
Episode 203 - November 13, 2026
On this week’s episode, Eric Schmidt, Yaron Werber, PaulMatteis, and Kate Haviland opened with a look at the biotech market, with the XBI up roughly 25% year to date, though it feels much worse to many buy-side clients. The group discussed the midterm elections, weighing a potential blue wave against a market pricing in two more rate hikes. They also previewed next week’s Senate vote on Dr. Heidi Overton’s nomination as FDA commissioner, with Paul sharing his conversation with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb at the Stifel Healthcare Conference, where Gottlieb expressed optimism about her confirmation and her grasp of the agency’s need to rehire and rebuild expertise. The co-hosts then discussed the longer-term future of MFN deals, including sunset provisions and the question of whether the policy returns. The conversation turned to drug launches, covering how companies set expectations through pre-launch conversations with clinicians, office staff, and patients, and whether expert network physicians are a representative sample. The group also covered forecast guidance as both an art and a science, annual market-size updates, Blueprint’s Ayvakit launch, and the friction of physician habit change, including the last mile and practice economics. The episode closed with an overview of PepGen’s DM1 data. *This episode aired on November 13, 2026.