Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Pierrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. It's week thirty six. Working from home for
Speaker 1: many still, although I was mostly in the office this week,
Speaker 1: but it was a week. It was a tough one
Speaker 1: where COVID nineteen deaths top two hundred fifty thousand in
Speaker 1: the United States. We did have some good news. Fisor
Speaker 1: and Maderna both had upbeat news when it came to
Speaker 1: a vaccine, and yet the world was reminded constantly that
Speaker 1: we still are in a health pandemic, probably well into one.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, our stories are highlights this week,
Speaker 1: mostly have a virus angle, but we do have a
Speaker 1: few surprises. So coming up this hour, you're going to
Speaker 1: hear from the CEO of Maderna and the CEO of
Speaker 1: Welcome Leap. You'll also hear from the chief epidemiologist at
Speaker 1: the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Also the
Speaker 1: president CEO at Mahindra Agriculture of North America on who
Speaker 1: is buying tractors during the shutdown. You will be surprised.
Speaker 1: We begin the with the cover story of this week's magazine.
Speaker 1: The cover art alone, I've got to say, you've got
Speaker 1: to go online or check it out on the news
Speaker 1: stance because it really encapsulates our love affair with our
Speaker 1: pampered pets and how they are training all of us
Speaker 1: to use the online retailer of everything and anything for pets.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Chewy. Blumberg News Wealth reporter Ander's Melon
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg business Week editor Joel Webber joined us for more.
Speaker 1: It's a fun one, um. And this is one that, um,
Speaker 1: I think we were we've been interested in for a
Speaker 1: while because look like the staff of Business Week has
Speaker 1: a lot of cats and dogs at home, UM, And
Speaker 1: there have been acquisitions that were made during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And if you have a dog and go to a
Speaker 1: dog park like I do, you also recognize that there
Speaker 1: were many, many, many more dogs in this neighborhood than
Speaker 1: there were before the pandemic. And one of the big
Speaker 1: beneficial areas of this has been Chewy, the online pet
Speaker 1: retailer that does pet deliveries. And that's what our stories
Speaker 1: about it is. And I gotta say, Joel, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things in the shutdown that as I would
Speaker 1: walk Ey dog Scout around the very quiet neighborhood, I
Speaker 1: would see boxes of things, and I often saw Chewy
Speaker 1: boxes on the curb. Yeah, and you know they're coming
Speaker 1: to our house to um. It's actually in one of
Speaker 1: our story meetings that turns out that you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of co op apartments in New York City
Speaker 1: that aren't supposed to have pets, and Chewy Boxes are
Speaker 1: outing them because it's like, oh, look delivery exactly. So
Speaker 1: the story of Chewi, though, I think it's it's one
Speaker 1: of these amazing ones because you know, the company has
Speaker 1: been around for for nine years. Uh started basically by
Speaker 1: a couple of guys who just realized they were going
Speaker 1: to get into the jewelry business and then realized, wait
Speaker 1: a second, there could be a bigger opportunity and pets,
Speaker 1: and they basically scrapped it out for nine years, and
Speaker 1: in the process of that sort of faded from the company,
Speaker 1: and the company now has a has a new CEO,
Speaker 1: and the story sort of starts with Andrew's crunching numbers
Speaker 1: and realizing that he's actually incredibly highly compensated. How how
Speaker 1: highly compensated is about a hundred eight million the twenty
Speaker 1: nine team. That's what brought me onto to this story.
Speaker 1: I am, we ran our highest paid CEOs list this
Speaker 1: summer and assume It's thing made a hundred eight million
Speaker 1: last year. And I turned to my editor and said,
Speaker 1: who in the world assume it's thing? And it turns
Speaker 1: out to see the CEO of Chewy And that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where it all started, right, And it's kind of
Speaker 1: like what is to Actually, we have a market guest
Speaker 1: who comes on and every time she's like, by Chewy,
Speaker 1: by Chewy, by Chewi. I mean, this is a business,
Speaker 1: you know, and you put it in the story on
Speaker 1: theres that it's very much kind of akin to Amazon
Speaker 1: and it's early days. Yeah, it really is. It's it's
Speaker 1: what sets it apart from Amazon. Amazon was a model
Speaker 1: for much of the the quickness, the ease, and the pricing.
