How Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Killed a Cancer Study

President Biden has set an ambitious and laudable goal of reducing cancer mortality by half within 25 years, yet the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is working at cross purposes with that goal. See Seagen Inc. CEO David Epstein’s statement last week that the biotech company plans to scrap a new cancer drug study because of the law.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Seagen’s antibody drug-conjugate Padcev in 2019 to treat locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer that doesn’t respond to other therapies. Padcev uses an antibody that binds to specific proteins on cancer cells and directly delivers a payload of chemotherapy, which minimizes collateral damage to healthy non-cancerous cells.