Incubate in Wall Street Journal, Forbes on ORPHAN Cures Act

Incubate executive director John Stanford was recently featured in a WSJ Pro: Venture Capital article by reporter Brian Gormley on the ORPHAN Cures Act, a provision of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The new law addresses a critical flaw in the Inflation Reduction Act that has unintentionally disincentivized investment in rare disease research.

Stanford highlighted the role of small biotech firms in driving innovation for rare diseases and emphasized the broader economic context behind drug pricing:

"John Stanford, executive director of Incubate, an organization of venture-capital firms, said small biotechs do much of the research in rare diseases and that the value medicines provide should be considered along with their cost. Drug prices plummet once medications go off-patent and generics are made.

"Our contention is: New medicines cost a lot up front, society benefits and then the cost comes down substantially over time," Stanford said."

Forbes also recently covered the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in a July 21 article that spotlights Incubate’s Life Science Investment Tracker, which documents how the IRA has impacted pharmaceutical R&D:

"It’s a good thing that the Orphan Cures Act was added to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But it would be better had the legislation not been necessary in the first place.

The IRA’s price controls stifle pharmaceutical innovation. The Incubate Coalition’s Life Sciences Investment Tracker shows that drug companies have discontinued more than 50 research programs and canceled 26 drug projects since the passage of the IRA."