Welcome to the Influencer Era of Politics

 We live in an era in which cable television news is set to go the way of the 8-track tape player, and the changing media landscape is profoundly impacting how Americans get their political news.

As CNN, Fox, and MSNBC’s audiences shrink and age, the influencer era in American politics is officially underway.

If you need any convincing, zoom in on the Republican and Democratic conventions that wrapped up a few weeks ago. According to a recent RealClearPolitics article, around 200 content creators (or influencers) received credentialed invitations to the Democratic National Convention. This included exclusive access to VIP parties and events, as well as the chance to meet some of the delegates involved in the selection process.

Based on your age, it’s relatively easy to predict how you consume news. Boomers and Gen X primarily watch cable news, while younger generations consult social media, the internet, and podcasts for their information. This makes sense, as younger audiences tend to scroll endlessly through their phones, while older generations like to sit in front of the TV after dinner and watch cable.

This is why so much campaign money was spent on TV ads in recent elections. After all, that’s where you could reach citizens with a higher voting propensity.

But this old model is dated, and here’s why.

2024 is poised to be the first election in which millennials (ages 28-43) and Gen Z (under 27 voters) make up the majority. This new bloc of younger voters isn’t watching cable TV, and they’re definitely not seeing the political ads that cost modern campaigns a significant percentage of their war chests.

Airing ads on TV might have worked in 2004, but it will have limited success in 2024 – and that’s a big deal.

For a variety of reasons, the Republican Party has historically had trouble resonating with younger voters. This partially explains their electoral disappointments in 2020 and 2022, respectively. But instead of trying to rework their strategy to court this demographic, Trump and the GOP are doubling down on an old and outdated model. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, broadcast TV ads supporting Trump ran nearly 44,000 times across the country compared to only 33,000 for Kamala Harris/Joe Biden.

Rather than focusing on the young, independent swing voter, Trump continues to splurge on airwave advertisements. This might effectively get his base riled up and excited about the upcoming November election, but it won’t reach young people.

Today, political independents are the fastest-growing demographic in the country. These voters overwhelmingly skew millennial and are predominantly concentrated in the suburbs. Millennials are drastically different from any generation that’s come before them. They’re the first generation to come of age with the internet, and their consumption habits reflect this.

By all indications, Kamala Harris is working to broaden the Democratic coalition, primarily through her work to reach these independent voters. Team Harris has spent about $72 million through her digital ad campaigns alone compared with Trump’s $16 million.

For example, the DNC featured an influencer named Merrick Hanna. Hanna has more than 32 million followers/subscribers on TikTok alone. Let’s compare this with Fox News, which had 2.27 million primetime viewers for the entire month of August. The irony is that the people watching Fox News likely already know how they will vote.

As you can see, cable TV ads have all but lost their efficacy.

If you want to know why Kamala Harris is ahead in the polls, it’s because she’s making a concerted effort to talk to new and undecided voters outside of her key voting bloc, while Trump continues to preach to his loyal base.

Older generations can roll their eyes at influencers for their flamboyant and excessive behavior. But there is absolutely no denying their effectiveness at reaching mass audiences of young people at a shockingly low cost.

It’s often said that politics is downstream of culture. And culture is incredibly dynamic. Historians and political scientists frequently point to the 1960 presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. People who listened to the radio walked away thinking that Nixon won, while those who watched the debate featuring the handsome and well-tanned Kennedy thought the opposite.

Kennedy was more effective at using television to his campaign’s advantage. Today, whoever is more effective at leveraging social media will see a similar boost.

Old tactics simply don’t work in this new age, and both parties would be wise to recognize this.

Like it or not, the influencer age is here to stay.

Adam Brandon is the (last) president of FreedomWorks. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/09/05/welcome_to_the_influencer_era_of_politics_151559.html

No, the Electoral College Is Not a Relic of Slavery

 

Consistent with federalist principles, the Constitution gives the states control over our presidential elections, providing a check on majoritarianism.

