Name: BIO CEO Rachel King Outlines Industry’s Challenges on “Close to the Edge”

Description: BIO CEO Rachel King Outlines Industry’s Challenges on “Close to the Edge”

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Upload Date: 2023-10-19T00:00:00.0000000

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ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Howdy, and welcome to Close to the Edge, the video series from GENEDGE, where we invite leading executives, scientists, and innovators from groundbreaking biotech and pharma companies to discuss their science, technology, and their business strategy. I'm Alex Philippidis, senior business editor with genetic engineering and biotechnology news, the world's first biotech publication proudly covering the industry for more than 40 years.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Today, we welcome a trailblazer in biotech, a venture capitalist turned co-founder and CEO, now turned industry leader, Rachel King, CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, or BIO. We'll meet her in a moment. Close to the Edge is a flagship video program from GENEDGE, which provides exclusive, in-depth news and interviews, and analysis of key trends in the biotech industry, coupled with multimedia offerings such as this one.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Check out our GENEDGE content at www.genengnews.com. That's G-E-N-E-N-G-N-E-W-S .com/genedge. That's G-E-N-E-D-G-E. Rachel King is a one-time entrepreneur in residence at venture capital firm, New Enterprise Associates, or NEA, the founder and former CEO of GlycoMimetics, and now, the CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, or BIO. Welcome, Rachel, to Close to the Edge.
RACHEL KING: Thank you. It's great to be here.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: First off, tell us a little BIO and your role as CEO of the organization.
RACHEL KING: Sure. Well, BIO is the leading Biotechnology Industry Organization. We have over 1,000 members, which we represent in terms of our policy, advocacy positions here in Washington, our communication strategies. And then we have, of course, the International Convention every year, which is the largest international biotech convention in the world.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Tell me about that convention because that's coming in about, from the time of our recording, it'll be happening in early June, I believe.
RACHEL KING: Yes, that's right. It's going to be in Boston, and we're really delighted to head back to Boston, which is the centerpiece of so much of biotechnology historically and today, so we always have a great turnout in Boston. We'll have sessions, we'll have speakers, we'll have networking, and through the partnering system, we anticipate over 40,000 meetings that will take place between biotech companies and potential partners.
RACHEL KING: So it will be a great opportunity to learn and to network and to gather with our friends and colleagues.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Great. Now, before you became CEO of BIO, you served on the board of for nearly two decades. How did you get involved with the group, and what made you want to take over the leadership of BIO?
RACHEL KING: Oh, that's kind of a long story, Alex. I started, as you indicated, many years ago, when I was earlier in my career. I wanted very much to be involved with the industry as a whole and to really play, at least a small role in some of the advocacy that BIO was doing. I recognized how important it was for the industry that we have good policy that supports the development of a positive ecosystem for biotechnology.
RACHEL KING: So I wanted to be part of that, and I was able to talk my way onto the board when I was at genetic therapy and stayed on the board for many years, not entirely consistently, but largely, consistently over those years in different roles, just volunteering more, spending more time, eventually to the point where I was the board chair for a couple of years. I then retired, and I retired from my role at the time as the CEO of GlycoMimetics.
RACHEL KING: And when BIO was going through a transition of its leadership, I was approached about taking on this role. And I said at the time that there were very few things that I would consider unretiring for, but coming to take the helm of BIO on this interim basis was one of those. And so given the opportunity to step into this role and the timing for me personally, it was just a great fit.
RACHEL KING: So I decided to take this on.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Great. Now, a lot of executives arrive with 100-day plans. What did you hope to achieve in your first three months, and how well did you succeed?
RACHEL KING: Well, as far as how well I succeeded, I'll leave that to someone else to judge, but BIO had been through a lot of transition over the previous couple of years, with the pandemic, with leadership changes, and yet, the team itself here was very strong, and the work that did was very consistent through that time. So I think my main objective was to really kind of stabilize things, to re-energize the organization, to put the team in a position to continue to do what the team does so well here at BIO, as we advocated for the industry.
