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6.6 – What Happens When the Walls Come Down

For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has operated
within towering walls of complexity, regulation, and
capital. These walls have protected the incumbents—
insulating their margins, deterring competition, and
preserving control over how, where, and by whom
medicine is made.

But quietly, persistently, and irreversibly, the walls are
starting to crack.

Not through brute force, but through better ideas.

● Startups are scaling edible biologic platforms that
don’t require $500 million facilities to operate.
● Academic labs are proving that proteins made in
plants can be clinically effective and
immunologically durable.
● Regulators are beginning to recognize that old
frameworks don’t fit the new biology—and that
innovation can’t wait for perfect precedent.
● Payers are facing down skyrocketing costs,
mounting patient drop-off rates, and growing
evidence that injectable biologics aren’t as durable
as their price tags suggest.

They are all looking for something new.
Something more efficient.
Something more human-centered.

And edible biologics are answering that call.

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