Speaker 1: But what really sets Chew a part is the fact
Speaker 1: that you actually have a customer so is number to
Speaker 1: call and if you call it, there's a person that
Speaker 1: responds to you within six seconds and it's willing to
Speaker 1: talk to you four hours. If that's what you feel
Speaker 1: like about your pet, about pet food, about the fact
Speaker 1: that you know anything. I've heard stories of customer service
Speaker 1: agains have literally been on the phone for several hours
Speaker 1: with with pet owners that call in. One of the
Speaker 1: things Carol, that I think is really interesting about the businesses.
Speaker 1: You know, Amazon when it started, it had that one
Speaker 1: area of expertise that it just nailed, which was books.
Speaker 1: It was like, how do we bring as many books
Speaker 1: as we possibly can online? And do um e commerce
Speaker 1: says as a bookstore, right, And I think Chewy actually
Speaker 1: kind of like it's almost like they surveyed the landscape
Speaker 1: and said, what's the thing that we could have recurring
Speaker 1: payments with that Amazon hasn't thought to do yet, and
Speaker 1: how do we figure out what that is and then
Speaker 1: do it at warp speed effectively? And they recognize that pets.
Speaker 1: So this thing, it's a the number in the story
Speaker 1: nine billion dollars a year being spent by Americans on pets.
Speaker 1: If you could get one slice of that, it's a
Speaker 1: great business. And what they figured out was that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that you can do that are
Speaker 1: recurring payments, whether it's dog food deliveries or medications and
Speaker 1: all of those things are just cruise control. That's a
Speaker 1: subscription revenue model, and it has just allowed them to
Speaker 1: go sort of warp speed. And they were on a
Speaker 1: pretty good trajectory before the pandemic, and then the pandemic
Speaker 1: really played to it. And so Andrews tell us about
Speaker 1: what they how how they've really capital capitalized on everything
Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, they've already in the first two quarters
Speaker 1: they added more customers than in all of the prior
Speaker 1: fiscal years. And they're on track to finally turned EBIT
Speaker 1: down positive this year. And they are also on track
Speaker 1: to hit roughly seven billion dollars in revenue from if
Speaker 1: I don't misremember around four point nine. They're definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of growth during the pandemic. That was Bloomberg business
Speaker 1: Week editor Joel Weber and Bloomberg News Wealth reporter Ander's
Speaker 1: Melon on this week's cover story and why is the
Speaker 1: Year of the Pet? Check Out that full cover story
Speaker 1: and more great coverage in this week's issue of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week magazine. It is online, on newsstands and always
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg Coming up, from pampered pets to giving
Speaker 1: commercial renters a helping hand during the pandemic, This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We'll bring you some of the highlights from our daily
Speaker 1: radio broadcast and podcast, and that included a conversation about
Speaker 1: real estate in a week where we saw many stories
Speaker 1: crossing the Bloomberg about central London rents plummeting as residents
Speaker 1: fell to suburbs, office workers wanting to keep working at home,
Speaker 1: just not every day. So with all of that in mind,
Speaker 1: we caught up with Pierre de Bas. He is co
Speaker 1: founder and managing partner of Romer Debas. It's a New
Speaker 1: York City based law firm specializing in real estate. He
Speaker 1: gave us an update on the hard hit retail in
Speaker 1: restaurant industries. The biggest issue that we're encountering, especially in
Speaker 1: you know, major cities around the country, is what's going
Speaker 1: to happen, um if the second wave continues going down
Speaker 1: this path, and how the local economies of densely populated
Speaker 1: cities which are not having that same level of density
Speaker 1: and the local demand coming from the workforce and from
Speaker 1: people who fled the city impacting local businesses UM. And
Speaker 1: I'll give you a good example. We're talking about one
Speaker 1: of one of the most important topics right now is
Speaker 1: retail and restaurant and what is the future retail restaurant
Speaker 1: look like? And how is that going to impact the
Speaker 1: commercial real estate market? And when you take a city,
Speaker 1: you say, take from Manhattan for example. You know, we're
Speaker 1: sitting here in midtown Manhattan and it's roughly depending where
Speaker 1: you read, ten to fourteen of the workforces back in
Speaker 1: the office. And you know, certain pockets of the city
Speaker 1: are not resident their commercial neighborhoods where they're unit probably
Speaker 1: office buildings, so on and so forth, not apartments where
Speaker 1: people live and reside. So what impact we're seeing is that,
Speaker 1: you know, what's that going to have on restaurants in
Speaker 1: particular and retail And you know how our landlords renegotiating
Speaker 1: rents to keep these businesses afloat, and what happens to
Speaker 1: the local economies if these businesses go under. Well, and
Speaker 1: help me out here, because you understand this industry. I
Speaker 1: mean I think about and I look around the neighborhoods
Speaker 1: as I go in and out of the city. I
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of empty retail. Uh, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of boarding up of places, And I do wonder
Speaker 1: that you know, the retail of the restaurants that we lose,
Speaker 1: how long does it take for that to come back?