RACHEL KING: And so that was really my set of goals coming into this role.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Arguably, as you said, one of your most important challenges was stabilizing leadership and direction of BIO. The long tenure of Jim Greenwood was followed by the relatively short tenure of Michelle McMurry-Heath, about two years. What can you share about her decision to leave?
RACHEL KING: I don't really have anything more to share about that. I think we're grateful for the role that Michelle played during a very challenging time, and she has moved on, and now I've stepped in. And so now, we're looking forward to what will come next for BIO and again, getting back to what really does so well, which is our advocacy, our networking, our convening of different people, and advancing the interests of the biotech ecosystem.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Interested in learning a bit more on that, but I want to rewind back a few years. Your first experience out of college at Dartmouth was in business as an associate at Bain and Company, to be precise. How then did you develop an interest in passion for biotech and the life sciences?
RACHEL KING: Well, I've always loved biology. I was actually kind of a biology nerd, I would say, when I was in high school. I mean, I had a microscope, I had a dissecting kit at home, and for part of that time, lived in the country and so collected specimens from the woods and was always trying to learn about the world around me, particularly the living world of biology. So I've always loved biology. I feel very fortunate that in my work life, I've been able to circle back to that original interest in biology and tie that with what was my experience and eventual graduate program in business.
RACHEL KING: So I've been able to tie the interest in business with the interest in biology and join them in biotech. So I've been really grateful for the opportunity to join those interests together through my career.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Now, your first job with a biotech was at a company called Genetic Therapy, first as a VP of product planning, then as CEO. And then in 1995, Sandoz acquired Genetic Therapy for $295 million, and a year later, Sandoz merged with Ciba-Geigy to form what's now Novartis. How did you manage to write out all those changes and emerge as an exec with Novartis?
RACHEL KING: Well, that period of time, actually, during that period of time, the management team at Genetic Therapy was actually very stable. And so we worked closely with Sandoz, which, as you say, quickly became Novartis, to figure out how Genetic Therapy could integrate within the broader Novartis landscape. And those were some really exciting and I would say productive years.
RACHEL KING: So that team stayed stable, and then when the founding CEO of Genetic Therapy left, Jim Barrett, then, I became the CEO of Genetic Therapy, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Novartis. So that's how that played out and then had a couple of great years in that role. I then actually-- interesting, I had become very interested in the public-private interface between biotechnology and the outside world, outside of an individual company world, and Novartis gave me the opportunity to run their Washington office and corporate communications for the United States.
RACHEL KING: So I moved into that role for Novartis, which was really fascinating and again, made me even more steeped in the policy world, which I think helps me in my job today. But Novartis, at that time, had gene therapy, cell therapy, pharmaceutical business, they owned Gerber baby food. They had a crops business, so they had agricultural biotechnology, CIBA Vision, plus the pharmaceutical business.
RACHEL KING: So it was quite a diverse portfolio from a public policy standpoint and anyway, gave me an opportunity to delve even further into that world before I then went into venture capital and then back to biotech.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Speaking of venture capital, I know early in the Millennium, you pivoted from being a biotech executive to being a venture capitalist. You emerged at NEA as an entrepreneur in residence. How and why did you change career direction?
RACHEL KING: Well, I actually didn't view it as so much of a change in direction. Again, the theme for me in my general orientation has always been what's been interesting and what have been good opportunities in biotech. But as I was thinking of leaving Novartis, I was just feeling like I wanted to get back to a smaller company environment, get back to, really, that more entrepreneurial setting. I have a great deal of respect for people who manage well and work well and effectively in large organizations, because I think that's also very challenging and some great opportunities there.
RACHEL KING: But for myself, I wanted to be in a smaller organization. So I went back to networking with people that I had met over my career, and through the networking that led me back to NEA, because NEA had been one of the original investors in genetic therapy. So as it happened, the former CEO of genetic therapy had recently joined NEA as a general partner, and NEA had recently raised one of the first billion dollar venture funds.
