It seems every week we hear of another new proposal out of Washington DC to ‘fix’ drug pricing, and many of the companies that would be impacted by these proposals are in California, arguably, the globe’s leading biotech hub, and where the sector was born. Joe Panetta is President & CEO of Biocom California, the association representing the life science industry in California. With offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the Bay Area, Biocom California advocates for more than 1,600 companies, service sector firms, universities, and research institutes working across the state in the biotechnology sector. Joe’s been the head of Biocom California since 1999 and is universally regarded as one of the world’s thought leaders in innovative biopharma.  In this podcast, Joe provides insightful comments about the birth of the biotechnology industry, the current business climate, and what continues to make California such an attractive and vibrant life science cluster, in spite of the turbulent equity markets and near double digit inflation.  He’ll also discuss the ever-increasing challenges and storm waves being hurled at innovative biotech companies by Congress, including proposals to change the criteria of the accelerated approval pathway, CMS’ ability to limit access to treatments by requesting more evidence, proposed pricing negotiations resurrected from Build Back Better, and the recent statements by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) to use march-in rights to lower the price of therapies See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.