Business Of Biotech

BoB in South Florida: Rich Daly, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals

• Ben Comer • Episode 277

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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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Ben Comer:

Welcome back to the Business of Biotech. I'm your host, Ben Comer, Chief Editor at Life Science Leader, and today we're in Miami, Florida, for a series of episodes recorded on location at the offices of Catalyst Pharmaceuticals. For this series, we're speaking with people operating companies based here in the Sunshine State. And I'm thrilled to welcome Rich Daly, president and CEO at Catalyst Pharmaceuticals and gracious host to the business of biotech. We really appreciate it, Rich. Thanks, Ben. Catalyst is a commercial company with three approved products, and I'm looking forward to hearing from Rich about Catalyst's plans for growing product sales, what he plans to do with the increasing amount of cash the company is storing away, and why South Florida is on the cusp of becoming a major biotech hub. Thanks for being here, Rich. Thanks for having us. Let's start off with a little bit of your background as we do on the Business of Biotech. You've held leadership roles in big pharma and small biotech before joining Catalyst Pharmaceuticals. What brought you to Catalyst first as a board member 10 years ago?

Rich Daly:

So Catalyst 10 years ago was not a commercial company. And Pat McEnany, who's our founder and previous CEO, was looking for someone who could actually help the company make the move from the R and D side, mostly the development side, to the D and C, so development and commercialization. And so my experience of helping companies move through that process was really valuable to the company then, and obviously through the nine years I served on the board. So really was getting commercial voice into the early part of the company and the development stages of the company, which I thought was really interesting because that what we all know is a real struggle in all pharma companies.

Ben Comer:

Yeah, I mean, half of launches don't meet expectations at this point, right? Absolutely. And so you were the kind of uh commercial person, guru on the board. You know, um a lot of companies, or or most companies, I would say, have experts of different functional areas among their board. You were the commercial guy for catalysts.

Rich Daly:

Yeah, you know, and I had come from a place where I had run large businesses, launch products, uh managed businesses in the U.S. and outside the U.S. So brought my thing is I say if you're gonna sit on a board, and I've been on four public boards and two private boards, you have to be able to occupy more than one chair. You can't come in just as the commercial person. You have to come in knowing compliance, manufacturing, international markets. You have to add a lot, because there's only so many seats on a board.

Ben Comer:

There's not enough places to have every competency covered.

Rich Daly:

Right. But so you've got to bring in uh people who have multiple competencies. And you don't have to be everything, but you have to have two or three so you can add real value in the discussion.

Ben Comer:

How many board members does Catalyst have?

Rich Daly:

We have seven.

Ben Comer:

Okay. All right. And some of those uh know more than one thing, I think.

Rich Daly:

Yes, yeah, they all do, absolutely.

Ben Comer:

Uh what circumstances led you to becoming president and CEO at the beginning of 2024? Is that correct? That's correct, yeah.

Rich Daly:

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, you know, in a he's from Coral Gables, right? So here in Miami. And um Pat notified the board about a year in advance that he wanted to retire and become chairman of the of the board and no longer serve as CEO, so no longer operating the day-to-day functions. And I had had a lot of experience. I was coming from a company uh focused on oncology in CAR T. Uh prior to that, I was in a company in oncology uh in the supportive care space. And prior to that, I'd worked in diabetes, uh, cardiovascular oncology, GYN. I mean, I could go on and on, but it really looked like a great challenge. Most of the companies I'd been a part of were uh burning platforms. Come in, fix right away, make you got to make major changes. Here, the company's very successful. And so it took a different approach, but I saw it as a professional and a personal challenge to take on a company where you had to be patient. Um, you're not looking to make a lot of change right away. So I thought this would be a great opportunity. I raised my hand, and thankfully, and I mean this, thankfully, the board decided they were very gracious, said, great, we're gonna do a worldwide search.

Ben Comer:

Ok.

