In the days fol­low­ing the US Supreme Court’s roll­back of fed­er­al abor­tion rights, more than  100 women biotech ex­ec­u­tives came to­geth­er in an open let­ter to con­demn the rul­ing and tell their fel­low drug de­vel­op­ment lead­ers that they “will not stand by silent­ly.”

Ad­dressed to in­dus­try, friends, leg­is­la­tors and elect­ed of­fi­cials, the biotech ex­ec­u­tives said they were join­ing “the re­sound­ing mil­lions in cho­rus” by show­ing their “pro­found dis­may and dis­ap­point­ment” at the de­ci­sion hand­ed down by SCO­TUS last week, a re­ver­sal of Roe v. Wade that had been an­tic­i­pat­ed for weeks fol­low­ing a court leak.

The let­ter — signed by the CEOs of Blade, In­Car­da, Daré Bio­science and a host of oth­er biotechs —  called out the rul­ing’s im­pact on the med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers who are “best suit­ed to pro­vide care.”

Since its orig­i­nal post­ing on Fri­day, the let­ter has grown from about 70 sig­na­to­ries to more than 100, “with mul­ti­ple oth­ers want­i­ng to sign and many view­ing this as a ral­ly­ing point for fur­ther ac­tion,” Re­Code Ther­a­peu­tics CEO Shehnaaz Suli­man told End­points News in an email. The lead­ers said the rul­ing fo­cus­es on the “spe­cial in­ter­ests of the few rather than the in­ter­ests of the ma­jor­i­ty.”

“Abor­tion is re­pro­duc­tive health­care. As doc­tors, sci­en­tists, in­no­va­tors, care­givers, lead­ers and al­lies who are at the fore­front of in­no­va­tion in sci­ence and med­i­cine for the ben­e­fit of pa­tients and women around the world — we de­cry and de­nounce the de­ci­sion by the Court,” the let­ter reads in part.

The let­ter did not point to any de­fin­i­tive or di­rect steps the in­dus­try can take in re­sponse to the rul­ing. Some bio­phar­mas have joined with oth­er com­pa­nies in say­ing they’ll cov­er abor­tion-re­lat­ed trav­el ex­pens­es for em­ploy­ees.

“The mes­sage we have ar­tic­u­lat­ed is one so many women want to add their voice to. The notes I have re­ceived in­clude ex­pres­sions of anger and help­less­ness, but al­so a de­sire to do some­thing and be part of fur­ther ac­tion. I tru­ly hope this let­ter is just the start,” Ju­lia Owens, for­mer Mil­len­do Ther­a­peu­tics CEO, said in an email to End­points News. Mul­ti­ple ad­di­tion­al lead­ers have reached out to Owens ask­ing to add their names, she said.

With dozens of lead­ers from var­i­ous back­grounds join­ing to­geth­er, the let­ter calls for free­dom of choice over one’s own body for every­one, “but es­pe­cial­ly for women, un­der­rep­re­sent­ed mi­nori­ties, and LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ties.”

Shehnaaz Suli­man

In post­ing the let­ter to LinkedIn, Suli­man asked oth­er lead­ers to “join a sea of voic­es to am­pli­fy the call for re­pro­duc­tive health rights for all women.”

A por­tion of the women who signed the let­ter had come to­geth­er for a week­end con­fer­ence in March aimed at form­ing a net­work, spon­sor­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of women lead­ers and map­ping out re­gion­al mee­tups, in­clud­ing one that took place dur­ing BIO last month in San Diego.

In­dus­try lead­ers pre­vi­ous­ly came to­geth­er in Feb­ru­ary to pen a let­ter urg­ing busi­ness lead­ers to “eco­nom­i­cal­ly dis­en­gage from Russ­ian In­dus­try” fol­low­ing the in­va­sion of Ukraine.

Ed­i­tor’s note: This sto­ry was up­dat­ed to in­clude ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion from Ju­lia Owens and Shehnaaz Suli­man.

A lack of diversity in clinical trials has persisted despite decades of initiatives to try to turn the tide.

In a recent review of 17 years of clinical trials, drugmaker GSK found that there were some mismatches between the demographics of its US-based trials and how prevalent diseases were in those populations.

The results, the company says, will help GSK and others design studies that better represent epidemiological rates within races and ethnicities.

Following a promise last year to go “big and fast in breast cancer,” Gilead has secured a win for Trodelvy in the most common form.

The drug was approved to treat HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients who’ve already received endocrine-based therapy and at least two other systemic therapies for metastatic cancer, Gilead announced on Friday.

Trodelvy won its first indication in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer back in 2020, and has since added urothelial cancer to the list. HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer accounts for roughly 70% of new breast cancer cases worldwide per year, according to senior VP of oncology clinical development Bill Grossman, and many patients develop resistance to endocrine-based therapies or worsen on chemotherapy.