Since the 2000 presidential election, the left has worked to undermine the legitimacy of the Electoral College, labeling it a relic of slavery. No doubt, if Donald Trump returns to the White House while again losing the popular vote, these attacks will be renewed with fervor. In fact, it has already begun as commentators denounce the undemocratic nature of the system. Just last month, the New York Times published a piece trashing the Constitution and asserting that the Electoral College’s only purpose was to protect slavery. These critiques are based on misconceptions and hostility toward the very structure of our Constitution.

The History

Our method of electing the president came about through compromise. The framers agreed upon a system that ensured the states had a say in choosing the president. The Constitution gives each state a share of electors, and the states decide for themselves how to select those electors.

At the time of the constitutional convention, popular elections would have favored the North because the North’s population of free persons would have outstripped the South’s. This dynamic is why the South pushed for a system that proportioned the electoral vote based on population, including slaves.

But nothing in the Electoral College system inherently favored slavery. You could have had an Electoral College system that did not count slaves as part of the population for the purpose of distributing electors. Thus, it was the counting of slaves in proportioning electors via the infamous two-thirds clause that protected slavery.

In fact, even if slavery had never existed, the states would never have agreed to a method of electing the president that stripped them of having a say in the matter. Protecting state sovereignty and ensuring less populous states had influence were key features of the compromise. Therefore, slavery may have been one of several reasons for the compromise, but it certainly was not the reason.

The Merits

The way state delegations elect the chief executive may have been the product of compromise, but that does not detract from the merits of the system, which include geographic representation and respect for state sovereignty. This is true even if you believe the Electoral College is a part of slavery’s legacy.

In a national election, in a country as large and diverse as ours, representation based on geographic segments of the population is far superior to the mob rule of a purely popular vote. We are not a monolithic society. Life and perspectives vary based on location. This is especially true when you consider the differences between state governments, which attract different types of people.

America is an enormous nation, and a system based solely on the popular vote would allow densely populated cities to dominate. This dynamic is particularly problematic when one considers that urban populations often want to impose their culture and policy preferences on others, whereas rural populations generally want to be left alone. Just think about how Democrats want virtually everything to be regulated nationally by the feds.

But regardless of this left-versus-right paradigm, it is simply better to give the different geographic elements of the nation and the states a voice on national matters to somewhat lessen the ability of the majority to steamroll political minorities.

Furthermore, as much as the left would love to abolish the states, there is no United States without the states themselves. Our federalist system allows for better representation of different segments of our population and, therefore, allows for better governance. The states, as separate sovereigns, must have a say in who becomes president.

The Electoral College also affects the politics of presidential campaigns. Candidates are forced to consider the respective views held in different states, particularly of those voters in the less partisan swing states. This political circumstance has a way of diffusing power and lessening the focus on densely populated cities, allowing for perspectives outside of the urban thought bubble to participate.

Another popular attack on the Electoral College is that it is undemocratic. But American government was never meant to be based on democracy. Rather, democracy was meant to be a component, albeit an important one, of our constitutional republic. The protection of liberty and the rights of individuals are far more important than the ability of the majority to impose their will.

Moreover, the president is not even supposed to be a representative of the people in our constitutional system. That is what the House of Representatives is for. Thus, the argument against the Electoral College is an argument not just against our Constitution’s federalist principles but against the Constitution’s separation of powers as well.

Our Electoral College system might not be perfect, but it is far better than an election by direct popular vote, which disregards our federalist principles.

Alex Xenos is an attorney and a Young Voices contributor. His writing has appeared in the Boston Herald, The American Spectator, DC Journal, and NH Journal, among other publications.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/09/05/no_electoral_college_is_not_relic_slavery_151560.html

Will Lower Courts Preserve the Administrative State?

 

Editor's Note

For forty years, U.S. courts have deferred to unelected bureaucrats for the interpretation of ambiguous statutes. The principle of “Chevron deference” is the legal basis of the administrative state, the extra-constitutional rule by experts that provides the legal framework and the workaday operations of the group quota regime.

Garrett Snedeker surveys decades of judicial history and concludes that that the consequences of Loper Bright — whether it really checks the power of the administrative state, or whether the spirit of Chevron is left unchallenged — will depend upon the conduct of the lower courts. This is the seventh installment in a series on Loper Bright and its consequences. Read the rest of the series as it becomes available here.

