BoB in South Florida: Rich Daly, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals

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On this week's episode — the last of our four-part series focused on South Florida — we catch up with Rich Daly, CEO at Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, a member of Life Science Leader's editorial advisory board and Miami-based location host for our in-person series. Rich talks about Catalyst's rare disease strategy built on operational excellence (including how to select a rare disease special pharmacy), his criteria for selecting de-risked, differentiated, and accretive products for rare diseases, partnering outside the U.S., and what new incentives Florida politicians could create to help South Florida grow even faster as a life sciences hub. 

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Episode Transcript

Ben Comer (00:06):
Welcome back to the Business of Biotech.
I'm your host, Ben Comer, ChiefEditor at Life Science Leader,
and today we're in Miami,Florida, for a series of
episodes recorded on location atthe offices of Catalyst
Pharmaceuticals.
For this series, we're speakingwith people operating companies
based here in the SunshineState.
And I'm thrilled to welcomeRich Daly, president and CEO at

(00:29):
Catalyst Pharmaceuticals andgracious host to the business of
biotech.
We really appreciate it, Rich.
Thanks, Ben.
Catalyst is a commercialcompany with three approved
products, and I'm lookingforward to hearing from Rich
about Catalyst's plans forgrowing product sales, what he
plans to do with the increasingamount of cash the company is
storing away, and why SouthFlorida is on the cusp of

(00:52):
becoming a major biotech hub.
Thanks for being here, Rich.
Thanks for having us.
Let's start off with a littlebit of your background as we do
on the Business of Biotech.
You've held leadership roles inbig pharma and small biotech
before joining CatalystPharmaceuticals.
What brought you to Catalystfirst as a board member 10 years

(01:16):
ago?

Rich Daly (01:16):
So Catalyst 10 years ago was not a commercial
company.
And Pat McEnany, who's ourfounder and previous CEO, was
looking for someone who couldactually help the company make
the move from the R and D side,mostly the development side, to
the D and C, so development andcommercialization.
And so my experience of helpingcompanies move through that

(01:37):
process was really valuable tothe company then, and obviously
through the nine years I servedon the board.
So really was gettingcommercial voice into the early
part of the company and thedevelopment stages of the
company, which I thought wasreally interesting because that
what we all know is a realstruggle in all pharma
companies.

Ben Comer (01:52):
Yeah, I mean, half of launches don't meet
expectations at this point,right?
Absolutely.
And so you were the kind of uhcommercial person, guru on the
board.
You know, um a lot ofcompanies, or or most companies,
I would say, have experts ofdifferent functional areas among
their board.
You were the commercial guy forcatalysts.

Rich Daly (02:10):
Yeah, you know, and I had come from a place where I
had run large businesses, launchproducts, uh managed businesses
in the U.S.
and outside the U.S.
So brought my thing is I say ifyou're gonna sit on a board,
and I've been on four publicboards and two private boards,
you have to be able to occupymore than one chair.
You can't come in just as thecommercial person.
You have to come in knowingcompliance, manufacturing,

(02:32):
international markets.
You have to add a lot, becausethere's only so many seats on a
board.

Ben Comer (02:36):
There's not enough places to have every competency
covered.

Rich Daly (02:39):
Right.
But so you've got to bring inuh people who have multiple
competencies.
And you don't have to beeverything, but you have to have
two or three so you can addreal value in the discussion.

Ben Comer (02:46):
How many board members does Catalyst have?

Rich Daly (02:49):
We have seven.

Ben Comer (02:50):
Okay.
All right.
And some of those uh know morethan one thing, I think.

Rich Daly (02:53):
Yes, yeah, they all do, absolutely.

Ben Comer (02:55):
Uh what circumstances led you to becoming president
and CEO at the beginning of2024?
Is that correct?
That's correct, yeah.