Rich Daly:

Because if you want to get the job, you want to know that you have the confidence of the people around you. Right. So I was not involved in the search, uh, obviously. I had to recuse myself. Uh and when I saw the list of people after I got the job who were in the mix, I was like, dang, that's a good list. So they they did a pretty thorough scrub of the talent that was available. Yeah. So I was really pleased to get the role. Had you worked in rare diseases prior to joining? I have uh three rare diseases. I uh in fact launched the rare disease uh therapy in the 90s. Wow. Uh then I launched AstraZeneca's first rare disease. This is long before they, I was the president of their diabetes division, right? Essentially metabolic. And um launched their a first one, and um they at the time felt like it really wasn't a fit for them. And then subsequently, you know, we all know they bought Alexion, which rare disease is a great space. So I've had uh, and then I launched uh uh a rare disease product in Mexico. Cold chain got it approved in 45 days. That's how it was for juvenile osteosarcoma. That's how dire the need was. The Mexican government said this is really important. Wow. What product was that? Do you remember? Uh I can't try to remember the name of the product.

Ben Comer:

There's been a lot in your in your background. I believe me forgetting forgetting the name of one, yeah. Um that's really interesting. Uh I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about um Catalyst's current business strategy. Uh you have three commercial products, we've mentioned that. Uh, but I don't see anything um in the current pipeline. Um are you doing some label extension work, Doug?

Rich Daly:

Yeah, so we look at our our business as having two main pillars. One is taking the portfolio that we have and optimizing that portfolio. That would be through lifecycle management, label extensions, as you said, and looking for other alternative paths for a product to grow the product. The other pillar of our business is business development. We are a buy and build company, so we look for products that are significantly de-risked. And because of our infrastructure and our ability to execute, uh, we can bring products to market, and we look for companies that might have a cash runway problem, but a great product, or might not have the expertise that we have in commercialization. You know, there's a lot that you see in an orphan space, so we're an orphan company, that's not visible unless you're really in the weeds. So we have very small, targeted sales forces, and that looks appealing to a lot of investors. You know, it's not a big SG&A or selling general administrative expense. And when you get into the business itself, you look behind the curtain, you see that you have a specialty pharmacy, a 3PL for distribution, and a hub for patients. And that's the core of the business. That's what differentiates most orphan companies from other ones, is how well do you do you deal with the patient? So the core of the pharmacy, and this is what we call the back of the house, is really essential to strategy. So you get the patient on, keep the patient on, and get them on the right dose. And you develop a relationship with the patient because the patients give you permission to have a relationship. And it's incredibly rewarding. We deal with one patient population that's about 3,500 in the US, and another patient population that is about 11,000 to 13,000. That's max. That's as big as they'll ever be. So we get really intimate with the patient. Again, the patient gives us permission to do that, but you have that relationship and um that back of the house. So that's real big part of the strategy is uh helping the patient stay on drug. And we have a philosophy that that once a patient starts on our drug, regardless of the circumstance, if they can't pay for it, we keep them on the drug. Really? Yeah. So we experienced this. We were tested. So last year everybody remembers the change healthcare, cybersecurity attack. Because we have a specialty pharmacy, we know when a patient fills a prescription, or we know 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 the patient, but we know that the patient's having a problem because the pharmacy calls us. We knew the day that the cybersecurity breach happened. And we knew that some of our patients, if you take one of our products for Lambert Eaton Myasthenic syndrome, if you take FERDAPS, if you stop taking that product, you might lose the ability to walk. And patients that take the drug within a couple of hours, if they are having a problem ambulating or walking, they gave regain their ability to move. So losing the ability to have that drug for a couple of days is could be life-altering for that patient. So we just ship product. We didn't know if we get reimbursed, we just shipped to every patient that needed product. And we kept shipping to them in five-day increments until the the cybersecurity incident was resolved. So this is a really important element of who we are as a company. Absolutely.

Ben Comer:

Did you hear from any of those patients?

Rich Daly:

Absolutely we did. Yeah. Um and you know, I sat with our head of commercial and our CFO, and the CFO is the last person you think is going to say ship. And he was the first one to say we have to ship. Which, I mean, that just feels great. Right. Now, of course, we can't do that for government programs, but when in those situations, we look for opportunities to get patients through um appropriate uh reimbursement means. And so we really work hard to make sure that the patients can stay on the drug if it's appropriate. If it's not, obviously we don't want them on the drug.

Ben Comer:

Now, is that uh product uh in a traditional scenario, is that product uh mailed to patients or is it picked up from a specialty pharmacy location?