Even if many close court-watchers anticipated overturning Chevron deference during the Supreme Court’s last term, where the Court would place its accent remained an open question. However, the overturning of Chevron in the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright/Relentless decision will not be shaped exclusively or even largely by what the Supreme Court said or what Congress does in its wake, despite what the text of the Court’s opinion earnestly wishes. As frequently happens, lower federal courts will likely play an immense role in coloring Loper Bright’s precedential meaning, as well as provide contrasting views on regime-level considerations on administrative rule. 

Commentators have observed that the clearest change necessitated by the text of Loper Bright concerns how federal courts should treat ambiguous statutory terms. Under Chevron, statutory ambiguity resolved by administrative determination deserved judicial deference so long as that determination was reasonable. In virtually all other legal contexts, judges must interpret ambiguous statutes and their terms rigorously. Chevron allowed a relaxed standard within the administrative context.

According to administrative law expert Adam White, Loper Bright ended administrative exceptionalism. Agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory terms will now receive a neutral interpretation without a judicial thumb on the scales in favor of agencies. Removing a thumb from the scales reinforces the idea that legal interpretation of an ambiguous statute by an agency is given no special weight when that interpretation is challenged in the lower courts after Loper Bright. Lower courts may only recognize that Congress has delegated policy making discretion to an agency, not legal interpretation. Agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous terms within a statute or statutes themselves are not to be wholly ignored, but rather freshly reviewed by courts. Indeed, agencies’ interpretations may survive judicial scrutiny if they are sufficiently persuasive readings.  

Detractors are telling a different story, however, minimizing the significance of Loper Bright for lower court judges by focusing on the following line from the majority opinion: “In a case involving an agency…the statute’s meaning may well be that the agency is authorized to exercise a degree of discretion. Congress has often enacted such statutes.” Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule, one such detractor and a defender of Chevron, thus called Loper Bright “a relabeled version of Chevron.” Seizing on that line regarding congressional authorization of policy discretion, he argued that “the judges will now say that the best reading itself is that Congress has (in the majority’s terms) ‘authorized the agency to exercise a degree of discretion’ in giving necessary specification and concretization to ‘substantial restoration.’” Abiding by this approach collapses the law-versus-policy distinction that the majority opinion took pains to distinguish. Still, some lower courts may reason as such in the wake of Loper Bright. As Vermeule wrote elsewhere before the Court issued its opinion in Loper Bright, they will do so “to avoid having to actually do fully independent interpretation of statutory terms that are vague, technical, or both.”

Looking to lower courts to understand the post-Chevron landscape would have been crucial even without the possibility of confusion over the law-versus-policy distinction. For example, while the Supreme Court spent the better part of the last decade not citing Chevron in its own opinions, the lower courts still relied on it extensively. Indeed, in the actual Loper Bright litigation, the D.C. Circuit chiefly relied on Chevron in deferring to the agency’s interpretation of the statutory term at issue.

History furthermore shows that Chevron became a significant precedent because of its transformation in meaning largely in the lower courts beginning in 1984. Chevron scholar Thomas Merrill noted in his book The Chevron Doctrine that Chevron invited “busy lower-court judges” to “simply ratify whatever the agency proposes to do.” As I have written elsewhere, drawing on Merrill’s book, “compared ‘to the complex matrix of factors that prevailed in the pre-Chevron era,’ lower courts embraced the relative simplicity of the formulaic two-step Chevron analysis.” Lower court judges ratified again and again the meaning of Chevron as deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous terms, and then they presumed the reasonableness of those interpretations. Scholars and other judges, foremost Antonin Scalia, supported the lower courts’ understanding of Chevron. Decades would pass before any reconsideration of Chevron’s wisdom. 

Distillation of Supreme Court precedents by the lower courts occurs frequently. When disagreements among lower courts arise, the Court resolves circuit splits among its regular business. In some instances, the lower courts play a more prominent role in revealing the fault lines for competing philosophies of governance. Lower courts have increasingly been the forums where the fault lines of what Tom Klingenstein describes as a “cold civil war” are shown. While some lower courts pump the brakes on the progression of this conflict, others press the accelerator.