Rich Daly (03:02):
So I was on the board for nine years, as uh we talked
about.
Uh and Pat, our founder, um,was with the company for 22
years.
So he founded the company, youknow, in a he's from Coral
Gables, right?
So here in Miami.
And um Pat notified the boardabout a year in advance that he
wanted to retire and becomechairman of the of the board and

(03:22):
no longer serve as CEO, so nolonger operating the day-to-day
functions.
And I had had a lot ofexperience.
I was coming from a company uhfocused on oncology in CAR T.
Uh prior to that, I was in acompany in oncology uh in the
supportive care space.
And prior to that, I'd workedin diabetes, uh, cardiovascular
oncology, GYN.
I mean, I could go on and on,but it really looked like a

(03:43):
great challenge.
Most of the companies I'd beena part of were uh burning
platforms.
Come in, fix right away, makeyou got to make major changes.
Here, the company's verysuccessful.
And so it took a differentapproach, but I saw it as a
professional and a personalchallenge to take on a company
where you had to be patient.
Um, you're not looking to makea lot of change right away.

(04:03):
So I thought this would be agreat opportunity.
I raised my hand, andthankfully, and I mean this,
thankfully, the board decidedthey were very gracious, said,
great, we're gonna do aworldwide search.

Ben Comer (04:13):
Ok.

Rich Daly (04:14):
Because if you want to get the job, you want to know
that you have the confidence ofthe people around you.
Right.
So I was not involved in thesearch, uh, obviously.
I had to recuse myself.
Uh and when I saw the list ofpeople after I got the job who
were in the mix, I was like,dang, that's a good list.
So they they did a prettythorough scrub of the talent
that was available.
Yeah.
So I was really pleased to getthe role.

(04:34):
Had you worked in rare diseasesprior to joining?
I have uh three rare diseases.
I uh in fact launched the raredisease uh therapy in the 90s.
Wow.
Uh then I launchedAstraZeneca's first rare
disease.
This is long before they, I wasthe president of their diabetes
division, right?
Essentially metabolic.
And um launched their a firstone, and um they at the time

(04:56):
felt like it really wasn't a fitfor them.
And then subsequently, youknow, we all know they bought
Alexion, which rare disease is agreat space.
So I've had uh, and then Ilaunched uh uh a rare disease
product in Mexico.
Cold chain got it approved in45 days.
That's how it was for juvenileosteosarcoma.
That's how dire the need was.

(05:16):
The Mexican government saidthis is really important.
Wow.
What product was that?
Do you remember?
Uh I can't try to remember thename of the product.

Ben Comer (05:23):
There's been a lot in your in your background.
I believe me forgettingforgetting the name of one,
yeah.
Um that's really interesting.
Uh I wonder if you could tellus a little bit about um
Catalyst's current businessstrategy.
Uh you have three commercialproducts, we've mentioned that.
Uh, but I don't see anything umin the current pipeline.

(05:44):
Um are you doing some labelextension work, Doug?

Rich Daly (05:47):
Yeah, so we look at our our business as having two
main pillars.
One is taking the portfoliothat we have and optimizing that
portfolio.
That would be through lifecyclemanagement, label extensions,
as you said, and looking forother alternative paths for a
product to grow the product.
The other pillar of ourbusiness is business
development.
We are a buy and build company,so we look for products that
are significantly de-risked.

(06:08):
And because of ourinfrastructure and our ability
to execute, uh, we can bringproducts to market, and we look
for companies that might have acash runway problem, but a great
product, or might not have theexpertise that we have in
commercialization.
You know, there's a lot thatyou see in an orphan space, so
we're an orphan company, that'snot visible unless you're really

(06:28):
in the weeds.
So we have very small, targetedsales forces, and that looks
appealing to a lot of investors.
You know, it's not a big SG&Aor selling general
administrative expense.
And when you get into thebusiness itself, you look behind
the curtain, you see that youhave a specialty pharmacy, a 3PL
for distribution, and a hub forpatients.
And that's the core of thebusiness.

(06:49):
That's what differentiates mostorphan companies from other
ones, is how well do you do youdeal with the patient?
So the core of the pharmacy,and this is what we call the
back of the house, is reallyessential to strategy.
So you get the patient on, keepthe patient on, and get them on
the right dose.
And you develop a relationshipwith the patient because the
patients give you permission tohave a relationship.

