Heath Ingram, JD, advocates for advancing health. As an attorney at Goodwin Proctor LLP, he specializes in taking life science companies — biopharma, gene therapy, medical devices and more — through the FDA approval process and commercialization. As a co-founder, Secretary and Board member of the nonprofit OUTbio: Greater New York, Ingram also works to empower and advance the LGBTQ community in biotech. Now international, OUTbio started in Boston in 2015, incorporating as a nonprofit in 2019.
Cure spoke with Ingram about OUTbio and its ongoing fight against HIV. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Cure: What are some of OUTbio’s priorities?
Ingram: The mission is to promote LGBTQ equality in the life sciences and in affiliated industries and also promote LGBTQ health and wellness. Part of our mission is specifically focused on creating access and awareness around HIV treatment and prevention. OUTbio is committed to pushing for and securing a cure for HIV.
We’re trying to make folks aware of new and ongoing clinical trials, in particular in the gene therapy space that are designed to cure HIV infection. OUTbio is committed to pushing for and securing a cure for HIV. Raising awareness on clinical trials is a piece of that.
Creating and changing laws and regulations has been part of HIV/AIDS activism since the grassroots political organization ACT UP pressured the FDA for an accelerated approval pathway for HIV therapies. What roles can law firms play in fighting HIV/AIDS?
Firms like Goodwin can be thought partners to companies. We can help companies think through, what’s your FDA approval strategy? How do you make the medicine accessible? What about your market access strategies? What sort of healthcare coverage will you get? What about patient assistance? You need to have FDA legal specialists to assist you with that. We can leverage legal resources and legal knowledge to create innovations.
Lawyers and law firms also are protecting institutions that are responsible for keeping us safe. The LGBTQ community is under threat. An example is recent case law in Texas that undermines provisions in the Affordable Care Act for free access to preventive services, including for HIV.
One of the legal concerns I have going forward is the use of the erosion of deference by courts to expert agencies like the FDA, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which our society leans on to make informed decisions on our behalf. Goodwin has dedicated significant pro bono legal resources to advancing LGBTQ equality.
HIV therapies are so effective now that the NIH can say undetectable equals untransmittable, U = U. How does OUTbio make sure that people don’t become complacent? And keeping issues like the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, the affordability of treatments and the future of treatments front and center?
The answer is relentless advocacy and constant education. Putting the message out there, talking about science — keeping the conversations rooted in science, not in political affiliation, keeping it focused on people’s health and well-being. U = U is a really powerful tool.
And I think those of us in the gay community have a responsibility to those who came before us, who died of AIDS, and died for us to have treatments that allow you to even forget you have HIV — we owe it to them to fight this stigma. OUTbio is happy to continue to take this on.