Pharmaceutical executives denounce US court decision that may restrict access to popular abortion drug

New York, United States: On Monday, hundreds of pharmaceutical executives denounced a US court decision that outlawed a popular abortion drug, claiming that it threatens the creation of essential medicines in the country.

Over 400 CEOs, including Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and senior executives at Novartis, Biogen, and Merck, signed a statement denouncing the Texas federal court Matthew Kacsmaryk's decision on Friday that may restrict access to mifepristone across the country.

"The decision ignores decades of scientific evidence and legal precedent," said the letter slamming Kacsmaryk's move to bar the drug 23 years after it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

"Judge Kacsmaryk's act of judicial interference has set a precedent for diminishing FDA's authority over drug approvals, and in so doing, creates uncertainty for the entire biopharma industry," it added.

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The letter described a reliable FDA as essential to high-risk investments on new treatments.

"Adding regulatory uncertainty to the already inherently risky work of discovering and developing new medicines will likely have the effect of reducing incentives for investment, endangering the innovation that characterizes our industry," the letter said.

Mifepristone has been used as part of a two-drug regimen by 5.6 million women since 2000.

But the drug's future has become the latest uncertainty in the wake of the US Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling outlawing national abortion rights.

Kacsmaryk, a conservative appointee of former president Donald Trump, said in his order that the FDA had used "unsound" reasoning at a time when it "faced significant political pressure" to greenlight the medication.

The US Justice Department on Monday asked a federal appeals court to freeze the ruling, writing that Kacsmaryk's action "would thwart FDA's scientific judgment and severely harm women."

At a briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the ruling an "attack" on FDA authority that could "open the floodgates for other medications to be targeted and denied to people who need them."

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