Speaker 1: I mean, restaurants, It's unbelievable the cycle, right we know
Speaker 1: it's a tough business, and yet we constantly see new
Speaker 1: entries on the market on the marketplace. But you understand cycles.
Speaker 1: You know, when we've got a really tough cycle like
Speaker 1: the one we're going through right now, how long does
Speaker 1: it take to build it back up? You know, with
Speaker 1: a restaurant's based in particular, That's what everybody is sitting
Speaker 1: here and speculating in terms of, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: renegotiating leases with landlords, I'm seeing completely different you know,
Speaker 1: opinions and tactics that landlords are using in responses in
Speaker 1: terms of tenant um, concession requests and renegotiations. And from
Speaker 1: my perspective, you know, if I'm looking at it from
Speaker 1: as a landlord, you know you want to keep these
Speaker 1: tenants and businesses afloat as long as possible because you
Speaker 1: know there will be a light at the end of
Speaker 1: the tunnel. We've had great news in the last two
Speaker 1: weeks in terms of you know, the progress of a
Speaker 1: vaccine and you know, you can see that life will
Speaker 1: have some semblance of normalcy in the next year or so.
Speaker 1: Um A long time though, right, that's a very long time. Note,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a great point to bring up.
Speaker 1: That's a really long time next year. So you know,
Speaker 1: I say that in an optimistic tone with the you know,
Speaker 1: with it's in with negative news and reality. But you know,
Speaker 1: the question though to ask is that if that tenant vacates,
Speaker 1: when is there going to be a next someone else
Speaker 1: who wants to come in and start a restaurant in
Speaker 1: the middle of this, right, Like, that's the thing that's
Speaker 1: mind blowing to me is that you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: sit on that vacant, that space vacant for several years
Speaker 1: in my opinion, UM where reading that unless there's relief
Speaker 1: or a quick rebound in the market. You know, we're
Speaker 1: talking roughly up to two thirds of restaurants potentially going
Speaker 1: under UM in the New York City area. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: to you to answer your question terms of how long
Speaker 1: will that teach to recover? You know, and nobody knows,
Speaker 1: but we're talking years, We're talking you know that it's
Speaker 1: too much of an absorption rate. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: do wonder too, Um, Pierre, did the financial crisis give
Speaker 1: us a little bit of a playbook on this. I
Speaker 1: know it's not the same type of crisis, Um, but
Speaker 1: it was a tough one and it lasted a long
Speaker 1: time and took use a long time to come back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it certainly did. And and that's the most recent crisis
Speaker 1: to compare this too. And clearly you know, that had
Speaker 1: a financial ripple effect across all of New York City.
Speaker 1: But this is just so you know, it's this is
Speaker 1: impossible to find a point of comparison, you know, given them,
Speaker 1: we're talking a global health pandemic which is causing you know,
Speaker 1: the governor to intervene in cap capacity and restaurants, which
Speaker 1: is causing people to have, you know, the fear for
Speaker 1: their own health to go outside you and congregate with others.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's just drastically different. You know. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, you know, clearly, Um, the
Speaker 1: city lost a lot of money, and there was you know,
Speaker 1: people did flee the city, but it was nowhere near
Speaker 1: the same exodus of people that have left the city
Speaker 1: as a result of the pandemic. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could feel it in the city. You
Speaker 1: just can feel it. You know. It's interesting. What are
Speaker 1: kind of some of the um offerings that landlords are
Speaker 1: are are putting out for their tenants to kind of
Speaker 1: help them out in this time. You know, my favorite one,
Speaker 1: we are office renegotiated a lease for a restaurant tenant
Speaker 1: where um they're located in Rockefeller Center. So when you
Speaker 1: take the location, you know, the demographic that's going to
Speaker 1: the restaurant is either tourists or people who work in
Speaker 1: the area and are going to freak with the restaurant.
