Academic medical research centers took a beating during the first half of 2025.

The Trump administration’s widespread cuts to federal funding for scientific and clinical research has adversely impacted hundreds of universities across the country.

One of the most prominent and closely-watched cases has been Harvard – where the Trump administration froze more than $2 billion in long-term research grants.

This has had severe effects on research at the institution.

At the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, federal funding provides nearly half of the school’s annual budget.

In mid-May, the Chan School’s associate dean for research strategy and external affairs called the situation an “existential crisis.”

In the wake of these deep cuts, Harvard has waged a legal fight with the Trump administration to reclaim funding for research that seeks to advance treatments for a host of therapeutic areas – like cardiovascular disease, cancer and immunology.

While some of these battles continue to be fought in federal courtrooms, researchers have been left in the lurch to fill significant funding gaps.

In the absence of reliable support from the federal government, where can clinical research teams look?

Could the answer be private equity?

This week, I’m joined by Professor Gökhan S Hotamisligil, the James Stevens Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism at Harvard Chan School.

During our conversation, he walks us through the unique collaboration between Harvard and Ish Private Equity, a Turkish financial organization which has pledged $39 million to fund the work of the professor and his clinical research team in the years to come.

As he notes, this doesn’t make up for the lack of federal funding – nothing quite can – but it offers a much-needed lifeline during a turbulent time.

And for our Trends segment, we’re previewing the Q2 earnings season for pharma companies – including what trends may impact their financial releases in the coming weeks.

Professor, you know, it’s it’s obviously very interesting the news that came through about this partnership. Can you for our audience of of healthcare leaders, just walk us through kind of like the broad strokes of what this partnership entails with the private equity firm? Yeah. So, I mean, in my group, we’re interested in chronic disease.

And chronic disease, of course, is a really critical health issue and a critical global health issue because of two reasons. One is increasing race of obesity and the other is aging population of the world. And I mean roughly speaking, there are about 1 billion in each category and these numbers are predicted to dramatically increase in the coming decades and and further.

So with these numbers, of course, a huge section of the world’s population is influenced by these problems. And obesity and aging brings together a cluster of diseases from cardiovascular disease to cancer, from diabetes to neurodegenerative disease. And so our really goal is to find some fundamental metabolic mechanisms as we think this is a really most fundamental process.

And then the more fundamental we get, the more diseases as clusters we can address therapeutically. And we have been working on this for a long time. time. I mean, some projects, 20 years, some projects, 30 years. And of course, these efforts have brought us to a certain maturity that we can start thinking about translation.

So it is this stage that, of course, brought us together with the with the partners who can help us to make this transition from our really long efforts in the preclinical space to really start thinking about transitioning into human applications.

So it is this, I think, stage in our program which brought us together with ISH Private Equity and which is a subsidiary of ISH Bank in Istanbul. And I mean, if you’re interested in that story, I gave a talk here last September because that was the centennial celebration of ISH Bank.

And they organized a very big symposium with really very prominent scientists in many different disciplines, economy, political sciences, art, and biological sciences, where there were only two speakers, me and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. And so there I talked about the kind of things that I’m interested, but also our successes and failures in the scientific journey.

And then the really the bottlenecks in the way generally science is, you know, supported, funded, and how we really raise funds for short-term, yet we have to think very long-term. There is a really disconnect. The way we Our business model is actually very, very wrong, but somehow it works. So And then, of course, I talked about our science.

And so in the audience where the executives of these institutions, so they were compelled with the the story and the way that it could find applications for humans and impact. And that’s how it really our conversation started. Normally, scientists and private equity people don’t overlap that much in meetings and other other mediums.

So then we recognize that with the help of our friends, their teams, that there is great opportunity there. And many stars lined up, and we start thinking about how can we formulate a partnership that will be a win-win for everyone. Of course, Of course, we’re interested in in really advancing our basic science. We are We are basic scientists, and we’re interested in the fundamental science. So we have to kind of split these domains.

So we don’t want to engage in a drug development type of activities. So that’s how the story started. I appreciate all the background there, and it’s interesting to hear that it it really started in earnest last fall. And obviously, you know, there’s the context of the Trump administration coming in, the funding cuts that that, Harvard and other universities have been impacted with as it relates to scientific research.

