A group of biotech leaders is betting that President Donald Trump may eventually be persuaded to show “great heart” over DACA if the question is framed not as a moral imperative but an economic one. DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) of course refers to the immigration status of young children brought illegally to the United States.
In doing so, the group is taking a different path than former President Barack Obama. On Wednesday, the man who Trump loves to hate used Facebook to issue a strongly-worded condemnation that cast the decision to roll back DACA as simply “cruel” and against our “basic decency.”
But on Thursday the group of 185 biotech industry stakeholders, which include CEOs, venture capitalists, academics and others, wrote an open letter to Trump and Congress where the words “moral” and “cruel” were deliberately absent. Nor were there any appeals to what makes us “American.”
The letter from Steven H. Holtzman, president & CEO of Boston-based Decibel Therapeutics and Jeremy M. Levin, chairman & CEO of New York-based Ovid Therapeutics and representing 183 other signatories points out that that were these 800,000 young, illegal immigrants unable to work, the “economy would lose $460.3 billion from the national GDP and $24.6 billion in Social Security and Medicare tax contributions.”
The missive — which included signatories like Bill Rastetter, chairman CEO of Grail; Mark Levin, partner, Third Rock Ventures; Brook Byers, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; David Baltimore, board member of biotech firms, Professor of Biology, Caltech and Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1975; and Stuart L. Schreiber, co-founder, Broad Institute — stressed that the Dreamers have paid taxes and contributed to their communities. Apparently, at least 72 percent of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies are employers of DACA recipients.
Will the numbers sway the man who sits in the White House?
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Perhaps. Trump’s already begun some public hand-wringing about his DACA action if his tweets are any indication.
But this is not the first time that businesses have employed this familiar tactic of taking a divisive, moral issue and recasting it as a pocket book issue instead.
Take Minnesota in 2012 when conservatives decided to ask the state’s residents to rewrite the state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. Several healthcare businesses either based in the state or holding significant operations there, including Massachusetts-based Boston Scientific and Minnesota-based St. Jude Medical took a stand that the proposed marriage amendment was bad for business. They argued that they wouldn’t be able to attract talented workers to Minnesota if the proposal were voted into law.
These businesses were joined by others, and in a surprising turn of events, the measure was voted down by a thin majority of 51.4 percent in Minnesota.
The letter from the biotech industry leaders represent the same strategy – transform a moral issue to a financial one in the hope that it will appeal to the man with an overwhelming love for gold.
Let’s hope they are right. Without that, the biotech industry’s dreams may also be at stake along with those of the Dreamers.
Photo: Topp_Yimgrimm, Getty Images
