One of biotech’s biggest financiers launches small-molecule startup, in spite of IRA’s looming shadow

It’s been nearly a year since Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, raising a chorus of drug executive and investor complaints that it would decimate the development of small-molecule medicines. After all, it opens the door for Medicare to negotiate the price of small-molecule drugs after nine years on the market (as opposed to 13 years for biologic drugs like vaccines, cell therapies, or gene therapies).

But the law hasn’t brought a total halt to all such drug development — at least, not yet.

On Wednesday, Flagship Pioneering, the venture creation firm behind Moderna and Laronde that manages more than $14 billion in outside capital, launched a new startup called Empress Therapeutics that is focused solely on small-molecule drugs.

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