RACHEL KING: And so they were in the process of going back into biotech investing, swing and a little more away from the tech investing that they had been focused on in those recent years. So it was a good timing to staff up a little bit from their perspective on the biotech side. And since I knew the people there, I was given the opportunity to work as an entrepreneur in residence together with Jim Barrett, but with the goal, always, that this was going to be a short-term job, that this was going to be a bridge to an opportunity and a company.
RACHEL KING: And so that was how I viewed those-- I guess about 18 months at any age during the period of incubation effectively, as it turned out of GlycoMimetics.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: And you pivoted back into an executive role at GlycoMimetics as a co-founder and CEO. What brought you back into the c-suite, and what persuaded you a couple of years ago to retire from the helm?
RACHEL KING: So I've always loved the entrepreneurial role, and in biotech, it's so exciting to be able to think about the potential applications of technology, how you might go from an interesting scientific observation to something that could really benefit a patient. That space is just tremendously exciting to me. Plus, I think it's also an exciting and challenging opportunity to try to raise the money to try to get people to share your vision for the company to the point where they will invest and then to build that over time.
RACHEL KING: So that's just a great space and one that's always been really interesting and exciting for me. And so I love that, and we went through some wonderful years at GlycoMimetics, taking products, literally, from our laboratory into the clinic. We got two products into phase III. We partnered one with Pfizer. Unfortunately, that failed in phase III, but we had gotten that through advanced development.
RACHEL KING: Got another program through breakthrough therapy designation. That's currently awaiting a phase III readout now as we speak. So it was really, really satisfying years building that company and getting it through all those milestones. As far as the retirement, during the pandemic, our first grandchild was born, and that was one of the things that really convinced me that I wanted to spend more time with family.
RACHEL KING: And the pandemic itself was such a, I think, transformative time for many of us, as we were reflecting on how we spend our time, and I certainly reflected that for myself and wanted more time with family, more time with friends. And so I decided to retire. I approached my board at that time. We went through a search process and brought in a great successor, Harout Semerjian, who's running GlycoMimetics now, doing a great job.
RACHEL KING: And then I moved into retirement and a different phase of my own life until, as I described, I was approached with the opportunity to come to BIO. And as I said, it's one of the few things I would consider unretiring for, and I've really been enjoying the opportunity now to be here.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Now, you've been a woman executive in an industry that, like many others, didn't have too many women in executive roles. How much of a challenge did that pose for you, and how did you surmount that challenge?
RACHEL KING: So I've always find that a tough question to answer because it's the only experience I've had is the way that my own life has played out. I would say I was lucky to have in my parents, two people who modeled very different aspects of being. My mother was a very gracious, artistic woman. My father was a really tough man, West Point graduate, businessman. And so through the experience of being raised by the two of them, I would say I lived both of those lives in my-- or experienced both of those aspects of being in my own career.
RACHEL KING: I think my father's toughness exposed me to opportunities to engage with sometimes strong men, and in my educational experiences with Dartmouth and Harvard Business School, those were both male dominated at the time that I was there. And so I guess I was just used to it and lived those years and worked through them in the way that I did. I was also really lucky to have wonderful colleagues, both men and women, mostly men, but just wonderful colleagues and wonderful mentors, particularly, in Jim Barrett, who I mentioned previously, is a wonderful mentor.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Wow. All right, Close to the Edge with Rachel King, CEO of BIO, which has its roots as a group that primarily focused on biotech companies at a time when the heritage pharma companies embraced another industry group called Pharma. Yet today, the line between pharmas and biotechs has blurred considerably. How does that evolution of the industry affect both groups, and where do the interests coincide?