Rich Daly:

Aaron Powell So it's great in uh in the orphan space to have a limited distribution. So we only have essentially one pharmacy. So they ship overnight to all the patients. They make sure and they'll call the patient. See, this is what happens. We don't we don't have access to that information uh uh unless, again, the patient gives us permission. But the pharmacy knows because they're uh a protected entity or uh a covered entity, and they they can call the patient and say, hey, we know you're coming up on your you need, do you need product? And most of the time, about 90%, 95% of the time, they're like, Yeah, ship me the product. Um and so you actually get it to them overnight. Um and we've got some great stories about, you know, one patient drove like 10 hours to get one one of our sales reps drove 10 hours to get drug to a pharmacy for a patient so that pharmacist could distribute it because the patient couldn't get the drug. So um having a limited distribution network is really critical to understanding the patient, understanding the patient's needs and in serving the patient. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Ben Comer:

Well, that I was gonna ask that. Why is a limited uh distribution model important? It's so that you can actually have some visibility into the patients. Is that the primary thing? Or what what else?

Rich Daly:

Yeah, so again, the relationship, I can't stress this enough. It's in a compliant manner. You know, we don't know who the patients are unless they call us and tell us they want that relationship. But making sure that they get on the drug, stay on the drug, and uh and receive the appropriate dose. Now we're not making that decision, but the pharmacist will call the doctor. So in our in in the LEMS market, Lambert Eat and Lasthenic market, the average physician writes has one patient in their entire career. That's how rare it is. Wow. So it's the first time and only time they'll see that that disease. And so our pharmacies then say, listen, we've dealt with hundreds, if not thousands, of patients. Let us help you understand how to work with this patient effectively. And it really makes a difference to have that kind of relationship with the provider and and with the patient if it's appropriate.

Ben Comer:

For listeners who are uh perhaps working in early stage uh rare disease companies, thinking about starting a rare disease company, um what what would you say about selecting uh a specialty pharmacy? Uh is there any anything to that? I mean, uh are there lots of options, you know, for specialty pharmacy distribution? You know, like how do you how do how do you pick the right one?

Rich Daly:

Well, I think it's comes down to culture. Um we just recently we've had a relationship with a specialty pharmacy for uh six years. And we decided we were going to RFP it because we wanted to make sure we were getting high-level service, high-quality service. And it was interesting. The level of service is quite different and can be quite different depending on what you're willing to do and what you're willing to pay for. Um we RFP'd our existing um provider as well as three others, and we came back and stayed with our provider because we saw they were actually quite good. Um, but you know, there's a lot of opportunity out there. I would just say scan the marketplace, look for what fits for you. And, you know, because there are the ops the options are quite different. Yeah. All good, all very good, but you know, you want something that fits.

Ben Comer:

And are you talking in the US or or globally that you have a like a single?

Rich Daly:

So we're we're a US-based company. We out-license or sub-license our products to different companies. Uh in with we have a licensee in Japan, we have licensee in Canada. Because of the reimbursement in those countries, we those are not significant uh contributors to the to us, but we see it as more as a health equity play. So for instance, we have a uh partner in Japan. There's no treatment for Lambert-Edenmyasthenic syndrome in Japan until we got there, until we worked with this one company to do it. So now there is, which is great. But we don't make a lot of money. Um, but we see it as a really important um part of who we are as a culture. Here's something that's really interesting and hard to believe. So we have a product called aGamree for uh Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. We have a partner in Canada. That product was just approved two days ago. Really? It's the first product approved for the treatment of Duchesne's muscular dystrophy in Canada. Ever. Why is that? I don't know. But that to me, I I every time I read that, I'm just shocked. Here we sit with multiple treatment options in the U.S. and we have what I would consider to be a relatively late entrance to the game. There's all sorts of therapies that are out there, and this is the first time. So when we see something like that, we're really proud that we're not gonna make a lot of money in Canada. It's just not gonna happen. But we see it as, you know, patients deserve an option, and so we're gonna do everything we can to help those patients get that option. And I was shocked.

unknown:

Yeah.

Ben Comer:

That's kind of unbelievable. It is. I wonder do those patients come down to the US to get treated?

Rich Daly:

I think they get some off-label stuff, and some of them get uh drug through other means, but uh now they have an option they can go through their the government payer or the private payers in Canada, which we think is phenomenal. Right, right.