You brought up an interesting point though about this idea that like healthcare and private equity aren’t always considered bed fellows in that sort of way. And some people may even say that their missions are antithetical to each other. What do you say to folks where you’ve obviously had a lot of conversations with your partners and find it worthy of embarking on? What do you say to people that think, “Oh, private equity and healthcare, they may not always go together, but they do in this case.” Yeah, I think it’s just It’s a matter of finding the right solutions that could work for everyone.

And so this is one example. But the issue, of course, I think the bottleneck there is in academia, programs are various different stages. And we really doggedly pursue the fundamental mechanisms.

And the reason for that is really the mechanisms are not just a scientific fantasy or a luxury pursuit because mechanism is what really determines if there’s a successful really drug development program or not in the end.

So if you enter too early without really sufficient mechanistic details or how your target works, even how your prototype medication works against the target, what are the biochemical markers which you can use to understand whether or not you’re engaging the target? And then how do you select the people who would benefit more most from this intervention.

This sort of information is really critical for the success of translation. And this is it takes time. So that means you need to be able to fund your program for a certain period of time so that it reaches this maturity and then you can really engage with more translational application-oriented programs. So we have benefited from this.

Of course, I mean, we discovered, for example, this program targets a hormone that we discovered 20 years ago. So for 20 years, of course, this program was funded by other mechanisms, including federal grants, local grants, foundation grants, partnerships, etc. And then it reaches a certain maturity where then you can start formulating with entities like private equity.

But still, we have to continue the fundamental work. And the way we organize this activity is, in my lab, we will continue our fundamental work, which includes development of some prototype medicines and the lead molecules. So we’ll continue to enrich that program and then as we produce our leads, we will transfer that to Enlitha, which then will pursue the clinical development.

So then when you we separate these domains, then it satisfies everyone’s needs the really magic part of this agreement is the duration. So we really agreed from the get go that we will not really make a short-term engagement. We will invest into the long-term. If you look at the biotech industry or the success rate of companies, the biggest determinant is time.

So the longer you continue with the program, the higher your success rate in the clinic. So Once we agree on this, which is a really difficult maybe one of the energy barriers, then we could formulate a win-win scenario and a model for operation.

So I think I think, there is a lot of opportunities like this, where the different funding entities or sponsors or capital institutions could actually engage with science, both support science and also pursue applications, products and including development of medicines.

And maybe I can say one more thing if you if you mind is in this program, we do know time is the biggest determinant, because we know that if we successfully target this pathway, it will produce very effective medications in humans because there is a mutation in humans. It tells us the nature has done the experiment already in humans.

So if individuals that carry a certain mutation which reduces the amount of the target that we are utilizing here, they do exhibit huge benefits against diabetes and cardiovascular disease, for example, which is exactly what we see in the mouse models, if we do a similar mutation.

So of course, not every program also enjoys this kind of human validation genetically and biochemically and a large amount of preclinical data, which comes from our really 20-year effort. So that kind of allows us to make a long-term commitment into really translating this into to humans. Definitely. I I appreciate the background there.

I wanted to ask you because you were kind of alluding to it and I’ve seen it in some of the coverage about this announcement as people saying like this can be a template for other universities, for other academic medical centers to be able to say, “Hey, we can align with the private sector where maybe some of this funding has been pulled from the state or federal level.” And you correct me if I’m wrong, you seem pretty optimistic that this is something that if another university or college is faced with, they could be able to align or they could invite, you know, members from private equity and to be able to support these efforts.

It seems like this is something that’s not just unique to you, but could be replicated across the country. Yeah. I think the key there is to really recognize this not as an alternative to federal programs, I mean, nationwide programs, funding of basic science, early stage science.

So it will apply to certain programs like this one, for example, where a certain maturity and background is already established. But it cannot there is nothing that can replace federal funding of junior faculty, early stage science, unconventional questions, risky questions.

And these are the things which benefit from other kind of funding mechanisms which then will lend themselves to this sort of alliances. However, I mean, this being said, I think, I am certain that in our school and in many other schools, there are opportunities like this, which maybe do not find a seat around the table to discuss.