RACHEL KING: So I think our interests are very much aligned on most aspects as they relate to the biotech ecosystem. What's different is our emphasis and perhaps our priority. And when you think about it, it's pretty clear. I mean, Pharma has about 30 members of about 20 or so of which also belong to BIO, but BIO has over 1,000 members. So we have a much larger membership, a much more diverse membership, and our membership is mostly made up of smaller companies, meaning companies that are pre-revenue that are sometimes some of our members have just a handful of employees, some might have hundreds of employees, but most of them are somewhere on that spectrum of getting toward what they hope someday will be a product on the market, eventually, profitability.
RACHEL KING: So it's a very different place in the ecosystem from where the pharma companies, which are multibillion dollar enterprises that have well-established product portfolios and pipelines. So they're different places in the ecosystem, obviously, complementary. Biotech companies partner with the pharma companies, if we're lucky, and so we're both interested in common and having a healthy biotech ecosystem and so very much aligned in that sense.
RACHEL KING: But at different times, we at BIO, we tend to be more concerned about issues that affect capital formation. For example, we tend to be very concerned about things that affect the ability of these smaller companies to make progress. But ultimately, we do share a very close collaboration and alignment in the big picture around things that make for a healthy bioscience innovation ecosystem.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Where do you think, Rachel, the biotech industry more broadly sits today in 2023? Because we've seen in the financial markets, the sector has been under considerable pressure. It's reflected in declining share prices over most of the last two years.
RACHEL KING: Yeah. Sure, it's a challenging time. No question about it. And we've been through other challenging times, which we've come through. We're going to come through this too. Obviously, we've got declining share prices. We've got decreasing opportunities to raise money. We've got the high inflation environment, concerns about the recession.
RACHEL KING: So there's a lot that's going on right now. I'm not minimizing it in any way, only to say that we've been through challenging times before, I'm sure we will come through these as well. There may be some further consolidation. There may, unfortunately, be some companies that are not able to make it through this, but we will come out, and we will continue to be able to raise money and develop products to benefit patients.
RACHEL KING: I think, fundamentally, what the industry does is so valuable and so critical. And although, we've had a lot of challenges recently also, from the policy perspective as well, I think, ultimately, what we do is so important to society and is recognized and accepted as such that we will get through this, and we will be able, I think, in the end, to continue to do our important work.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: One policy challenge that's relatively recent is BIO taking an active role in the Supreme Court case over mifepristone access, highlighted in the recent announcement by the group that it's joining an amicus brief with some others. Why has BIO chosen to get involved in this issue and any concern about wading into a hot-button political issue, one of the biggest ones the last half century, namely abortion rights?
RACHEL KING: Yeah. So we have not taken a specific position on access to abortion, per se, and that's an important point. I know there is debate around that issue, and what BIO has done is we've looked carefully at these cases. We have looked at it as an important challenge to FDA's primary regulatory authority. And as we reviewed the case and the issues that were at stake, it was very clear to us that what we need to advocate for is the preservation of a strong and flexible FDA, which is the gold standard for regulatory review and regulatory authority worldwide.
RACHEL KING: That is critical to our ability to develop drugs for all patients in a way that is predictable, in a way that enables us to take the risks and make the long-term investments that are critical to what we do. So our position has been to advocate for a strong and flexible FDA, to advocate for science-based evaluation of drug safety and efficacy, and to recognize that FDA is the primary authority with both the capacity, the talent, the ability to make those decisions, and that's where those authorities really, really need to lie.
RACHEL KING: So that's the position that BIO is taking on this.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: That's one. And some other policy challenges of interest, one that's been articulated by numerous stakeholders is the pricing of treatments. Everybody agrees that access to these medicines should be as broad as possible so more patients can benefit, but there are a lot of differences over how to accomplish that. How does BIO view the issue of pricing, and what solutions has the group advocated?
RACHEL KING: Yeah, so that's a really big question, a lot of aspects to it. I want to say, first of all, at the high level, what BIO advocates for is two things at the highest level, a system that supports innovation and a system that ensures affordable access to the patients who can benefit from our drugs. Both of those things have to be accomplished in order for us to be able to do our jobs well. Because it doesn't make sense to be able to develop drugs if patients can't get access to them.