Speaker 1: It's not a residential neighborhood. So clearly that that that
Speaker 1: demographic is not in New York City right now. You're
Speaker 1: on tourists in the workforce, it's not here. So we
Speaker 1: renegotiate that specific um LESA and a couple of others
Speaker 1: where the rent for the next twelve months is ten
Speaker 1: percent of the gross receivables of the restaurant. So if
Speaker 1: the restaurant makes a hundred thousand dollars this month, the
Speaker 1: landlord gets ten thousand dollars. If the restaurant makes you know,
Speaker 1: fifty dollars next month, land or gets five dollars UM,
Speaker 1: And it's really a way for landlords to show vested
Speaker 1: interest in preserving you know, small businesses and maintaining some
Speaker 1: some semblance of cash flow right, which like we said,
Speaker 1: it's when are you replacing that tenant? And it's better
Speaker 1: than none. But do those tenants then have to peer
Speaker 1: make it up later on or is that just like listen,
Speaker 1: we understand you're not making a lot of money. This
Speaker 1: is what your rent is going to be for this month,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to try and come back later.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm seeing all different approaches. The most common
Speaker 1: one landlords will first come and say, we'll give you
Speaker 1: deferment and we'll tack it onto the back end. But
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, you know, restaurant business a tough
Speaker 1: business to begin with, even in good times, could they
Speaker 1: afford one point five times rent? So that's not viable
Speaker 1: for most. UM. Some are giving you know, rent relief
Speaker 1: and forgiveness. But you know, the smart ones are committing
Speaker 1: to something for the next six to twelve months, giving
Speaker 1: them something to keep them going UM and also have
Speaker 1: incentive to keep going and then seeing what the world
Speaker 1: looks like in reassessing UM. That's why you know, I
Speaker 1: love the idea of the fixed percentage of gross revenue
Speaker 1: for you know, twelve months time period. So I can
Speaker 1: talk to you from it, from perspective of a lawyer
Speaker 1: representing a number of businesses and also as a small
Speaker 1: business owner. You know, I I co founded their firm.
Speaker 1: We have about forty employees total, and I can tell
Speaker 1: you the people love working from home. They ideally, in
Speaker 1: a perfect world to have a hybrid model where you know,
Speaker 1: they have access to an office but aren't required to
Speaker 1: come in daily. And you know, if you would have
Speaker 1: asked me back in March when we first had the shutdown,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm one of the few forty year
Speaker 1: olds who still writes check. So I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: of old school myself check occasionally, just occasionally to a
Speaker 1: couple of times of months, just for old time's sake.
Speaker 1: And you know, I I love coming in office. I
Speaker 1: I don't I personally don't like working from home. That's
Speaker 1: room or debas co founder and managing partner Pierre de
Speaker 1: Bass not liking working from home, but as we know,
Speaker 1: many do and they want flexibility. You are listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week coming up real estate figures out life
Speaker 1: in a pandemic, So too has the agg industry. And
Speaker 1: who knew homeowners they're buying tractors while stuck at home.
Speaker 1: That's coming up. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. One of the
Speaker 1: areas impacted by COVID nineteen is one that was deemed
Speaker 1: essential during the health pandemic. We're talking about the global
Speaker 1: agricultural industry. A major player in that industry Mahindra, the
Speaker 1: conglomerate based in India, And like other companies which were
Speaker 1: initially shut down by the pandemic, Mahindra Agriculture North America
Speaker 1: got a surprise when business actually picked up. We got
Speaker 1: more on that from Vier and Popli, president CEO at
Speaker 1: Mahindra Agriculture North America. He was in Houston, US seeing
Speaker 1: a pretty large number of cases. And so everyone's, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty much like the rest of the country. Everyone's
Speaker 1: kind of bearing masks and kind of isolating themselves and
Speaker 1: living further and further out from everyone each other. And
Speaker 1: so at some level, somehow it seems to be working
Speaker 1: well for the tractor business. Well, let's talk about this
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, if you could take me
Speaker 1: back to the spring, what was going on for you
Speaker 1: and your team at the company, And I'm curious, then
Speaker 1: kind of take us forward how things have evolved. But
Speaker 1: what was it like back in the spring. Well back
Speaker 1: in the spring, I think in March when this thing started.