So and there has been previous, I think, also I’m not sure if this is the first time such an agreement is made, but maybe in this format, it may be the first time it is made. So I think it can stimulate other funding agencies or capital institutions or private equity to kind of engage with academic research, it will be a benefit, but it won’t be a replacement for nothing can replace that.

I mean that is that’s clear. I appreciate the clarification there. I’m curious too, just from the clinical aspect, I mean, you were talking about like some of these some of these efforts that you’re working on date back 20, 30 years. When you look at and Leela’s pipeline and what’s what you and your team are working out like what excites you? You talk about it being such a big market and having such an opportunity to impact human health when you look at it, what what gets you excited about it?

Yeah, I mean, the most exciting thing for me is really to the possibility to increase the health span of humans.

Because you know there is a lot of interest around aging because this the world population is is aging and but there is not a parallel development in the aging population with the increase of health span, which means how much of that life you are living in a healthy way and how much of it you’re just adding years, but not healthy years.

So our in our program, we’re not really so interested in finding ways to make humans live 200 years, but rather, I mean, live that life whatever the number is in a healthy way.

And in the mouse models, we do we have evidence for this that when we genetically target, for example, this pathway, we can generate mouse models which in a very healthy way until the day they die. Of course, we don’t know whether we will be able to achieve, I mean, such a success in the humans, but even a partial replication of that that phenotype would be very dramatic.

So this is the part which really excites me to make health span and lifespan as close to each other as possible. And of course, this is also a different kind of approach than the existing, for example, great success stories in metabolic diseases with the GLP analogs and so on. And the story is also very similar. You know that GLP analog, it also took 30 years of basic research for it to see the clinical success.

So I find many parallels in the story development. And I’m sure that excites your partners too because to your point, like I think when you read about the stories of Novo’s work in the space in Eli Lilly, I mean, it dates back to the late 1990s and now obviously they’re seeing million successes with these drugs. They’re super popular in America and expanding into other markets internationally. I’m sure that your partners look at that and they say, “Wow, we get to fund really life-changing medicine and there is a financial component as well that’s very appealing to them.” Yeah, yeah, sure.

I think, I mean, the the success of GLP analogs are manifold, but I mean, one really important aspect of that is it actually it’s provide evidence that you can actually find ways to target chronic disease. This is for a while, industry was was reluctant or concerned about the success rates in entering chronic disease landscape.

But now there is a lot of confidence that is really shown by these medications. And of course, I mean, there is a financial return aspect to this, but there is also great really, I mean, societal impact and global impact you could generate with this sort of medication. And so, yeah, I’m sure there’s more reasons now to find productive pathways to develop this sort of medications, including our program.

Well, and it aligns too with even from what you’ve heard from the administration, like they’ve been very deliberate in saying we want to move away from focusing more on infectious diseases and towards chronic disease. I mean, that’s basically the bedrock of the Make America Healthy Again movement. And so, it is kind of in line too with that larger push like you say to the societal level in the United States is like that’s where they want to go, and it seems like you’re in a sense kind of well aligned with that.

Yeah, I mean it’s a fortunate, I think, coincidence that yes, that that of course also fits with the federal agenda at the moment. But I mean, just like how I said, federal support is no alternative to any other funding mechanism. I would also say, I mean, chronic disease, of course, is the biggest global health problem, but that’s that shouldn’t really be a reason to abandon all other all other areas.

So I hope that I mean there will be it’s still basic science supported in many many other areas, neurodegenerative, neurobiology, infectious diseases. These are also I mean mental health is a big, big really problems. But of course, all nothing really matches the impact of chronic disease. So I agree with the emphasis of obviously, I’m biased. I have devoted my whole life to study these things.

So of course, I agree that they they receive attention at the federal level. Definitely. No, I I think your point’s well taken. It’s not that we we focus on this and then we don’t focus on say COVID vaccines or the flu or something of that nature. That’s That’s a point well taken. Professor, I appreciate you spending the time to talk to us about this.

For for the leaders in our audience and they’re primarily on the pharma and biotech side, some of the marketing side of things as it relates to to medical brands like what sort of advice or takeaways would you pass along to them as they see this project get off the ground? Like I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of intense interest over the next few months and years. So anything that you would pass along to them in our audience? Yeah.