Two examples suffice. Most prominently in recent years, lower courts have applied the holding in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court’s decision over whether the meaning of sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is read to incorporate transgenderism, well beyond the employment context and into equal protection more broadly. Just this year, Kadel v. Folwell in the Fourth Circuit as well as Lange v. Houston County in the Eleventh Circuit extended the holding of Bostock to new areas of our law and our civic life. Each of these opinions brought forth stinging dissents from conservative jurists about the risks of misreading Bostock. Until the Supreme Court corrects these misreadings, they will proliferate throughout the courts. 

Another example, emerging still, is over the scope of the Second Amendment. Concerns over the “workability” of the Court’s 2022 broad ruling in Bruen, which established a history and tradition test popular among originalists for the protection of the right to bear arms, led the Court to issue its more limited protection of the Second Amendment this past term in Rahimi. Lower courts, such as in U.S. v. Bullock, forced the issue when they began setting aside statutes forbidding convicted felons from owning firearms, citing Bruen. Note how some lower courts may secure the power of one side in the cold civil war by sowing confusion with aggressive interpretations of Supreme Court precedent. These lower courts effectively implement a rival vision of the grounds of the regime while revealing those fault lines of the cold civil war. 

How will lower courts shape the understanding of Loper Bright? As noted, we may see Prof. Vermeule’s approach embraced, thus endorsing a limited reading of Loper Bright as instituting only modest changes for how lower courts should treat statutorily ambiguous terms in the administrative law context. The temptation to follow this tack comes from the practical desire to expend fewer judicial resources on the more difficult task of neutrally interpreting statutory ambiguity. But as noted, some lower court judges will also be eager to slow-walk the wholesale alteration in our jurisprudence in service of bucking the “originalist” Supreme Court majority responsible for Loper Bright. If federal agencies observe something less than uniformity in the lower courts, they may act as if Chevron deference is still good law. The fault lines of the cold civil war will emerge more clearly if this occurs frequently, since Loper Bright specifically sought to remove the worst excesses of ambiguity that give license to policymaking without clear congressional authorization.

More optimistically, we may see strong opinions and separate writings affirming the straightforward understanding of Loper Bright as, at least concerning the lower courts, requiring the judiciary to perform an independent reading of statutory text. Judicial resources, precious as they are, ought to be expended on such a fully independent interpretation. Not only has the Supreme Court held as much in Loper Bright, but a judicially independent interpretation also hews most closely to the moral understanding of the separation of powers as instantiating the “Golden Rule” in our system of government. As Hadley Arkes has written, “[the separation of powers] puts the question of what the principle is behind one’s position and whether he would be willing to honor the same principle when it cuts against his interests.” With the Chevron era now past, agency lawmaking, enabled by the judiciary’s thumb on the scale, no longer may short-circuit the separation of powers.

The experience of how judges in states without Chevron-like deference have operated for decades — twenty-five, including California — should demonstrate that the sky will not fall without Chevron. Yet only close attention to the lower courts will allow a bright-eyed understanding of how Loper Bright develops.

Garrett Snedeker is deputy director of the James Wilson Institute and staff attorney at the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

https://tomklingenstein.com/will-lower-courts-preserve-the-administrative-state/

ceboo

Harris could censor Elon Musk’s X

 A 2019 interview featuring Kamala Harris has recently gone viral on X. In it, she made the bold assertion that then-President Donald Trump “has lost his privileges and [his Twitter account] should be taken down”. Harris first voiced this stance during a CNN conversation with Jake Tapper, and reiterated it in a subsequent appeal.

With Harris now running for president in the upcoming November election, questions naturally arise about how her administration might handle free speech, especially concerning platforms such as X, now owned by Elon Musk. If elected, Harris could spearhead initiatives which severely impact Musk’s platform, possibly even leading to a ban or other significant legal actions.

