2025 Impact Report
Biotech Affordability + Innovation Unique capability to provide real-world, actionable insights: Policymakers, health economists, the media, and the public regularly debate issues that will shape the future of drug development and access. But discussions rarely include the people risking their careers and capital to create life-saving cures for patients and society. By combining front-line biotech expertise, specialist investor insight, and a communications lab built to engage the public, NPLB brings speed, clarity, and credibility to policy debates. Our small, focused team moves quickly, deploying resources and our network where they matter most. We do not carry the overhead or inertia of legacy institutions. Instead, we function as a catalytic hub: convening CEOs, investors, patient leaders, and policy experts, converting their expertise into coordinated, high-impact action. This is NPLB’s defining edge. Looking ahead to 2026: Your voice and support matter. As election-year pressures intensify, MFN-style pricing, foreign reference models, and cost shifting by insurers will continue to threaten U.S. biomedical innovation and patient access. Sustained, multi-year research, education, and marketing are essential to countering these pressures. With your help, we can deliver consistent, credible expertise and authentic storytelling to preserve innovation incentives, advance insurance reforms, and protect patients now and in the future. In 2026, with your partnership, we will meet the moment. 2025 Impact Report Policy Impacts & Insights FDA & NIH Modernization: NPLB’s real-time, actionable insights garner national attention A modern, efficient FDA & NIH is critical to maintaining U.S. biopharma global leadership and competitiveness. When FDA capabilities & NIH funding came under threat, NPLB quickly activated its network – polling innovators and investors to provide policymakers and the public with real-world insights from across the ecosystem. NPLB letters, including Defending the NIH & NSF (1,700+ signatures), Proposed FDA Budget Cuts (650+ signatures), and Preserving and Modernizing the FDA (380+ signatures), informed Senate HELP deliberations and generated coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Fierce, and The Washington Post. MFN:NPLB research shapes defense of U.S. market-pricing Through rapid mobilization of CEOs, investors, economists, & patients, NPLB delivered issue briefs, USTR comments, and investor-led amplification that shaped regulator and media understanding of MFN risks. NPLB-supported GCEA research equipped executives and policymakers with tools to reconsider how value is measured, demonstrating that outdated NICE/ICER methodologies deeply undervalue innovation and restrict patient access. In parallel, NPLB inspired investors to engage health economists to incorporate societal value into analyses, helping companies proactively make the case for their work. IRA:Deploying quantitative & qualitative data to fight the pill penalty Our letters, analyses, and engagement, backed by 400+ signatories representing $320B AUM, continued to reshape CBO’s modeling approach and sparked renewed momentum to fix 9-13. In 2024, CBO leadership publicly acknowledged that NPLB’s arguments were correct, and in 2025, the White House prioritized restoring small-molecule parity. Shaping the Environment A Communications Lab: Skeptics to supporters Our storytelling lab applies R&D to communications, testing, iterating, and scaling messaging that works. In 12 months, we have launched 31 Community Quest videos spotlighting 65 innovators, our patient Fine Print webinar series, the Call the Inventors campaign and patient-assistance chatbot, a fellow-led comic campaign, and more. Push to #FixInsurance: Centering patient and consumer voices Through our PAAC and LOOP Coalition, NPLB works alongside patient and consumer advocates to advance key insurance reforms (i.e., OOP caps, prior-auth reform). With coalition membership growing, we have rapid access to 18,000+ readers eager to amplify a simple, unifying principle: when a doctor prescribes a medicine and an insurer authorizes it, it should be affordable to the patient at low or no OOP cost. NPLB Biotech Fellowship: Cultivating the next generation Our Fellowship program continues to grow — 1,200+ fellows, 70+ senior fellows, expanded fireside chats, and in-person events. We train emerging leaders to understand the full ecosystem — from science & investment to policy & insurance. The MA Paradox: Uniting to #ProtectInnovation Massachusetts is the world’s leading biotech hub, yet policymakers threaten to dismantle it. Our MA-rketing Coalition is the first coordinated effort to unite innovators, investors, academics, and patients behind message-tested storytelling that builds public trust and strengthens political will in MA. Four months since launch, the MA-rketing Coalition has 95+ members with three projects underway. Looking back at 2025: www.nopatientleftbehind.org 2026 Announcement We are excited to share that No Patient Left Behind is welcoming Pricilla VanderVeer as our new Executive Director. Priscilla brings deep experience, strong leadership, and a clear vision for our organization’s next chapter. We are confident that this transition will position NPLB to continue growing its impact and advancing its mission in the years ahead. We are deeply grateful to Peter Rubin for his extraordinary contributions, dedication, and leadership, which have been foundational to NPLB’s success. Peter will remain an integral part of our NPLB team as he transitions into a board member role. A letter from our new executive director: I’m deeply honored and excited to share that I’ve been appointed Executive Director of No Patient Left Behind (NPLB). Many thanks to Peter Kolchinsky and the NPLB board and team for their confidence and support. Their passion for turning policy into progress for patients is what drew me to NPLB – the belief that innovation and affordability don’t have to be in conflict, and that patients shouldn’t be forced to pay the price for a false choice between the two. Since its founding in 2020, NPLB has advanced a pragmatic, patient-centered vision for a biotech social contract, one that promotes innovation while insisting insurance works the way it should. In its first five years, NPLB has become a trusted and compelling voice that punches far beyond its weight – responding credibly to policy threats against patient access and future innovation, elevating public understanding of biomedical innovation, and bringing together diverse voices to find common ground on complex issues. None of this would have been possible without the exceptional leadership of founding Executive Director Peter Rubin. I’m deeply grateful to Peter for fostering a remarkable team and preparing us for the opportunities and fights that lie ahead. His contributions and impact will continue to serve us as we embark on our next chapter, and we thank him for all he’s done to get us to this point. As we move into our next phase, I’m committed to advancing NPLB’s balanced, credible vision for the biomedical ecosystem – protecting the incentives that make tomorrow’s cures possible while demanding that patients can access the medicines they need today through proper insurance design. That means rigorous policy engagement, sustained public education, and expanding and activating our coalition across innovators, clinicians, patients, investors, and policymakers. This mission is deeply personal to me. I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition as a child that led to kidney failure by age six, years on dialysis, and two kidney transplants. I’ve relied on Medicare and Medicaid, fought insurers for lifesaving treatments, and experienced both the financial strain of coverage gaps and the profound relief when innovation and access aligned just in time. That lived experience has always informed my professional work, even when it wasn’t publicly visible. Too often, those who defend biomedical innovation are portrayed as motivated by profit rather than purpose. In reality, many of us are here because we know what is at stake when innovation slows or access fails. In today’s policy and reputational environment, it’s time to bring our human stories forward, rebuild trust, and defend an ecosystem that has delivered life-changing breakthroughs and must continue to do so. I can’t wait to work alongside so many smart, committed people to defend and advance biomedical innovation and ensure no patient is left behind due to flawed policies and the shortfalls of our healthcare system. Signed, Priscilla VanderVeer www.nopatientleftbehind.org
View the PDF here.
We’re building support across the biotech ecosystem
BECOME A FIRST RESPONDER & THOUGHT PARTNER
Sign up to receive action alerts. Help protect access to lifesaving medicines & preserve innovation for those still waiting for a cure.