So I think of course, the leaders of the industry do not need any advice from me who has been institutionalized in academic environment. But I think maybe one thing is to consider more long-term investments into academic research.

Because usually, at least in my experience, what I have seen is the patients in both big pharma and investment community is is not that great. So they work with certain algorithms which are time restricted.

So maybe some more flexibility in that that time line investments is going to be important in, you know, getting much more out of academic research and translational possibilities. And also, I think there is already, I mean, many venues open to bring academic researchers with leaders of industry, I mean, including in our school and university, but in many other places.

So that has that is already there, and I’m a big really fan of those discussions because we have also have many things to learn from the industry and also how to really see the light at the end of the translational tunnel. Sometimes those conversations are very useful for us, those engagements even if they don’t end up in actual programs as learning opportunities, both for us, for our fellows and students.

So I think there is all the reasons to engage more for academic community to engage more with industry and for industry and other capital markets to engage with academic researchers. Yeah, like you said, if there’s nothing else, just having that that dialogue across the different sectors and being able to exchange ideas in that way, that’s beneficial on its own. Right. it’s extremely beneficial.

And it’s a great really learning experience for both sides and bring together the different operation models, find common kind of problems and opportunities. Excellent. Well, Professor, again, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast to talk about this and certainly wish you and your partners the best in terms of being able to advance that pipeline and really get these products out to patients. So appreciate that. Yeah. I thank you for that.

Thank you for the time and interest in our program. So for the trend segment, we’re going to talk a little bit about the upcoming Q2 earnings season that gets kicked off on Wednesday with Johnson & Johnson, followed up on Thursday by Abbott. They are the first two major healthcare companies. Jane Jay being one of the big farmers that’s kicking off there. And really the top line for our audience is that you’re going to see a lot of uncertainty when you’re listening to these earnings calls, reading these earnings releases, hearing from leaders.

They’re going to be focused focusing on a couple of things, tariffs, and potentially the regulatory uncertainty under RFK Jr.’s HHS. But one to start the conversation on the tariff focus and bring in Lesha, who is our pharma editor. Big news last week is that Trump administration is threatening 200% tariffs on pharma school companies. Probably by the end of the month, we don’t know that for sure, but that’s pending an investigation by the Commerce Department in terms of how they want to go into that.

Kind of a a book end to what we saw on Liberation Day, which was really kicked off Q2 in early April with the tariffs that are out there. But what do you make of this announcement? Again, it kind of seems like saber rattling, but it does seem like this is coming sooner than later, some sort of action. Trump has been threatening pharma tariffs for months now and as you mentioned, Jack, at the beginning of April, he announced broad reciprocal tariffs, but did not announce any tariff specific to pharma.

Last week during a cabinet meeting, he threatened he would play 200% tariffs on imported pharma products in order to encourage drug makers to move all of their manufacturing back to the U.S. And this is something he’s been talking about for a while. The 200% number is new, though. That’s That’s the first time he’s mentioned that last week. And it’s a matter of time before we find out exactly how he’s going to put that in place.

The Department of Commerce is currently doing its trade investigation into pharmaceutical products. Um, specifically to examine how drug imports could affect national security. So if they do find that there’s a national security risk in importing pharma products, there’s a likelihood that they will implement some tariffs related to that.

Public comments submitted by big pharma companies like Eli Lilly, Pfizer and AbbVie argued that tariffs would dampen innovation, drive up drug costs and actually deter companies from reshoring manufacturing because it would put a lot of pressure on them and it might backfire is is kind of their argument.

Also, what I’m hearing from experts is that pharma tariffs appear to be in direct conflict with some of the other goals of the administration when it comes to lowering drug prices. And that’s another thing that’s been adding uncertainty into the sector when it comes to M&A and all of these things that we’re talking about. The most favored nation policy that Trump announced a few months ago has been sort of looming for drug makers. If that If something like that would be implemented.

It could have a major effect on revenues. Um, and when I spoke with James Potter from the um coalition for healthcare communications recently, he noted that I think the administration is going to have to choose. Are they really dedicated more to the reshoring or are they trying to lower brand name drug prices? Um, so that’s something that, you know, is going to have to be balanced out.