There is already some cause for concern. Recent email revelations from Facebook’s parent company Meta show that Harris’s current deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, at the time White House Director of Digital Strategy in the Biden administration, put pressure on the social media company to remove a Tucker Carlson post related to Covid-19. Similar emails revealed other senior Biden staffers leaning on Facebook to remove Covid-19 posts as well as political reporting, including the New York Post’s October 2020 scoop on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The growing trend of government intervention in social media under the guise of combating “disinformation” is not limited to the United States. Recent events in Brazil serve as a cautionary tale. X has faced increasing pressure from Brazilian authorities for failing to address what they deem to be disinformation, leading to the platform being taken offline temporarily in the country.

This drastic measure highlights the precarious position social media companies find themselves in when governments decide to wield their power against perceived threats to the public narrative. In Brazil, this clampdown is seen by many as an anti-democratic move, with Lula’s Left-wing government potentially using disinformation claims as a cover to suppress dissenting voices which challenge the ruling party’s agenda.

Meanwhile, Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of Telegram, was recently arrested at a French airport. His arrest, which has sent shockwaves through the tech community, is similarly based on accusations related to the spread of disinformation via the Telegram platform.

The subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation raises significant concerns about the future of free speech, especially as it becomes more entwined with political motivations. In Harris’s case, her 2019 statements provide a preview of the aggressive stance she might take against platforms such as X if she ascends to the presidency. She not only advocated for Trump’s removal from Twitter, but also took the extraordinary step of writing directly to then-CEO Jack Dorsey, urging him to suspend Trump’s account permanently. Her call to action did not go unnoticed — Trump’s Twitter account was “permanently suspended” in January 2021 following the Capitol riots, underlining the potential impact of political pressure on social media platforms.

As the world watches these developments unfold, it’s clear that the line between fighting disinformation and suppressing free speech is becoming increasingly blurred. If Harris is elected president, Musk and his platform could face unprecedented challenges, possibly even severe legal repercussions. The implications for free speech in the digital age are profound, as the definition of disinformation remains dangerously fluid, often tailored to serve the interests of those in power.

Ashley Rindsberg is author of The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’ Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History

https://unherd.com/newsroom/will-kamala-harris-censor-elon-musks-x/

FBI, DOJ Least Credible To Talk About Influence Campaign Against Americans

 FOX News contributor Mollie Hemingway reacts to Attorney General Merrick Garland's news conference on accusations of Russian interference in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

BRET BAIER, SPECIAL REPORT: Let me turn topics. This is the Attorney General today talking about Russian interference.

MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Justice Department's message is clear. We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system. Unfortunately, we know that Russia is not the only foreign power seeking to interfere in our elections. That includes recently reported activities by Iran to compromise former President Trump's campaign.

BAIER: Very specific on Iran, this is the part about Russia, RT, Russia Today propaganda is most obvious when it reports on matters of importance to the government of Russia, such as public opinion about Ukraine and the United States. When direct propaganda is not effective, however, RT has pursued malign influence campaigns in countries opposed to its policies, including the United States, in an effort to sow domestic divisions, thereby weaken opposition to government of Russia objectives. Didn't get too specific, said it's not only in this country but other countries, Mali, and saying it's about $10 million to PR firms making videos sticking in Russia propaganda in there.

The striking part was about the Iran actions and maybe even China's actions, and they're saying they're not going to put up with foreign interference. Your thoughts.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, THE FEDERALIST: All of it is striking and all of it is disconcerting that foreign governments would try to meddle in our U.S. elections.

What's particularly problematic, though, is our Department of Justice and FBI are the least credible people to talk about this. Given the information operations they ran against the American people with their Russia collusion hoax, with their cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop in which they lied about the situation and claimed that it was Russian disinformation and used that to censor American speech, even the first impeachment, the Department of Justice and FBI, there are consequences for those information They ran against the American people. And we do need protection from some of these foreign governments meddling in our elections, but we also need protection from our Department of Justice, FBI, and other intelligence agencies who are doing the same.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/04/mollie_hemingway_fbi_doj_least_credible_people_to_talk_about_an_influence_campaign_being_run_against_the_american_people.html

Snap sued by New Mexico over failure to protect children from sexual exploitation

 New Mexico said on Thursday it filed a lawsuit against Snapchat owner Snap Inc, alleging that the messaging app's policies and design features facilitate the sharing of child sexual exploitation material.