Speaker 1: I think, like everyone else, we were completely panicked, and
Speaker 1: you know, we really pulled back, you know, went down
Speaker 1: the roads of shutting down the plants and manufacturing and
Speaker 1: the supply chain kind of froze. We had our own
Speaker 1: versions of layoffs and furloughs, but you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we tried to focus on then. But what we found
Speaker 1: was the retail industry suddenly took off somewhere towards the
Speaker 1: end of April. And I guess as people were spent
Speaker 1: more and more time and their farms and back in
Speaker 1: their homes, they were wanting to do more home improvement
Speaker 1: moving out. So we saw the tractor industry started to
Speaker 1: pick up pretty quickly, and uh so we had to
Speaker 1: figure a way to come back. And you know, we
Speaker 1: started the same thing, which is temperature checks, you know,
Speaker 1: split shift, slowly bringing people back, putting in all the
Speaker 1: plastic barriers and separate and redesigning the production line and
Speaker 1: production flow through. So ever since that happened has just
Speaker 1: been momentum has been gaining. And so far the industries,
Speaker 1: you know, just the year to day, I think industries
Speaker 1: up twenty three. That's pretty remarkable. We'll talk to me
Speaker 1: a little bit um. You're about the demographics of who
Speaker 1: was buying because my understanding, my producer Paul Brenna was
Speaker 1: filling me a little bit earlier that I think seven
Speaker 1: percent of your sales were customers that actually never had
Speaker 1: owned a tractor before. Actually that's the people. Wow, okay
Speaker 1: we left out of zero. That's tremendous. I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, what kind of tractor are they buy? So basically,
Speaker 1: we generally operate in the you know, the small track,
Speaker 1: the midland compact tractors that are between twenty two horseper
Speaker 1: and those are largely driven by you know, rural lifestyle
Speaker 1: small farms and the second tractor, a third tractor and
Speaker 1: a big farm. So they're not the really big road
Speaker 1: cropping tractors. They're smaller in size and they operate more
Speaker 1: in the large homeowners and rural lifestylers. A bit of
Speaker 1: a surprise for you to see that market come alive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. You know, I think pretty much the whole
Speaker 1: industry has been caught by surprise. Uh we've seen you know,
Speaker 1: the industry inventory and the dealerships are down significantly obviously
Speaker 1: because of the huge demand, and you know, the supply
Speaker 1: chain being challenged, and you know, our ability to ramp
Speaker 1: up globally and get parts in has been a bit
Speaker 1: of a challenge. But now we're we're back on track
Speaker 1: and you know, being able to supply back in. But
Speaker 1: it was a big surprise. No, no, no, forgive me,
Speaker 1: I cut you have the supply chain. Was it problematic
Speaker 1: a little bit in the beginning, Oh, yes, it was.
Speaker 1: I think you know, with shipping shut down, ports, shut
Speaker 1: down factories all over the world, also going through their
Speaker 1: own world. You know, the pandemic is global, so it's
Speaker 1: not just one country that's impacted, right, So everything was
Speaker 1: shut down, so we had a tough time getting parts made,
Speaker 1: getting them moved, bringing them in. Then you know, the
Speaker 1: whole challenges of the local market of getting the workers in,
Speaker 1: getting them you know, protecting them and keeping them safe.
Speaker 1: And then even our dealers, you know, many of our
Speaker 1: dealers had to transition to this new environment, so helping
Speaker 1: them on the journey of digital marketing, helping them on
Speaker 1: the journey of safe delivery cleaning equipment. So there was
Speaker 1: a it was a pretty interesting and a lot of
Speaker 1: work to be done in the last six sad months
Speaker 1: that we had to go through. I hear and one
Speaker 1: thing I want to ask you, so Charlie Pallatt are
Speaker 1: our news broadcaster bringing that headline US covered nineteen deaths
Speaker 1: to two fifty thousand. That is according to Johns Hopkins,
Speaker 1: these are really troubling numbers. When you see these numbers,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're starting to see cities and certainly
Speaker 1: states are continuing to do rollbacks and shutting down parts
Speaker 1: of their economy. What do you think about and how
Speaker 1: might that impact your business? I mean, you guys have
Speaker 1: seen kind of a benefit as more people have been home.