Um, and we’ll see what the 200% tariffs might look like by the end of the month when the trade investigation is complete. Yeah, it’s a pretty timely announcement that they’re looking to put out there just because we’re going to be hearing from a lot of these companies and you made the point too that a lot of these major drugmakers in preparation or in response to those tariffs that were announced in April had announced that they were going to make these grand investments in the United States.

Roche had $50 billion, J&J which you talked about this kind of lack of deal-making. We’ll get into that with some of the the insights that we have from a recent EY report. They said that they were going to invest $55 billion that’s the most of any major drugmaker. They also said in mid-April that they they would be likely to experience a $400 million impact from worldwide tariffs. largely in their MedTech division.

Again, this is kind of telegraphing to the administration that they want this policy walked back in addition to those other comments. But Eli Lilly has said that they would invest $27 billion, $3 billion from Regeneron, Pfizer CEO Albert Borland said that they would be prepared to move their international manufacturing operations to the U.S. if tariffs are imposed.

But as you’ve talked about in your reporting to Leshan experts have kind of reiterated this point is that just because you’re reshoring your operations 5 to 10 years is what I’ve been hearing generally speaking and by then you could have a new administration that rolls back Trump’s tariffs. So a lot of drug makers are saying is it really worth it? Because we don’t know what the next administration will bring.

Yeah, and it doesn’t get to that immediate point which is that consumers want lower drug prices Exactly which goes back to the most favorite nations thing. So it’s something that we’ll probably be seeing in terms of these releases coming out as folks talking about hey this is how tariffs has been have been affecting our operations. I just want to bring in some insights that EY had sent over to us from a recent report and they talked about deal-making being down other than Johnson & Johnson having that one big deal they got at the JPMorgan conference in January.

But I thought what was interesting is I asked them what are some of the headwinds that the industry is facing and they said uncertainty. That was the first thing they had out of the gate. They talked about the administration. They talked about the impact on the deal-making environment and most importantly through tariffs in the executive order on pricing in May. So they are very mindful of how these things are having a real impact on drug makers across the board. They talked about tailwinds kind of being structural. It’s it’s patent cliffs. There’s gaps in terms of growth in the forecast. So there there are things where they see potential.

They talk about this need for greater innovation, gene editing, bispecific antibodies, mRNA products, which I think is interesting just because we’re seeing a lot of push back on mRNA through legislation and then selling gene therapies. So they’re seeing opportunities there. One thing we were talking about before we started recording, which I’ll be interested to hear from drug makers is also this push into China to this idea that like that’s really where it’s hot.

You said that you talked to few people about the fact that like China is getting a lot more interest just with the instability that the US and by proxy Europe have started to present to drug makers. Yeah, I’ve been reading a lot of headlines lately of experts basically saying that they’re worried that the US biotech industry is going to lose its edge to China that it’s already doing so and will in in coming years. um due to sort of the climate.

Um, and that’s that’s definitely a concern that that I’ve been hearing a lot. Yeah, and what I think is interesting because EY delves into this issue too. They talk about the fact that, you know, since there has been a lot of M&A activity, there’s all this money that drug makers, especially in the biotech industry are looking to spend and they’ve been going for alliances rather than going for acquisitions, these kind of licensing deals with Chinese counterparts.

And so way to be able to spend that money, they the the number that they have pegged here is over $100 billion in terms of potential value rather than upfront spend in China, which is a way of hedging your bets without having to actually put all of your operations there. So drug makers really and it’ll be interesting to to parse through these earnings calls when they come out.

They’re trying to balance this idea that we should be moving more of our operations and focus to the United States, while also looking to China and saying these are this is where we can actually spend our money and make that happen um going forward. I want to bring low into the conversation too because you were looking at some analysis that came through from LPL and they had some interesting takeaways as well.

Yeah, so um Jeff Bockbinder, the chief equity strategist at LPL Financial was explaining that there’s kind of two phases to like a tariff rollout. So he said the first phase is peak uncertainty and peak tariffs and Which was probably like early April when those tariffs came out there. Yeah, exactly.