The lawsuit brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said a months-long investigation found that Snapchat was a primary platform for sextortion, in which a predator coerces a minor into sending explicit photos or videos and threatens to distribute the content unless more sexual content or money is paid.

Snap did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Snapchat, which is wildly popular with teens and young users, is known for messages that disappear in 24 hours.

"Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely," Torrez said in a statement.

As part of its investigation, the state's Department of Justice opened a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, which exchanged messages with an account called "child.rape" and others with explicit names.

Investigators also found 10,000 records related to Snap and child sexual abuse content on dark websites, saying that Snapchat was "by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated."

New Mexico previously sued Meta Platforms in December on similar allegations of failing to protect children from sexual abuse and predation.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/snap-sued-mexico-over-failure-144723241.html

BioMarin Rolls Out $4B Revenue Expectations, as Analysts Wonder

 

BioMarin executives sought to calm an anxious investor base Wednesday with a public address and pledge to achieve a nearly 50% bump in annual revenue by 2027. But analysts were left wanting.

BioMarin’s year has been defined by rounds of layoffs, an executive restructuring and months-long soul searching on the future of hemophilia gene therapy Roctavian. On Wednesday, executives finally revealed the long-awaited full picture of what they have been building towards.

The company will restructure into three key units: skeletal conditions, enzyme therapies and Roctavian, all in an effort to unlock $4 billion in revenue by 2027.

BioMarin expects two FDA approvals by that year—and 11 launches by 2034. Also within the next decade, the company said it will have products in Phase III development across seven indications.

After 2027, the company expects mid-teen revenue growth to follow through 2034, with non-GAAP operating margins of 40% or more beginning in 2026 and $1.25 billion in operating cash flow in 2027 and beyond.

BioMarin reaffirmed its revenue guidance of $2.75 billion to $2.85 billion for fiscal year 2024.

CFO Brian Mueller said the $4 billion forecast does not include any mergers or acquisitions. Rather, one of the company’s existing products, Voxzogo, which was approved in 2021 for achondroplasia, will generate the bulk of the BioMarin’s forecasted $4 billion revenue. Specifically, the company plans to expand Voxzogo’s label in other growth disorders, following its October 2023 label expansion to achondroplasia patients of all ages with open growth platesin.

The projection is also not highly dependent on Roctavian, the gene therapy approved in June 2023 but which has failed to successfully launch. As of its second quarter earnings release last month, Roctavian had treated just five patients and generated $7 million in sales total, far below the expected $100 million to $200 million from Roctavian in 2023 alone.

BioMarin undertook a review of the program, putting a divestiture on the table as a possible option. But ultimately, the company decided to stick with it. Roctavian is the smallest business unit of the three outlined in the new plan. The company now expects to achieve profitability for the Roctavian business by the end of 2025 by reducing expenses to $60 million. During second quarter earnings, the company announced that sales of the gene therapy would be restricted to just the U.S., Germany and Italy, where it is reimbursed.

Analyst reaction to BioMarin’s ambitious new plan was mixed, with some relieved and even impressed by the outlook, while others felt there was too much focus on the approved medicines and not enough on the pipeline as well as the potential competition.

The pipeline discussion felt “cursory and left us wanting,” Truist Securities analysts wrote in a Thursday morning note. “What’s more critical for us and felt lacking during the event was strategy against key external events anticipated over the next 12-18 months that could impact the fate of BMRN more near-term and put post-2027 guidance at-risk.”

CEO Alexander Hardy, just nine months into the top job, acknowledged in his opening remarks that investors have been clamoring for more detail on the company’s future, promising to answer all the questions that have been swirling since Roctavian came under the microscope. But he emphasized the most important metric to him in all this is the goal of expanding by four times the number of patients treated by BioMarin medicines by 2034.

“I want to take this opportunity to reiterate again that our strong performance that we’re sharing today is really primarily based on our current products and our indications that we’re seeking, so our life cycle plans, and very little on molecules where we have not yet received the proof of concept data,” Hardy said. “And I think this is a really unique risk profile in the industry that we’re able to commit to high levels of growth with very low levels of scientific risk in that growth outlook.”