(07:10):
And it's incredibly rewarding.
We deal with one patientpopulation that's about 3,500 in
the US, and another patientpopulation that is about 11,000
to 13,000.
That's max.
That's as big as they'll everbe.
So we get really intimate withthe patient.
Again, the patient gives uspermission to do that, but you
have that relationship and umthat back of the house.
So that's real big part of thestrategy is uh helping the

(07:33):
patient stay on drug.
And we have a philosophy thatthat once a patient starts on
our drug, regardless of thecircumstance, if they can't pay
for it, we keep them on thedrug.
Really?
Yeah.
So we experienced this.
We were tested.
So last year everybodyremembers the change healthcare,
cybersecurity attack.
Because we have a specialtypharmacy, we know when a patient

(07:53):
fills a prescription, or weknow that day if a patient's
having a problem with insurance.
It's all in a compliant manner.
We don't know the name of thepatient, but we know that the
patient's having a problembecause the pharmacy calls us.
We knew the day that thecybersecurity breach happened.
And we knew that some of ourpatients, if you take one of our
products for Lambert EatonMyasthenic syndrome, if you take

(08:14):
FERDAPS, if you stop takingthat product, you might lose the
ability to walk.
And patients that take the drugwithin a couple of hours, if
they are having a problemambulating or walking, they gave
regain their ability to move.
So losing the ability to havethat drug for a couple of days
is could be life-altering forthat patient.

(08:35):
So we just ship product.
We didn't know if we getreimbursed, we just shipped to
every patient that neededproduct.
And we kept shipping to them infive-day increments until the
the cybersecurity incident wasresolved.
So this is a really importantelement of who we are as a
company.
Absolutely.

Ben Comer (08:50):
Did you hear from any of those patients?

Rich Daly (08:51):
Absolutely we did.
Yeah.
Um and you know, I sat with ourhead of commercial and our CFO,
and the CFO is the last personyou think is going to say ship.
And he was the first one to saywe have to ship.
Which, I mean, that just feelsgreat.
Right.
Now, of course, we can't dothat for government programs,
but when in those situations, welook for opportunities to get
patients through um appropriateuh reimbursement means.

(09:13):
And so we really work hard tomake sure that the patients can
stay on the drug if it'sappropriate.
If it's not, obviously we don'twant them on the drug.

Ben Comer (09:20):
Now, is that uh product uh in a traditional
scenario, is that product uhmailed to patients or is it
picked up from a specialtypharmacy location?

Rich Daly (09:30):
Aaron Powell So it's great in uh in the orphan space
to have a limited distribution.
So we only have essentially onepharmacy.
So they ship overnight to allthe patients.
They make sure and they'll callthe patient.
See, this is what happens.
We don't we don't have accessto that information uh uh
unless, again, the patient givesus permission.
But the pharmacy knows becausethey're uh a protected entity or

(09:50):
uh a covered entity, and theythey can call the patient and
say, hey, we know you're comingup on your you need, do you need
product?
And most of the time, about90%, 95% of the time, they're
like, Yeah, ship me the product.
Um and so you actually get itto them overnight.
Um and we've got some greatstories about, you know, one
patient drove like 10 hours toget one one of our sales reps

(10:12):
drove 10 hours to get drug to apharmacy for a patient so that
pharmacist could distribute itbecause the patient couldn't get
the drug.
So um having a limiteddistribution network is really
critical to understanding thepatient, understanding the
patient's needs and in servingthe patient.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ben Comer (10:28):
Well, that I was gonna ask that.
Why is a limited uhdistribution model important?
It's so that you can actuallyhave some visibility into the
patients.
Is that the primary thing?
Or what what else?

Rich Daly (10:38):
Yeah, so again, the relationship, I can't stress
this enough.
It's in a compliant manner.
You know, we don't know who thepatients are unless they call
us and tell us they want thatrelationship.
But making sure that they geton the drug, stay on the drug,
and uh and receive theappropriate dose.
Now we're not making thatdecision, but the pharmacist
will call the doctor.

(10:58):
So in our in in the LEMSmarket, Lambert Eat and
Lasthenic market, the averagephysician writes has one patient
in their entire career.
That's how rare it is.
Wow.
So it's the first time and onlytime they'll see that that
disease.
And so our pharmacies then say,listen, we've dealt with
hundreds, if not thousands, ofpatients.
Let us help you understand howto work with this patient

(11:21):
effectively.
And it really makes adifference to have that kind of
relationship with the providerand and with the patient if it's
appropriate.

