Like the country at large, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has undergone a rapid transformation in terms of its openness and support of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Yet despite major gains, including Supreme Court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide and recognized LGBTQIA+ employees under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there is still work to be done.

Pharma organizations have stepped up their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in recent years to empower marginalized patient populations and their workforces. Even for medical marketers, there is a call to provide more for the community as well.

In late May, the World Economic Forum pushed for LGBTQIA+ representation to be a greater priority for businesses, specifically calling for more inclusion in media and advertising. 

Given that it’s Pride Month, MM+M spoke with two key LGBTQIA+ leaders in the pharma and biotech sectors to discuss the importance of representation as well as external challenges that require appropriate responses.

Jennifer Petter, Ph.D, is the founder and CIO of Arrakis Therapeutics. Petter is also a trans woman, one of the few openly trans leaders in the pharma and biotech space. 

Petter said that most organizations within the industry have been open and accepting of changes stemming from the LGBTIA+ community, especially around the use of pronouns. Still, Petter recommended that one way to signal support would be for more companies to design their health plans with policies that address LGBTQIA+ workers and restructure their clinical trials to maximize the diversity of participants.

“When you think about where the world is, as more forward-thinking and more progressive about LGBTQIA+ issues, I would say pharma and biotech stays abreast of that,” Petter noted. “It isn’t out there pushing a more progressive agenda than is widely being discussed, but neither does it want to be especially pulling back.”

The recent wave of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation in certain states has clearly affected the business calculus for industry leaders. Petter said she opted out of attending an industry conference in Houston next year due to the passage of a Texas state law requiring transgender youth to compete on teams that match the gender on their birth certificate.

Similarly, the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equality Index report highlighted how so-called bathroom bills, bans on transgender youth playing school sports and Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law adversely affect millions of Americans. 

Ultimately, Petter said her goal for biotech and pharma companies supporting the LGBTQIA+ community is for their efforts to become normalized to a point that they are “rather mundane.”

“Sometimes ‘normal’ has to be a little different than what it used to be, but ultimately we need to find what that normal is,” Petter said. “Happiness is often a calm space and happiness for an organization is a fairly common space. It’s easy to forget.”

Achieving the normalization of the LGBTQIA+ community in pharma is a shared goal of Paul Hastings, president and CEO of Nkarta Therapeutics as well as the first openly LGBTQIA+ chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.

Specifically speaking about medical marketers, Hastings commended advertisements for therapeutics treating HIV. He noted that the marketing has been direct and consumer-facing in a way that normalizes the experience for gay men or others who may contract the virus. 

“It’s almost surreal to see these commercials and I think that’s fantastic,” he said. “Making sure this kind of medical marketing messaging is normal is just great.” 

While giving the industry an A-plus for its efforts at inclusion, Hastings echoed OUTBio President Ramsey Johnson by saying that there remains room for internal improvement – and, specifically, that more diversity in the C-suite and clinical trials are goals worth striving for.

Nkarta is a sponsor of OUTBio Bay Area, which Hastings said has fostered a strong inclusive space for not only LGBTQIA+ members of the biotech industry but their allies as well. 

“We’re at a place in this world now where these kinds of initiatives, unfortunately, are important,” Hastings said. “It’s not just a good thing to do; it’s almost necessary to do these things to remind people that we’re here in numbers, with votes and with dollars. We demand fairness across the board — not just to LGBTQIA+ people, but to others who may be overlooked or from other diverse populations.”

Hastings added that he finds recent anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation to be “dangerous,” representing a backslide in democracy that should be called out by industry leaders. He noted that the HRC’s Business Statement Opposing Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation has been signed by more than 270 corporations, including major pharma players such as Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim and Biogen. 

If large companies with operations in certain states with restrictive policies aren’t afraid to stand up, Hastings said that others shouldn’t be either.

“I say, ‘Bring it on,’” he added. “If a governor wants to go after Disney or school systems that provide services for parents and children who happen to be LGBTQIA+, then in my opinion, fight. What do you have to lose? They’re going to try to take stuff away from you anyway, so why fear that?”