Many of the tough choices have already been implemented across BioMarin. Hardy said they have conducted a $500 million cost-reduction campaign, which included the deprioritzation of several early-stage assets. In the two weeks leading up to the investor day, BioMarin restructured its C-suite and laid off 225 people across global operations. In May, 170 employees lost their jobs.

Doing ‘Good Deals Really Well’

Hardy said repeatedly on this week’s call that while his team did not have to execute a deal, he said BioMarin was certainly open to the possibility of external innovation—that is, M&A—and he laid out a specific roadmap of what the company wants.

Hardy said the team will specifically be looking in the $1.5 billion range for assets or companies that fit into BioMarin’s “Core 5” values, which is used to assess internal innovation. Those values include genetically defined populations, targeted therapeutics, assessable endpoints, transformational impact and a commercially competitive profile.

BioMarin has $1 billion in cash to deploy and Hardy said there are many cash constrained small cap biotechs out there to consider.

“Very simply, I would say that we believe that there are assets out there that are worth more in our hands than where they’re sitting right now,” he said.

Key to this hunt for deals will be James Sabry, who will become chief business officer as of October 7. Hardy said Sabry has a track record of “over 1,500 deals done.” That, he said, “should give investors confidence that we’re going to do good deals really well.”

A deal could add a cherry on top of BioMarin’s forecast, Mueller explained.

“Our revenue targets are not dependent upon business development. However, the right deals over time can be additive to what is already a substantial level of growth,” he said. “Also the right deals over time can have a multiplying effect, diversifying and augmenting our portfolio.”

Mueller said that BioMarin will prioritize external innovation over returning capital to shareholders. The company and its board are regularly scanning opportunities for deals.

“For the near term, we believe that investing in long-term, sustainable revenue growth has the potential to deliver more value to shareholders than the outright return of capital,” he said.

Pipeline and Competition Get Short Shrift

BioMarin’s investor day had been a long wait for investors and analysts, who were quick to speak out on the company’s new plan.

“Operationally it’s impressive that under new management, BMRN can in just a few years attain competitive operating margins (>40%), driven by both expense discipline and better-than-expected revenues,” wrote Stifel’s analysts in a Wednesday afternoon note. The update was well above expectations, the firm said.

Stifel added, however, that BioMarin did not specifically define how the clinical pipeline or Voxzogo competition from other companies will play in the guidance. Ascendis Pharma and BridgeBio have therapies in development for achondroplasia.

BioMarin executives were confident that Voxzogo can face down the competition due to its market-leading position, patient experience and reluctance to switch treatments. Significant potential lies in hypochondroplasia, where BioMarin plans to target patients with the most severe disease, they said. Other label expansion opportunities include idiopathic short stature, Turner syndrome, Noonan syndrome and SHOX deficiency disorders.

Meanwhile, investors will be keenly watching for a Phase III readout for Ascendis’ TransCon CNP for achondroplasia; the release is expected in the coming weeks.

“This catalyst represents a swing factor for investors in their ability to get excited about the Vox bull case—and while TranCon’s a viable competitive threat (we actually believe more so than [BridgeBio’s] infigratinib at this stage), there’s clear trial risk here,” Stifel wrote.

Jefferies analysts said they believe that BioMarin’s new outline does not change much for investors who were already negative about the stock.

“If you didn’t like BMRN heading into investor day, will today’s event change your mind?” the firm wrote Wednesday afternoon. So far, Jefferies has heard “not really” from clients the analysts have spoken to. But Jefferies said that Hardy’s moves so far have been “rational and in line with what investors want to see from BioMarin.”

Whether it will all go to plan remains to be seen, of course. “A lot can happen in a decade, particularly in a hyper-innovative space such as biotech,” Truist analysts wrote, “and we hesitate to give much credit to pipeline programs without anticipated visibility more near-term.”

https://www.biospace.com/business/biomarin-rolls-out-4b-revenue-expectations-as-analysts-wonder-about-pipeline