Speaker 1: Do you anticipate then, in an odd way like we've
Speaker 1: seen with a lot of businesses, whether it was Netflix
Speaker 1: or some others or zoom Um or Peloton, that you
Speaker 1: will continue to benefit as a result. Well, you know
Speaker 1: it is it is a really sad situation and you know,
Speaker 1: every LifeLock is tough to deal with. Since the point
Speaker 1: is that the FED is announced. I think very a
Speaker 1: benign interest rate regime over the next twelve to eighteen months.
Speaker 1: So you know, money availability is there, and I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that you know, there will be one more stimulus announced
Speaker 1: fairly soon. And when these two come in, and if
Speaker 1: this trend continues, I guess you know, people are going
Speaker 1: to be stuck at home and you know, they need
Speaker 1: things to do. And yeah, I do think that the
Speaker 1: tractor industry will continue to do well, and you know,
Speaker 1: people will want to improve their homes or you know,
Speaker 1: you're also seeing a trend of people, you know, with
Speaker 1: this work from home, the concept of distance to distance
Speaker 1: has vanished. He's right, so many things have changed as
Speaker 1: a result of COVID. That's Mahindra Agriculture North America's CEO
Speaker 1: and president, Baron pop Late. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: Still Ahead, Never Again, preventing Tomorrow's health crisis from the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg New Economy Forum. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with GARYL. Masser from Bloomberg Radio. This week,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg hosted virtually it's third annual New Economy Forum. It's
Speaker 1: four days of virtual programming each day focusing on a
Speaker 1: different pillar that's facing the world. I moderated a conversation
Speaker 1: on how the world can ensure that we never never
Speaker 1: have another catastrophe like COVID nineteen and the panel included
Speaker 1: Stefan Bonsal, chief executive Officer of Maderna, Regina, Dugan, CEO
Speaker 1: at Welcome Leap, and Dr Woo Zoo, chief epidemiologist at
Speaker 1: the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Here's some
Speaker 1: of that conver station, including Durner's big news this week.
Speaker 1: On Monday, we announced that the first deterim analysis of
Speaker 1: face free study, the study of fluty thousand participants, so
Speaker 1: the most ninety five percent pause see. But the piece
Speaker 1: that makes me are most more excited is the fact
Speaker 1: that of the eleven people with severe this is they
Speaker 1: were all on plastival. We are none on the vaccine.
Speaker 1: And so if you think about it, what does that mean.
Speaker 1: I mean that once we get the final data within
Speaker 1: the next you know, seven to fifteen days, we should
Speaker 1: be able to see if this is confirmed that if
Speaker 1: you get all vaccine, we have a ninety five percentation.
Speaker 1: So having noticed this, and if you get disease you
Speaker 1: will have mild symptoms, I mean, do not have severe disease.
Speaker 1: And as we know, because well it's been a big
Speaker 1: impact in terms of hospitalization of a patient during the
Speaker 1: worst I tu for passion, during the world's death and
Speaker 1: all the impact it has had, but only a human life,
Speaker 1: of course, but on the mental health, on the economy,
Speaker 1: we think this could be a game plan. And so
Speaker 1: what's bothering now is getting the final data all looked up,
Speaker 1: submitting these two regulatory agencies around the world, and hopefully
Speaker 1: I wipe, getting the vaccine approven, the emergency used before
Speaker 1: the end of a year. We're making as much product
Speaker 1: as we can. And then we said, will I before
Speaker 1: twenty million doses ready to ship as soon as we
Speaker 1: have a regulatory report. All right, So that's certainly some
Speaker 1: upbeat news. Dr who I want to bring you into
Speaker 1: this conversation. When you and I spoke over the weekend,
Speaker 1: I believe you were in shin Jong or had been
Speaker 1: in shin Jong. China has done and I think most
Speaker 1: would argue that as among the biggest, the most developed country,
Speaker 1: you guys have done a good job in terms of
Speaker 1: containing the virus. But even so, there continues to be breakout.