Ben Comer (11:28):
For listeners who are uh perhaps working in early
stage uh rare disease companies,thinking about starting a rare
disease company, um what whatwould you say about selecting uh
a specialty pharmacy?
Uh is there any anything tothat?
I mean, uh are there lots ofoptions, you know, for specialty
pharmacy distribution?
You know, like how do you howdo how do you pick the right

(11:50):
one?

Rich Daly (11:50):
Well, I think it's comes down to culture.
Um we just recently we've had arelationship with a specialty
pharmacy for uh six years.
And we decided we were going toRFP it because we wanted to
make sure we were gettinghigh-level service, high-quality
service.
And it was interesting.
The level of service is quitedifferent and can be quite
different depending on whatyou're willing to do and what
you're willing to pay for.

(12:10):
Um we RFP'd our existing umprovider as well as three
others, and we came back andstayed with our provider because
we saw they were actually quitegood.
Um, but you know, there's a lotof opportunity out there.
I would just say scan themarketplace, look for what fits
for you.
And, you know, because thereare the ops the options are

(12:30):
quite different.
Yeah.
All good, all very good, butyou know, you want something
that fits.

Ben Comer (12:35):
And are you talking in the US or or globally that
you have a like a single?

Rich Daly (12:39):
So we're we're a US-based company.
We out-license or sub-licenseour products to different
companies.
Uh in with we have a licenseein Japan, we have licensee in
Canada.
Because of the reimbursement inthose countries, we those are
not significant uh contributorsto the to us, but we see it as
more as a health equity play.

(13:00):
So for instance, we have a uhpartner in Japan.
There's no treatment forLambert-Edenmyasthenic syndrome
in Japan until we got there,until we worked with this one
company to do it.
So now there is, which isgreat.
But we don't make a lot ofmoney.
Um, but we see it as a reallyimportant um part of who we are
as a culture.
Here's something that's reallyinteresting and hard to believe.

(13:23):
So we have a product calledaGamree for uh Duchenne's
muscular dystrophy.
We have a partner in Canada.
That product was just approvedtwo days ago.
Really?
It's the first product approvedfor the treatment of Duchesne's
muscular dystrophy in Canada.
Ever.
Why is that?
I don't know.
But that to me, I I every timeI read that, I'm just shocked.

(13:44):
Here we sit with multipletreatment options in the U.S.
and we have what I wouldconsider to be a relatively late
entrance to the game.
There's all sorts of therapiesthat are out there, and this is
the first time.
So when we see something likethat, we're really proud that
we're not gonna make a lot ofmoney in Canada.
It's just not gonna happen.
But we see it as, you know,patients deserve an option, and

(14:05):
so we're gonna do everything wecan to help those patients get
that option.
And I was shocked.

unknown (14:10):
Yeah.

Ben Comer (14:11):
That's kind of unbelievable.
It is.
I wonder do those patients comedown to the US to get treated?

Rich Daly (14:15):
I think they get some off-label stuff, and some of
them get uh drug through othermeans, but uh now they have an
option they can go through theirthe government payer or the
private payers in Canada, whichwe think is phenomenal.
Right, right.

Ben Comer (14:27):
Um, I uh alluded to uh a store of cash uh in the
introduction, um, and and also aa somewhat um empty pipeline at
the moment.
Um what would you say, Rich,about you know, you we you
talked about, you know, you wantto use, you want to find
de-risked assets.
Yes.
Um how do you, you know, whatwhat more can you say about

(14:49):
that?
What are the specificattributes that and then are we
talking in the context of rarediseases exclusively?
Yes.
Okay, so attributes of a raredisease drug, and and that you
gave some examples already, youknow, you said it could have
been, you know, a great product,but a company was having some
problems and you know couldn'tcontinue to progress it through
clinical trials.
But um, are you kind of open toany rare disease at this point?

(15:12):
Or are there specificmodalities that you're more or
less interested in?
Um, you know, what what's thekind of criteria you think
about?

