One of the rea­sons Pfiz­er sought to pur­chase Seagen, as part of a $43 bil­lion deal an­nounced this morn­ing, is that the Seat­tle-based biotech will be able to with­stand the com­ing head­winds of the In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act and the Medicare price ne­go­ti­a­tions that come with it.

Un­like some of his phar­ma CEO peers who have lam­bast­ed the new law, Pfiz­er CEO Al­bert Bourla told in­vestors on a call this morn­ing that there are two spe­cif­ic fac­tors per­tain­ing to the IRA that will ac­tu­al­ly help with the com­bo of Pfiz­er and Seagen mov­ing for­ward:

1. The $2,000 out-of-pock­et cap for se­niors, which takes ef­fect in 2025 and will mean that more of those on Medicare will be able to ac­cess ex­pen­sive can­cer drugs like those de­vel­oped by Seagen. All four of Seagen’s cur­rent­ly mar­ket­ed prod­ucts have list prices of more than $100,000 per year.
2. All but one of Seagen’s cur­rent­ly mar­ket­ed drugs are bi­o­log­ics, which means longer ex­clu­siv­i­ty than small mol­e­cule drugs (13 years vs. nine years) un­der the IRA, pri­or to the gov­ern­ment be­gin­ning its ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Of­fice sim­i­lar­ly not­ed in a slide deck from Feb­ru­ary on the IRA’s im­pacts that Medicare Part D en­rollees “will use more drugs be­cause their out-of-pock­et costs will be low­er.”

Bourla al­so not­ed that an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gates like those de­vel­oped by Seagen aren’t like­ly to see the same lev­els of biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion that are cur­rent­ly seen with the mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies or oth­er bi­o­log­ics.

Lat­er in the call, Bourla took an­oth­er ques­tion on the IRA, say­ing, “It is what it is. This is some­thing that is on the eas­i­er part. I don’t un­der­es­ti­mate the im­pact that the IRA will have on the amount of pre­scrip­tions and the abil­i­ty of pa­tients to pay.”

The Pfiz­er CEO’s com­ments run in con­trast to the way some of his peers have point­ed to the IRA as a rea­son and/or scape­goat for bio­phar­ma pipeline trims. Sev­er­al com­pa­nies, like Al­ny­lam and Eli Lil­ly, have al­ready point­ed to the new law as a ma­jor fac­tor in de­ci­sions to cut de­vel­op­ment pro­grams.

For more on what else needs to be ironed out in the IRA be­fore some of the more cen­tral el­e­ments take ef­fect, check out a re­cent pan­el End­points News held on the top­ic.

Ed­i­tor’s note: This ar­ti­cle has been cor­rect­ed to note that not all of Seagen’s mar­ket­ed drugs are large mol­e­cule bi­o­log­ics as Tukysa (tu­ca­tinib) is a small mol­e­cule pill.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.