Ben Comer:

Um, I uh alluded to uh a store of cash uh in the introduction, um, and and also a a somewhat um empty pipeline at the moment. Um what would you say, Rich, about you know, you we you talked about, you know, you want to use, you want to find de-risked assets. Yes. Um how do you, you know, what what more can you say about that? What are the specific attributes that and then are we talking in the context of rare diseases exclusively? Yes. Okay, so attributes of a rare disease drug, and and that you gave some examples already, you know, you said it could have been, you know, a great product, but a company was having some problems and you know couldn't continue to progress it through clinical trials. But um, are you kind of open to any rare disease at this point? Or are there specific modalities that you're more or less interested in? Um, you know, what what's the kind of criteria you think about?

Rich Daly:

We look at rare as the first one. We're in central nervous system disorders 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 the table. So my joke is if we're show up for uh movement disorder and it's a big player, we're buying those people coffee because we don't as good as our balance sheet is, it it we can't compete with major pharma that's interested in rare. So rare CNS is good, but because of the back of the house I talked about, those those skills, that capability is applicable to any rare condition. And it is the fundamental strategy of the company to help patients get the best care they possibly can. We want something that's immediately accretive or nearly immediately accretive. So we're willing to take commercial risk and we are willing to take regulatory risk. Development risk, we don't want to have any part of.

Ben Comer:

So phase three and uh or or is phase three even too early?

Rich Daly:

Uh I would say end of phase three. Okay. Um right now, eventually we will pivot to phase three proof of concept uh products that are entering phase three, but we want a more uh robust income line and a more diverse income line and a more robust uh balance sheet. Because I always used to say that when I talk to sales training classes, I'd say, give me a one-word description for the industry. And they come up with all sorts of things. And mine is failure. We fail better than anybody. If somebody came to you and said, I can you can invest in biotech or you can invest in oil wells, what would you do? And most people say biotech. Like actually, an oil well has a 33% chance of hitting. And to your point, only half of ours that get to market are successful. That's on forecast. Only about uh uh less than six percent of products actually make back the money from from development. From the very beginning discovery. Make back the money it costs to get them there. So that's a failure model. Right? So we're trying to manage the risks we think we're really good at, and we don't want to develop drugs. So we work with companies that either don't have a commercial arm in the U.S. or don't have enough money to take it. They may have enough money to launch, but not sustain. And again, we think we're a really good commercial engine, and we've proven that with the products that we've launched.

Ben Comer:

I see. So you could be uh uh potentially a US partner for a Chinese, a Japanese, a European company. Absolutely. Are you actively right now looking for uh candidates to bring in?

Rich Daly:

Yes.

Ben Comer:

Yeah.

Rich Daly:

One of the challenges with a company like ours is that um if you had a development pipeline, you could argue with a div with an investor or uh an analyst or uh a banker about what's the probability of technical success? Because they can see into your pipeline. Our business development pipeline, which is the source of all of our products, you can't see. So they ask us all the time, how's it going? And we say, We're busy. We're very busy, but we can't talk about it because we're a publicly traded company and our partners likely publicly traded, so we cannot talk about it. Yeah. So it kind of hamstrings our our conversations, but we are incredibly busy, and 80% of the opportunities that we see are inbound. People come to us. Yeah, because our commercial success. I mean, it's if you were to screen a company rare, CNS, and um uh profitable, you might find one or two companies. So we have the money to invest in the product, we have the money to keep going. So we're uh we're a vied-for partner, if you will.

Ben Comer:

That's really interesting. So on those inbounds, um, people pitching, you know, a drug to you, hoping that you'll license it. Yep. Um is there, you know, are there specific things that you can see and say right away, like not interested? And and maybe it's you know, not for scientific reasons, you know, maybe it's it's for any sort of other reasons, but I'm just I'm thinking about, you know, 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 area specialists or rare disease specialists? Do you have patients? Like who who is actually you know looking through those uh those inbound pitches? And then also on the other hand, you know, looking out independently.

Rich Daly:

So we have a dedicated team in-house because again, the the the really important nature of keeping things proprietary, information about what we're looking at. So that's inbound or in-house, and then we have a service providers that will give us expertise. And again, they're under CDA. So yeah, we we look at we we use our own team and then uh we look at uh we work with other five. I see.