Rich Daly (15:20):
We look at rare as the first one.
We're in central nervous systemdisorders today, but if you
look at the opportunity in CNS,the growth is going to come from
movement disorders.
Those are big markets.
Even though they're rare,they're big markets and there
are bigger players at at thetable.
So my joke is if we're show upfor uh movement disorder and

(15:41):
it's a big player, we're buyingthose people coffee because we
don't as good as our balancesheet is, it it we can't compete
with major pharma that'sinterested in rare.
So rare CNS is good, butbecause of the back of the house
I talked about, those thoseskills, that capability is
applicable to any rarecondition.
And it is the fundamentalstrategy of the company to help

(16:01):
patients get the best care theypossibly can.
We want something that'simmediately accretive or nearly
immediately accretive.
So we're willing to takecommercial risk and we are
willing to take regulatory risk.
Development risk, we don't wantto have any part of.

Ben Comer (16:15):
So phase three and uh or or is phase three even too
early?

Rich Daly (16:19):
Uh I would say end of phase three.
Okay.
Um right now, eventually wewill pivot to phase three proof
of concept uh products that areentering phase three, but we
want a more uh robust incomeline and a more diverse income
line and a more robust uhbalance sheet.
Because I always used to saythat when I talk to sales

(16:39):
training classes, I'd say, giveme a one-word description for
the industry.
And they come up with all sortsof things.
And mine is failure.
We fail better than anybody.
If somebody came to you andsaid, I can you can invest in
biotech or you can invest in oilwells, what would you do?
And most people say biotech.
Like actually, an oil well hasa 33% chance of hitting.
And to your point, only half ofours that get to market are

(17:03):
successful.
That's on forecast.
Only about uh uh less than sixpercent of products actually
make back the money from fromdevelopment.
From the very beginningdiscovery.
Make back the money it costs toget them there.
So that's a failure model.
Right?
So we're trying to manage therisks we think we're really good

(17:23):
at, and we don't want todevelop drugs.
So we work with companies thateither don't have a commercial
arm in the U.S.
or don't have enough money totake it.
They may have enough money tolaunch, but not sustain.
And again, we think we're areally good commercial engine,
and we've proven that with theproducts that we've launched.

Ben Comer (17:38):
I see.
So you could be uh uhpotentially a US partner for a
Chinese, a Japanese, a Europeancompany.
Absolutely.
Are you actively right nowlooking for uh candidates to
bring in?

Rich Daly (17:48):
Yes.

Ben Comer (17:49):
Yeah.

Rich Daly (17:49):
One of the challenges with a company like ours is
that um if you had a developmentpipeline, you could argue with
a div with an investor or uh ananalyst or uh a banker about
what's the probability oftechnical success?
Because they can see into yourpipeline.
Our business developmentpipeline, which is the source of
all of our products, you can'tsee.
So they ask us all the time,how's it going?

(18:10):
And we say, We're busy.
We're very busy, but we can'ttalk about it because we're a
publicly traded company and ourpartners likely publicly traded,
so we cannot talk about it.
Yeah.
So it kind of hamstrings ourour conversations, but we are
incredibly busy, and 80% of theopportunities that we see are
inbound.
People come to us.
Yeah, because our commercialsuccess.
I mean, it's if you were toscreen a company rare, CNS, and

(18:35):
um uh profitable, you might findone or two companies.
So we have the money to investin the product, we have the
money to keep going.
So we're uh we're a vied-forpartner, if you will.

Ben Comer (18:47):
That's really interesting.
So on those inbounds, um,people pitching, you know, a
drug to you, hoping that you'lllicense it.
Yep.
Um is there, you know, arethere specific things that you
can see and say right away, likenot interested?
And and maybe it's you know,not for scientific reasons, you
know, maybe it's it's for anysort of other reasons, but I'm

(19:08):
just I'm thinking about, youknow, well, first of all, who is
evaluating all of those?
You are you looking at those,or do you have a a team of um
you know therapeutic areaspecialists or rare disease
specialists?
Do you have patients?
Like who who is actually youknow looking through those uh
those inbound pitches?
And then also on the otherhand, you know, looking out

(19:29):
independently.

