‘We did need to throw a lot of spaghetti against the Covid window’: a biotech analyst on pandemic drug development
The pandemic has shined a spotlight on the biopharmaceutical industry, proving its value through the speed of vaccine development to a society that ranked it even lower in its esteem than the federal government. But when it comes to drugs for Covid-19, how has the industry performed? Josh Schimmer has been analyzing the industry for decades now with the firm Evercore ISI, and he was early to flag the risks of this new virus in the beginning of 2020. He wrote in a research note “very mixed feelings about how the biotech industry delivered during the pandemic.”
We were intrigued by that, so we invited Schimmer to “The Readout LOUD” to have a conversation. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
