As more regional governments consider ordering residents to largely stay inside their homes to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, drug industry trade groups are pushing to ensure such orders make exceptions to allow the employees of biotech and pharma companies to travel to and from work.
The first “shelter-in-place” orders in the U.S. have come over the past few days in the Bay Area and other parts of Northern California. Local governments in Massachusetts and New York have called for similar directives; New York City’s mayor said Wednesday that one “has to be considered seriously.” Such orders confine people to their home with few exceptions, such as seeking or providing care, buying food, taking a solitary walk, or going to work for businesses that are deemed essential.
The Bay Area orders define such essential operations to include businesses like grocery stores, laundromats, even farmers markets — and biopharma companies. Anyone working in “health care operations” — including employees of pharma and biotech firms — is allowed to travel to and from work, the orders say.
In other biotech clusters around the country, industry boosters — anticipating similar orders could be issued in their area in the coming days — want to make sure that any such orders include a carveout for biopharma employees similar to the one in the Bay Area.
While biopharma companies already have many of their employees working from home, industry leaders say their businesses have vital functions that require people in person, such as workers operating manufacturing plants, feeding lab animals, and maintaining vital cell lines. That group includes not only employees working on drugs and vaccines for the coronavirus and the disease it causes, but also those dedicated to developing and manufacturing medicines for other conditions. After all, people with diabetes still need insulin during a pandemic.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has repeatedly said that no such order is being considered for the state, as has Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, despite urging from the mayor of Cambridge, Mass., and several other state and local representatives. But the state’s biotech industry group, MassBio, has still been pushing to make sure that if that changes, the industry will be accounted for.
“We are advocating that the administration include similar exemption language as California,” someone with knowledge of the discussions told STAT; MassBio has also been encouraging the state government to think more specifically about including sectors like clinical operations and biomanufacturing.
”Business continuity is critical, especially in things like labs and manufacturing — especially those that are aiding in the fight against coronavirus — and we’re pushing for [Baker] to understand that we can’t just shut those down.”
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On the West Coast, the industry trade group the California Life Sciences Association is advocating to try to ensure that any other orders issued in the state look like the one in the Bay Area counties.
Oliver Rocroi, a spokesperson for CLSA, named the California counties of Orange, Los Angeles, San Jose, and San Diego — all of which have sizable biopharma clusters — as places where it’s essential that any shelter-in-place orders have allowances for workers to perform critical functions in biotech and medical tech.
Rocroi said the trade group and its members are “working very closely” with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office and regional health departments. The idea is to try to get ahead of any local orders that might be issued in the coming days.
The shelter-in-place orders are intended to ratchet up existing calls to create and maintain social distance. Though they are not full-scale lockdowns, they go one step further than some of the business-specific shutdowns that have been put into place in Washington, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
It’s not entirely clear how these could or would be enforced, though California jurisdictions have said people violating the order could be charged with a misdemeanor. Constitutional scholars aren’t convinced a nationwide, federal shelter-in-place order would be legal, anyway.
The first shelter-in-place orders, issued by seven counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, went into effect on Tuesday and are set to last at least three weeks. Several more Northern California counties, as well as the Southern California city of Palm Springs, followed with their own orders going into effect on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Mayor Bill De Blasio said he was seriously considering a similar directive for New York City and would discuss it with the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo. (Cuomo has said only the state government, not the city, would have the authority to issue such an order — and that it “wouldn’t happen.”)