Rich Daly (19:30):
So we have a dedicated team in-house because
again, the the the reallyimportant nature of keeping
things proprietary, informationabout what we're looking at.
So that's inbound or in-house,and then we have a service
providers that will give usexpertise.
And again, they're under CDA.
So yeah, we we look at we weuse our own team and then uh we
look at uh we work with otherfive.
I see.

Ben Comer (19:51):
So so if uh if a a potential candidate looks good,
then um you know you might havea uh like a an NDA essentially
contract with uh an expertise,an expert in that area who can
kind of weigh in honestly andand tell you what they think
about it in terms of you know,like what it would potentially
mean to patients.
Right.
Yeah.

Rich Daly (20:10):
We also talk to patients indirectly through
market research.
So we'll do market researchwith payers, providers, and uh
patients as well.
So we're talking to all the thedecision maker entities with in
and the um opportunity we getfurther down the line.
But when we think about how wescreen, obviously we screen
very, very deep eventually if welike it, but there are three
main screens we look at.

(20:31):
One is we have to be able tomake money because the income we
have funds the future.
And you know, that helps us todo more and do better things for
patients.
Second, it has to be adifferentiated product.
We don't want product thatlooks like everybody else's
product.
And then there's the one thatpeople really misunderstand,
it's the social element.
Because we are a partnershiporganization, we partner with

(20:52):
others.
Um, I've had the opportunity torun many partnerships, uh, and
I worked in two joint ventureswhere you had two major pharma
companies owning the JV.
And so I had senior leadershipresponses.
For the JV.
For the JV.
One I was president of, andanother was uh executive vice or
vice vice president of the ofthe uh JV.
The social element is alwaysunderestimated.

(21:12):
How well are you going to getalong with this team for a long
time, like seven years, tenyears?
And my joke is the best day ofany partnership is the first
day, and it's downhill fromthere because you know it gets
tough, right?
You work with people and you'reliving with them, and you know,
they have different differentthings that they want to
accomplish for their company andyour company.
So you have to look at thatsocial element.
It's really, really important.

(21:33):
And I've had actually had theopportunity in my career to
manage two major integrations,like putting two companies
together.
And every time, everybody said,both times I should say,
everybody said, both thesecompanies are so similar, we're
just gonna get we're gettingalong just fine.
And that never happens.
So you have to be really awareof the social element too.
Right.

Ben Comer (21:51):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Um let's talk a little bitabout uh uh South Florida as a
biotech club on the cusp.
Uh catalyst offices, we're herein Coral Gables, uh
neighborhood of Miami.
Uh you're a member of the MiamiBiotech uh collective.
Yeah.
Um when did you first move toSouth Florida and uh and what

(22:13):
precipitated that move?

Rich Daly (22:14):
So I've had the opportunity over the last 12
years to um work in companiesthat are startup and scale-up
kinds of companies, and somewere turnarounds.
Uh so my wife and I have a homein Chicago.
Um and I, for the last 10years, I've worked 12 years,
I've worked on the East Coast,New York, Philly, DC, uh North

(22:35):
Carolina, and now Miami.
My next job is going to be inCuba, apparently.
So, no, I'm kidding.
Obviously, but you look at itand you're like, I I was on the
road, I would get it, I would,we had young men, young boys in
high school when I first startedthis.
Um, and I would get in the airon Sunday night, I would come
back on Friday.
And, you know, a couple oftimes we had an apartment, which

(22:55):
was great, but I was alwaysgoing back and forth.
This company has been sosuccessful that I felt like I
couldn't risk that.
If I was going to do this job,I'd have to be here full time.
And so um uh in October of 20,no, November of 23, uh, I moved
here to Florida.
I'm a Florida resident.
And um, I spend 90, 95% of mytime either working here or

(23:18):
working out of here.
Um because I think it's reallyimportant uh to be on site when
you have this level ofresponsibility.
Now to say that and talk aboutthe environment here, um, we are
a virtual company.
Um, and we have been actuallysince 2015.
This is not something that cameabout because of COVID.
It became about because it wasa matter of practicality.