RACHEL KING: And if you just deliver access without considering the environment for innovation, then you won't continue to drive innovation. So we really have to work over time to find the right balance between incentives for innovation and assurances of access. Right now, we're very concerned about some disincentives that have recently been put in place through the Inflation Reduction Act, in particular, disincentives for small molecules relative to large molecules, as is reflected in different years of exclusivity that that law gives to the different types of medicines.
RACHEL KING: The other thing that's very concerning is these so-called price negotiations, which really gives the government an opportunity to set prices for an increasingly large number of products. Both of those are strong disincentives in this innovation ecosystem. One of the things that I think a lot of people don't realize is that, while prices have gone up at the high level, the net price to the innovator companies has actually gone down, and that's because an increasing share of this pie is going to insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers and not to the innovators.
RACHEL KING: So you see increases in what's known as the price of the drug, but when you take into account the rebates and discounts that the innovating companies need to give to insurance companies and to pharmacy benefit managers, the net benefit, the net financial rewards to the innovators are actually going down. So it's a complex pricing environment that a lot of policymakers don't really understand fully, and so we end up with situations like we have right now, where the Inflation Reduction Act provides, unfortunately, some important disincentives to the development of these novel therapeutics that our industry is so good at coming up with.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: And another key challenge over the years has been securing funding for basic research. I know President Biden's proposed budget for the 2024 federal fiscal year would increase NIH funding 1.7%, which is not enough, according to research funding advocates like Research America. How does BIO view the budget and research funding?
RACHEL KING: Yeah, so we've always been a strong supporter of increased NIH funding. It's a critical element, again, in this innovation ecosystem. Most of the funding that goes to NIH, over 90% of it is focused on understanding and identifying biological targets, which the industry then uses to develop drugs that affect those targets. That's a critical aspect of the drug development ecosystem, and so BIO has always been a very strong supporter of the investments that the government makes in the NIH.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Now, over the past decade, we've seen NIH funding as an area where Republicans and Democrats at work together, even as the divide between the parties has grown, and we'll see those divisions magnify as the presidential election heats up over the next year. How strong is that consensus remain, and can the parties still work together here?
RACHEL KING: So with respect to the funding of the NIH, absolutely, yes, and I actually don't see a big difference in the Republicans and the Democrats around the funding of the NIH. We tend to see bigger differences in the parties around things like how to incentivize drug development, how to address these issues of innovation and access. That's where we see a larger difference between the parties, but I think as far as NIH funding, that's an area where the parties have come together.
RACHEL KING: I'm actually hopeful, and maybe I'm just an internal optimist, and you kind of have to be an optimist if you're going to work in biotechnology for a career. But if you recall, there was a very important piece of legislation, the 21st Century Cures Act a number of years ago that was bipartisan at a time when there was also a lot of partisan bickering in Washington. And at that time, thinking around some big-picture approaches, Republicans and Democrats did come together to provide a set of incentives that addressed issues around innovation and access.
RACHEL KING: Now, it's even more partisan in Washington, so perhaps even more challenging. But I think that what we do, as an industry, is important enough that we're not going to give up on finding bipartisan solutions here, because we need to continue to innovate for the sake of patients. There are too many diseases that are still not treated appropriately, too many things that still need not need treatments and cures.
RACHEL KING: And I think when policymakers sit back and reflect on the good that this industry does, I think that puts us in a position where I'm hopeful that we're going to be able to continue to work in a bipartisan way to provide the incentives that will allow us to continue to innovate.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Now, you would have considerable insight on another industry challenge, that of diversifying the talent that joins the industry and can build careers there over time. What progress do you see industry having made and drawing more women and people of color into biotech and what challenges remain?
RACHEL KING: So we're making progress slowly, and I think we need to continue to make more progress, and I hope that BIO will be in a position to help the industry do that. We're in the process of looking at how we can specifically do more, looking at where we see examples of companies that have done well, where we can help companies to do outreach to different populations and when they do their recruiting, where we see best practices that we can then reflect back to the membership.