And then um the second phase is after the tariff dust settles, he described it and um He said, um, these Q2 reports are definitely going to be a result of phase one, um, where companies are still kind of figuring out what they’re going to do, how they’re going to address these increased costs. And he said, it would be logical to put the defensive healthcare sector among the phase one winners, but pharmaceuticals are in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s trade policy.

Uh, sectoral tariffs could could rattle the sector pending successful country-level negotiations. So that is going to be like a big player in these Q2 reports, I think. Yeah, and set the backdrop. Yeah, that’s definitely a major factor in there too.

And I wonder too like if cuz there is all this conversation about what pharma can be doing to advocate for themselves is when they’re released they’re going to be getting questions from investors and media and everything in terms of how tariffs and how the regulatory uncertainty from RFK Juniors HHS is affecting them. Is I wonder if they take the initiative in their own releases to say we’re going to kind of dictate terms here.

We’re going to try and actually shape the narrative because to your point when those were announced over three months ago those initial tariffs, they’ve had time to be able to chew on them, figure out how it’s actually going to impact the business. So they should be able will come out here and say, you know, we’ve done all this analysis and this is what it’s going to mean to the bottom line. But if they don’t do that, there’s going to be a lot more questions they have to then answer for down the line. Mhm. One thing I just want to highlight from the EY report too that I think is interesting. They talk about that the industry needs innovation.

That was their their kind of bottom line here and they gave three ideas where that can happen. One is smaller deals, just given what the current environment is out there, you’re not going to be able to make these big deals like we saw in 2022, 2023. Deals outside of the established US-EU biotech ecosystem. They’re talking again about China. And then a preference for alliances rather than acquisitions, again from a lower risk perspective.

I think all of this is to say that the interview that you listen to today with the professor talking about how they’re working around these challenges that the Trump administration has posed to them. And now drug makers are doing the same thing. These are real policy impacts. We always talk about like what are these the potential downstream effects of X-Y-Z policies. You’re seeing it in application in the clinical realm in terms of aligning with a private equity firm to be able to fund research. And now you’re seeing it in terms of how it’s actually impacting the bottom line and markets and everything.

So, I think that for all the talk of oh what does this really matter in the abstract, you’re now starting to see a real concrete impact of the Trump administration’s policies on a number of different stakeholders that are really meaningful to our audience.

So, I’m hoping that that’s something that people can take away from this episode, from these conversations that we’re having with folks in the industry is they are really feeling the pinch on a number of different fronts and they are trying to go and look for alternative solutions and support to be able to navigate these problems. So that’s my little soapbox rant in terms of the Trump administration impact on business and on clinical research.

Lola, why don’t you give us a couple of parting thoughts on the two companies that we are going to hear from this week, Johnson & Johnson and Abbott from that LPL report and then we’ll wrap up the show. Yeah, so um Johnson & Johnson was estimating that tariffs could result in about a $400 million um extra cost for them and Abbott said um a few hundred million dollars as well.

Um and they are larger companies so they’ll be able to better absorb these costs but if you’re looking at smaller companies they’re going to be taking a harder hit and um they may be forced to delay launches and just have other financial delays as well that can be reflected in these reports.

Yeah, it’s I think it’s a good thing to point out there where we’re always so focused I think on the top 20 pharma companies and the idea that we’re also going to be hearing from a lot of these smaller cap pharma and biotech and they’re going to be the ones that maybe we get a better picture in terms of how that impact is being felt by them because not for nothing, it’s easier for Johnson & Johnson to swallow $400 million dollars than it is for some of these other companies to take a larger hit to their to their bottom line. I want to thank our audience for joining us again on another episode of the MMN podcast.

Be sure to listen to next week’s episode and we’ll be joined by Mark Newsom, the former deputy group director of for CMS and an Avelar Health advisor advisory board member. Take care, everyone.

The MMNM podcast is produced by Bill Fitzpatrick, Gordon Faylor, Lesha Bushek, Ira Rickraj, and Jack O’Brien. Great review and follow every episode wherever you listen to the podcast. And be sure to check out our website mm-online.com for the top news stories on the pharmaceutical industry and medical marketing agencies.