(23:40):
Um there was a point in timewhich when I was on the board,
having the commercialexperience, the board asked me,
we need a new commercial chiefcommercial officer, can you
interview people?
And I did.
And I would meet people wherethey were, either in Boston, New
York, Chicago, West Coast.
And I would hear consistently,I've always wanted to retire to
Florida.
And my response is we don'twant people to want to retire,
we want people to want to work.

(24:01):
Yeah.
And we actually had acommercial office in Boston for
a while.
Um, but that becameunmanageable.
Is interestingly, you know, wehad a place, and so we decided
that we would let people livewhere they are, and we would
attract talent by beingflexible.
And it's worked out incrediblywell for us.
The challenge here is Miami ison the cusp, as you said, of

(24:24):
being uh uh of really turningthe corner and becoming a
biotech or pharma hub, but it'snot quite there yet.
We need a few other things tohappen.
Um Yeah, what are those missingpieces?
So this you know what comesfirst, the chicken or the egg.
Um there are a couple ofproposals for biotech parks
here, which I think will reallyhelp out.

(24:45):
I mean, if you look atTallahassee as a as a as an
example, it's a real hub of genetherapy.
I mean, incredible talent.
And I ran a cell therapycompany prior to this.
Um it's a real hub of talent.
We need more uh larger pharmapresence here, uh, and we need
state incentives for theattraction of companies to move

(25:05):
to Florida, move their mainoperations to Florida.
We certainly have a lot of itin major pharma, but most of
it's logistics, you know, andit's not like pure play
commercial talent.
Yeah.
So we need that.
Um and I think it's just amatter of time, and I feel like
we're right on the edge of doingthat.

Ben Comer (25:19):
Well, what would you say are the key strengths of
South Florida or the key, Iguess, attractants?
I mean, um, is it quality oflife?
Is it something more than that?
You've you know you'vementioned that there's there's
talent here, there areuniversities here, of course.
Uh what what are the the kindof big ones that stick out to
you if you were interviewingsomeone, you know, um, and that
you didn't want to retire butwanted to come down here and

(25:41):
work, you know, how what what'syour cell?

Rich Daly (25:43):
Uh so quality of life, I think, is really good.
You know, um having lived uhfor 30 years in Chicago, the
weather is just phenomenal.
The tax, personal tax situationis great.
There's no state income tax.
Those aren't reasons to movehere, though.
You know, the reasons you movehere is because you feel like
you can make a difference.
Uh we have a number ofcommercial companies, a small
number, that are here thatreally affect the lives of
patients.

(26:04):
Um I would say the opportunityto move here, you know, looking
at a family life, you know, theschools, if you the colleges are
phenomenal.
They're great.
They're well funded, they'reexcellent.
Um, the secondary educationsystem, as far as I can tell, my
children are out of uh out ofschool, but as far as I can
tell, are good.
The challenge for us, and we'vetalked about this before, Van,

(26:25):
is that, you know, what is thejob after the job?
How can you transition toanother job if you move your
family here?
And that's why we need a littlebit more infrastructure.
These biotech parks will reallymake a difference.
Um, large employer coming herewould really make a difference.
Um, but you know, if you go andtake a job, you've just moved
your family, and somethingdoesn't work out, the company
gets sold, or you know, what doyou do next?

(26:47):
Drug fails and fail.
Yeah, it happens all the time.
So, you know, what do you donext?
And you then you're gonnauproot your family and go?
And that's why we're soflexible with our employees is
like, look, you have a life, youhave a family, we just want the
job to get done.
Yeah.
That's what matters to us.
Do the work.
Right.
And you know, live a life andyou know, do what's right for
you.
But you know, come down everytwo or three weeks and we'll
meet up.
But obviously with Zoom andTeams and all that, it's pretty

(27:10):
easy.
So it works.

Ben Comer (27:12):
Um what are we we talked a little bit about this
too, but what um in terms ofindustrial policy things the
state of Florida could do toincentivize companies uh to come
to South Florida?
And and maybe there's somethings that um that that local
government could do.
I'm not sure to a much largerextent.
It would be state government.
Um other states do it, right?

(27:33):
Uh what you know, what would ifyou were uh uh in the
governor's seat, you know, for aweek or so, um, which policies
would you want to really try topush in it?