Ben Comer:

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

Rich Daly:

We also talk to patients indirectly through market research. So we'll do market research with payers, providers, and uh patients as well. So we're talking to all the the decision maker entities with in and the um opportunity we get further down the line. But when we think about how we screen, obviously we screen very, very deep eventually if we like it, but there are three main screens we look at. One is we have to be able to make money because the income we have funds the future. And you know, that helps us to do more and do better things for patients. Second, it has to be a differentiated product. We don't want product that looks like everybody else's product. And then there's the one that people really misunderstand, it's the social element. Because we are a partnership organization, we partner with others. Um, I've had the opportunity to run many partnerships, uh, and I worked in two joint ventures where you had two major pharma companies owning the JV. And so I had senior leadership responses. For the JV. For the JV. One I was president of, and another was uh executive vice or vice vice president of the of the uh JV. The social element is always underestimated. How well are you going to get along with this team for a long time, like seven years, ten years? And my joke is the best day of any partnership is the first day, and it's downhill from there because you know it gets tough, right? You work with people and you're living with them, and you know, they have different different things that they want to accomplish for their company and your company. So you have to look at that social element. It's really, really important. And I've had actually had the opportunity 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 these companies are so similar, we're just gonna get we're getting along just fine. And that never happens. So you have to be really aware of the social element too. Right.

Ben Comer:

Yeah, that's really interesting. Um let's talk a little bit about uh uh South Florida as a biotech club on the cusp. Uh catalyst offices, we're here in Coral Gables, uh neighborhood of Miami. Uh you're a member of the Miami Biotech uh collective. Yeah. Um when did you first move to South Florida and uh and what precipitated that move?

Rich Daly:

So I've had the opportunity over the last 12 years to um work in companies that are startup and scale-up kinds of companies, and some were turnarounds. Uh so my wife and I have a home in Chicago. Um and I, for the last 10 years, I've worked 12 years, I've worked on the East Coast, New York, Philly, DC, uh North Carolina, and now Miami. My next job is going to be in Cuba, apparently. So, no, I'm kidding. Obviously, but you look at it and 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 started this. Um, and I would get in the air on Sunday night, I would come back on Friday. And, you know, a couple of times we had an apartment, which was great, but I was always going back and forth. This company has been so successful 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 my time either working here or working out of here. Um because I think it's really important uh to be on site when you have this level of responsibility. Now to say that and talk about the environment here, um, we are a virtual company. Um, and we have been actually since 2015. This is not something that came about because of COVID. It became about because it was a matter of practicality. Um there was a point in time which when I was on the board, having the commercial experience, the board asked me, we need a new commercial chief commercial officer, can you interview people? And I did. And I would meet people where they 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't want people to want to retire, we want people to want to work. Yeah. And we actually had a commercial office in Boston for a while. Um, but that became unmanageable. Is interestingly, you know, we had a place, and so we decided that we would let people live where they are, and we would attract talent by being flexible. And it's worked out incredibly well for us. The challenge here is Miami is on the cusp, as you said, of being uh uh of really turning the corner and becoming a biotech or pharma hub, but it's not quite there yet. We need a few other things to happen. Um Yeah, what are those missing pieces? So this you know what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Um there are a couple of proposals for biotech parks here, which I think will really help out. I mean, if you look at Tallahassee as a as a as an example, it's a real hub of gene therapy. I mean, incredible talent. And I ran a cell therapy company prior to this. Um it's a real hub of talent. We need more uh larger pharma presence here, uh, and we need state incentives for the attraction of companies to move to Florida, move their main operations to Florida. We certainly have a lot of it in major pharma, but most of it's logistics, you know, and it's not like pure play commercial talent. Yeah. So we need that. Um and I think it's just a matter of time, and I feel like we're right on the edge of doing that.

Ben Comer:

Well, what would you say are the key strengths of South Florida or the key, I guess, attractants? I mean, um, is it quality of life? Is it something more than that? You've you know you've mentioned that there's there's talent here, there are universities here, of course. Uh what what are the the kind of big ones that stick out to you if you were interviewing someone, you know, um, and that you didn't want to retire but wanted to come down here and work, you know, how what what's your cell?