RACHEL KING: We're looking at what we can do. We need to do more. As I said, I think there has been some progress, but we want to continue to be an important factor in driving additional progress in diversity. I want to say I think that the reason for diversity, there are a lot of important reasons for diversity, but one of the important reasons that I often like to think of is that I think we can envision diversity as a pathway to excellence, that as we have more diverse teams around our tables, as we bring people in for more diverse backgrounds, I think that will contribute further to the excellence that our industry is able to deliver.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Now, speaking of industry, what technologies are you most excited about in the biotech arena over the next few years, and what, if any role, do you see BIO playing in advancing them? I mean, we've seen SynBioBeta talk about synthetic biology and the alliance for cell and gene therapy at their specialties, not to mention AI.
RACHEL KING: Yeah. So I think all of these technologies that you've mentioned, I think will continue to be important and new technologies that we haven't even envisioned yet. And I think we're going to see combinations of these technologies that lead to innovation and continually, I mean, in the end, this is our constant challenge. In the end, we end up with a drug or a treatment that benefits a patient.
RACHEL KING: Many of these are still small molecules. That is, many of them are chemical entities, so even as we consider some of the new technologies, we've got to not forget that these small molecule drugs are still a critical element of what we do. So it's going to be a combination of new technologies as well as hearkening back to some of the original technologies that built the industry that are going to continue to be advanced with new tools that enable us to maybe make refinements on those early approaches.
RACHEL KING: So I think we're going to see both innovation and building on new innovations, building on previous innovations. And what we want to do at BIO is, we're not about choosing one particular technology over another or advancing one particular approach over another approach. What we're trying to do is to work to ensure that the innovation ecosystem exists to provide incentives so that the individual companies and researchers will be able to make their discoveries and advance them in a climate that will enable them to bring them through clinical trials and ultimately, to patients.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Speaking of BIO, what are among major plans and challenges over the next year or two? I guess, how does BIO plan to grow and in turn, help grow the industry?
RACHEL KING: Yeah, so there are a number of things, some of which we've already touched on. We do need to engage with this Inflation Reduction Act in a number of respects, and that involves both working with CMS on what those drug negotiations that are currently the law, what are those negotiations going to look like. How can we ensure that there are as predictable as possible. How can we ensure that they take into account as broad a range of inputs as possible, as they think about the value of drugs.
RACHEL KING: So we're working hard with CMS as one example. We also do feel that some of the really problematic aspects of the IRA, hopefully, can be changed over time. There are certain things that we want to clarify and other things that we would love to change. Some things we hope we could change, eventually, are this disincentive for small molecules, as one example, so that we have right now shorter periods of exclusivity for small molecules than we do for large molecules.
RACHEL KING: Let me give you an example of why that's a problem. Getting into the brain for treatments of things like Alzheimer's disease or brain cancer or other diseases that affect the central nervous system may actually require these small molecules and also, may require huge clinical trials that are going to take a long period of time. When we dis-incentivize small molecule development, we're going to drive research funding away from some of the areas that currently have critical, unmet patient needs.
RACHEL KING: So that's an example of why we need to continue to incentivize small molecules. So IRA is one area where we want to make some improvements. We also are looking at-- we talked a bit about the FDA in the context of the current case. But the strengthening the FDA and maintaining its flexibility also relates to important regulatory pathways like accelerated approval.
RACHEL KING: That's a pathway that's come under some fire recently, that looks like it may be being eroded. So that's another example where I think BIO needs to take very strong positions to try to ensure that FDA has the tools that it needs to make critical, scientific judgments around the safety and efficacy of drugs. Another area is in capital formation, and that gets to questions of how do we provide incentives for these long-term, highly risky investments in biotech.