Rich Daly (27:44):
So in the previous company I worked in in North
Carolina, a cell therapy companywas a startup.
I mean, we went from I joinedas president, we had 15 people,
and I left, we had like 200.
And we were manufacturing, andso cell therapy is probably the
hardest manufacturing you couldever think of.
Yeah.
I mean, it doesn't scale well.
It's just, I mean, uh it'scrazy.
So we got a tax incentives forevery employee we hired, we

(28:05):
would get a tax incentive.
And it was essentially abreak-even for the for the for
the government in the short run.
And in the long run, those taxuh uh incentives expired, and
then the the government was wellahead.
And you think about the the thepay scale in this industry is
very high.
I think it's the third highestin the United States.
So you want to attract thosekinds of jobs.
What it would take is thegovernment to say, the state
government to say, we actuallywant more people here.

(28:28):
And I think you would see morepeople come here, more
professionals coming, morecompanies come here.
Right now, I think the stateI've talked to the the Chamber
of Commerce.
Uh I'm scheduled to talk to theCommerce Secretary for the
state of Florida to help pitchthat you should be doing more.
These are the kinds of jobs youactually want in Florida.

Ben Comer (28:47):
Yeah, it's surprising to me sometimes uh like how low
the salary bans are in Florida.
Um like it it seems like thatuh you know, in terms of compare
cities of comparative size,people and I guess I'm thinking
more about Central Florida thanI am about uh South Florida, but
um salaries are much lower thansimilarly sized cities

(29:07):
otherwise in the country.
And so you know you wouldthink, I would think that you're
right, they would want toattract these kinds of jobs to
the state, you know, not notjust um, you know, low-wage,
low-skill jobs.
Yeah, and they do.
The the state of Florida doeshave incentives for certain
industries, just not a uhproactive program for biotech

(29:29):
and pharma.
And it it would be, I think,really healthy for the organiz
for the for the state uh toelevate.
I mean, average jobs go well inexcess, average compensation
well in excess of $100,000.
Yeah.
I mean, it is I last time Ichecked was the third highest
paying industry in the U.S.
Well, they don't have those policies yet, but you're
gonna change that.
You're gonna talk to them.
I'm gonna talk to them.

(29:50):
I mean, we have a role to playas one of the few commercial
companies in Florida, and wewe're gonna play that role.
Um I have a final question foryou, uh Rich and it's a
hypothetical.
I've asked this to uh every uhguest uh that that I've had on
today.
Is this pass fail?
What's it is this pass fail.
No, no, no.
I am curious though.
So far, I'll I'll tell you whatthe others said uh after uh

(30:12):
after we finish, but let'sassume you find yourself and and
let me clarify because this wassomething I I didn't clarify
previously.
We're talking about youpersonally, not not catalyst and
the organization.
Let's assume you find yourselfin the predicted path of a
category four or category fivehurricane.
Do you board everything up andhunker down, or do you pack up

(30:36):
the car and get out of Dodge?

Rich Daly (30:38):
I've lived through a couple of hurricanes.
I grew up in New York.
I grew up on Long Island, anduh there was a few, there were a
few times when the hurricanecame right across, like right
over our house.
Um so I've seen thedevastation, and I live in an
apartment here.
I have an apartment here, andit's like facing south, it's a
lot of glass.
Very exposed.
Yeah.
I don't think I'm staying.
I gotta be honest with you.

(30:58):
All right.

Ben Comer (30:59):
Well, man, it's it's tied two to two now.
Is that right?
So yeah, break even.
Yeah.
All right.

Rich Daly (31:05):
I'm not a native, so it that's that'd be pretty
rough.

Ben Comer (31:08):
Uh Rich, thanks so much for being on the show.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, absolutely.
We've been speaking with RichDaly, president and CEO at
Catalyst Pharmaceuticals.
I'm Ben Comer, and you've justlistened to the Business of
Biotech.
Find us a subscribe anywhereyou listen to podcasts, and be
sure to check out new weeklyvideo casts of these
conversations every Monday underthe Business of Biotech tab at

(31:31):
life science leader.com.
We'll see you next week, andthanks as always for listening.