed Solutions:
- Enhance collaborations to reduce effort, regulatory burdens, and costs (e.g., Biophorum, NIMMBL, BIO)
- Stop issuing process patents that only block competitors
- Operate transparently to build patient trust beyond being Nasdaq or Dow-listed entities
- Use science and medicine to develop cures and create affordable access mechanisms
- Emphasis on Curative Therapies: The author highlights the need to expand on developing gene therapy products for eye diseases. A case study on a potential cure for wet age-related macular degeneration shows the importance of manageable Cost of Goods and a viable CMC strategy for product launch
- Ensuring Long-term Survival: Despite some companies’ reluctance, the author argues that Pharma’s long-term survival depends on prioritizing patient-centric approaches and delivering cures
Andy Ramelmeier
Chief Technology Officer
Adverum Biotechnologies
Andrew “Andy” Ramelmeier, Ph.D. is Adverum’s chief technology officer responsible for leading the company’s technology and operations organization, including process development and manufacturing. Dr. Ramelmeier has more than 30 years of experience in the development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, gene and cell therapy products and therapeutic proteins. Most recently, Dr. Ramelmeier served as executive vice president, head of technical operations at Sangamo Therapeutics, where he was responsible for quality, process and analytical development, manufacturing and supply chain of viral vector and cell therapy pipeline products, as well as the oversight of two internal GMP facilities and multiple contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs)/contract research organizations (CROs) for manufacturing and quality control (QC) activities. Prior to Sangamo, Dr. Ramelmeier served as senior vice president, technical operations at Portola Pharmaceuticals, responsible for the process development, technology transfer, manufacturing, and supply chain of small and large molecule pipeline products. Before that, Dr. Ramelmeier held positions of increasing responsibility at several companies, including BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson and Merck Research Laboratories.
Dr. Ramelmeier earned his B.E.S. in Chemical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley. He conducted post-doctoral work at The Institute of Enzyme Technology affiliated with the Heinrich-Heine-University of Dusseldorf.