RACHEL KING: What can we do to help companies after they get early stage public companies? There are things that we could do in that environment to ensure that they continue to have good access to capital at that stage as well. So capital formation is another. And then I would also mention diversity as an important area, where we can continue to drive diversity in the industry for the purpose of really driving continued excellence.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Now, we began by talking about BIO and the international convention coming up in June, in Boston. What new programs are features? What new wrinkles and any guests you can highlight?
RACHEL KING: Well, I'm not going to highlight the guests yet. We'll be announcing those soon. But one of the things that we're doing this year that is exciting is we're having a Biotech Film Festival, BIO Film Festival. We've collaborated with a group at the BBC to do some short vignette films about what biotech is doing and whole different aspects, different applications, and different geographies around the world. And so we'll have some excitement, I think, around that.
RACHEL KING: We do expect to have a great lineup of speakers, and as I said, some great networking opportunities. We have a couple of wonderful, big receptions that I think are going to be a lot of fun for people, and of course, the partnering, which is always one of the bedrocks of the convention.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: BIO has traditionally been held in the larger biotech and life science regions like Boston, like San Diego. Any thought to highlighting emerging and promising regions over the next few years? And is there a BIO role, as all these regions compete with each other, to attract these companies, employers, institutions, and jobs?
RACHEL KING: Yeah. Well, so you're absolutely right that biotech, generally, is a really important economic development engine in the States where it is an important industry, and that's wonderful. I want to answer this, so I guess, in two ways. One is to say that we have the convention, and as you say, we do that in biotech hubs, traditionally, bouncing now, back and forth for the past couple of years between Boston and San Diego.
RACHEL KING: But we've got other meetings as well. We have a meeting that's coming up in the fall that's focused on agricultural biotech. That's going to be in North Carolina in RTP, so we're excited to collaborate with North Carolina BIO on that. We also have a meeting that's going to be held in San Francisco in the fall, an investor forum, which will be moving some of the activities out to the northern part of California for that.
RACHEL KING: We have the BIO CEO Investor Conference in New York in February every year. So we do have these meetings that are not just the convention, not just in the major hubs, but also, in other areas where biotech also plays an important role. And you mentioned the States. Because you mentioned the States, I wanted to give a plug for the State Biotech Associations, which we also work really closely with.
RACHEL KING: We call it the CSBA, the Council of State Biotech Associations, which is a group that BIO convenes, where we bring together the associations from all of the 50 States. And we do meetings together where we share policy and advocacy, best practices. We talk about what's going on at the State level that's important to the industry. We talk about economic development.
RACHEL KING: And we also actually just recently did a fly-in here in DC, where we had people coming from the States to Washington, meeting with their representatives on Capitol Hill. We helped convene over 100 meetings on Capitol Hill in a one day and a half period, where people went from their States local to their congresspeople, their senators, bringing the story of biotech, both from a policy perspective and from an economic development perspective, so reminding people how important biotech is in the States.
RACHEL KING: So it is a really important collaboration that biotech is very close to.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: And finally, Rachel, what do you see yourself doing over the next three to five years? Do you envision continuing at the helm of BIO or pivoting back to an executive role in the industry?
RACHEL KING: So at this point, I'm focusing on the days ahead and focusing on the really critical work here at BIO. There is a search going on, a process that will decide who is going to lead BIO over the longer term. But as for me, right now, I'm just focusing on the current job and helping BIO in the near term to continue to do what BIO does so well.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Can we expect an announcement on the longer term leader to emerge at BIO at the convention?
RACHEL KING: The process is underway, and I think that's going to take some time. I would not expect an announcement at the convention, but we're working hard to ensure that the search is robust and thoughtful, and I'm sure that BIO is going to end up with a great leader.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Great. So thank you so much, Rachel, for taking the time to be at Close to the Edge. Rachel King, CEO of BIO, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. And thanks to you for joining us on Close to the Edge. We'll have many more exciting interviews in the weeks and months ahead I'm Alex Philippidis thanking you for your time. Take care.
ALEX PHILIPPIDIS: Stay safe.

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