Rich Daly:

Uh so quality of life, I think, is really good. You know, um having lived uh for 30 years in Chicago, the weather is just phenomenal. The tax, personal tax situation is great. There's no state income tax. Those aren't reasons to move here, though. You know, the reasons you move here is because you feel like you can make a difference. Uh we have a number of commercial companies, a small number, that are here that really affect the lives of patients. Um I would say the opportunity to move here, you know, looking at a family life, you know, the schools, if you the colleges are phenomenal. They're great. They're well funded, they're excellent. Um, the secondary education system, as far as I can tell, my children are out of uh out of school, but as far as I can tell, are good. The challenge for us, and we've talked about this before, Van, is that, you know, what is the job after the job? How can you transition to another job if you move your family here? And that's why we need a little bit more infrastructure. These biotech parks will really make a difference. Um, large employer coming here would really make a difference. Um, but you know, if you go and take a job, you've just moved your family, and something doesn't work out, the company gets sold, or you know, what do you do next? Drug fails and fail. Yeah, it happens all the time. So, you know, what do you do next? And you then you're gonna uproot your family and go? And that's why we're so flexible with our employees is like, look, you have a life, you have 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 and you know, do what's right for you. But you know, come down every two or three weeks and we'll meet up. But obviously with Zoom and Teams and all that, it's pretty easy. So it works.

Ben Comer:

Um what are we we talked a little bit about this too, but what um in terms of industrial policy things the state of Florida could do to incentivize companies uh to come to South Florida? And and maybe there's some things that um that that local government could do. I'm not sure to a much larger extent. It would be state government. Um other states do it, right? Uh what you know, what would if you were uh uh in the governor's seat, you know, for a week or so, um, which policies would you want to really try to push in it?

Rich Daly:

So in the previous company I worked in in North Carolina, a cell therapy company was a startup. I mean, we went from I joined as president, we had 15 people, and I left, we had like 200. And we were manufacturing, and so cell therapy is probably the hardest manufacturing you could ever think of. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't scale well. It's just, I mean, uh it's crazy. So we got a tax incentives for every employee we hired, we would get a tax incentive. And it was essentially a break-even for the for the for the government in the short run. And in the long run, those tax uh uh incentives expired, and then the the government was well ahead. And you think about the the the pay scale in this industry is very high. I think it's the third highest in the United States. So you want to attract those kinds of jobs. What it would take is the government to say, the state government to say, we actually want more people here. And I think you would see more people come here, more professionals coming, more companies come here. Right now, I think the state I've talked to the the Chamber of Commerce. Uh I'm scheduled to talk to the Commerce Secretary for the state of Florida to help pitch that you should be doing more. These are the kinds of jobs you actually want in Florida.

Ben Comer:

Yeah, it's surprising to me sometimes uh like how low the salary bans are in Florida. Um like it it seems like that uh you know, in terms of compare cities of comparative size, people and I guess I'm thinking more about Central Florida than I am about uh South Florida, but um salaries are much lower than similarly sized cities otherwise in the country. And so you know you would think, I would think that you're right, they would want to attract these kinds of jobs to the state, you know, not not just um, you know, low-wage, low-skill jobs.

Rich Daly:

Yeah, and they do. The the state of Florida does have incentives for certain industries, just not a uh proactive program for biotech and pharma. And it it would be, I think, really healthy for the organiz for the for the state uh to elevate. I mean, average jobs go well in excess, average compensation well in excess of $100,000. Yeah. I mean, it is I last time I checked was the third highest paying industry in the U.S.

Ben Comer:

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. I mean, we have a role to play as one of the few commercial companies in Florida, and we we're gonna play that role. Um I have a final question for you, uh Rich and it's a hypothetical. I've asked this to uh every uh guest 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 what the others said uh after uh after we finish, but let's assume you find yourself and and let me clarify because this was something I I didn't clarify previously. We're talking about you personally, not not catalyst and the organization. Let's assume you find yourself in the predicted path of a category four or category five hurricane. Do you board everything up and hunker down, or do you pack up the car and get out of Dodge?

Rich Daly:

I've lived through a couple of hurricanes. I grew up in New York. I grew up on Long Island, and uh there was a few, there were a few times when the hurricane came right across, like right over our house. Um so I've seen the devastation, and I live in an apartment here. I have an apartment here, and it'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. All right.

Ben Comer:

Well, man, it's it's tied two to two now. Is that right? So yeah, break even. Yeah. All right.

Rich Daly:

I'm not a native, so it that's that'd be pretty rough.

Ben Comer:

Uh Rich, thanks so much for being on the show. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. We've been speaking with Rich Daly, president and CEO at Catalyst Pharmaceuticals. I'm Ben Comer, and you've just listened to the Business of Biotech. Find us a subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts, and be sure to check out new weekly video casts of these conversations every Monday under the Business of Biotech tab at life science leader.com. We'll see you next week, and thanks as always for listening.

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