Speaker 1: Where are we in China when it comes to COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: I just come back from a sin John. Now back
Speaker 1: to the Beijing. We are just controlled another outbreak in
Speaker 1: the Kashka shin Joan Wi, a parliament region. The epidemic
Speaker 1: has started in the letter of October and brought under
Speaker 1: control in the November. In the China, I think what
Speaker 1: we did it to have very stronger sibilants and peaked
Speaker 1: control the epidemic as a war. So go back to
Speaker 1: the earlier response to the initial outbreak in Oha. Most
Speaker 1: of the people suspect China delayed or does not responded
Speaker 1: very quickly. Actually, I give you two examples. We did
Speaker 1: a very bold decision. For example, when the outbreak first
Speaker 1: noticed by doctors, that's a last December twenty seventh, and
Speaker 1: the national experts arrived in the Wuhan, they made a
Speaker 1: decision to close the seafood market. At that time they
Speaker 1: were only forty cases and the twenty seven of them
Speaker 1: had exposure to a seafood market. Methodic decision is a
Speaker 1: tough and the national acts and the local expert as
Speaker 1: different opinion, and the local expert has gone against to
Speaker 1: achieve that a decision, and now that decision, it's a
Speaker 1: chap down whist city. So we are responded to the
Speaker 1: COVID nine team very quickly. We're quite to remove all
Speaker 1: the right virus from a community to cleia up. That
Speaker 1: makes society is say so now, China, I think it's
Speaker 1: the best to the zero local transmission. Now, oh, y Riggin,
Speaker 1: I want you to come in on this too. What
Speaker 1: are you hearing from your network about kind of where
Speaker 1: we are in this process and in this cycle in
Speaker 1: terms of dealing with the virus. Well, I want to
Speaker 1: calibrate for a moment, because remember, the normal time to
Speaker 1: go from an outbreak to a vaccine is something like
Speaker 1: five to ten years. So this achievement here is remarkable, unprecedented.
Speaker 1: The team at Maderna goes from virus sequence to first
Speaker 1: dosing in humans in sixty three days, and as fun
Speaker 1: is fond of saying, that's an advance a decade in
Speaker 1: the making. In fact, I remember a decade ago when
Speaker 1: m RNA based vaccines were first proposed and the critics
Speaker 1: said there was no evidence to suggest it would work,
Speaker 1: and others said there is no evidence to suggest it won't.
Speaker 1: We should try and if we are successful, it would matter,
Speaker 1: And here we are today, in fact it matters. So
Speaker 1: I think what we're hearing now is how do we
Speaker 1: begin to work on the next pieces? So how do
Speaker 1: we shorten the clinical trial? How do we begin to
Speaker 1: get manufacturing underway so that we can couple the early
Speaker 1: warning with a rapid response. And there's still much more
Speaker 1: to do there. And in my view, this is the
Speaker 1: spot Nick moment of our generation, right and in the
Speaker 1: same way that sput Nick inspired a space age, so
Speaker 1: to might this pandemic inspire a health age? Lots to do?
Speaker 1: So I want to continue this conversation because now I
Speaker 1: want to kind of look forward to the pull that's
Speaker 1: out there. We'd love to hear your response the question.
Speaker 1: We're asking, what are the lessons from Asia's successful response
Speaker 1: to COVID nineteen. Some individual freedom must be sacrificed for
Speaker 1: the public good, that's answer A answer B Early lockdowns,
Speaker 1: reduced overall economic impact answers C more investment in digital
Speaker 1: health infrastructure, including contact tracing and d face coverings work.
Speaker 1: So having said that, we'll look for those responses. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you, how do we make sure this
Speaker 1: never ever happens again. Bloomberg New Economy said, there is
Speaker 1: no greater challenge for our global leaders and figuring out
Speaker 1: how to make sure this never happens again. Stefan, can
Speaker 1: we do this? Do we now have the playbook? I
Speaker 1: think we've learned a lot, And as Regina said, I mean,
Speaker 1: first what has been done this year by scientists around
Speaker 1: the world and the collaboration we have seen. He's unprecedented
Speaker 1: in some of the speen. But we've learned a lot
Speaker 1: as well. And I think there are two dimensions where
Speaker 1: we should invest aggressively across the world in public private
Speaker 1: partnership to reduce the time to get to a vacuum,
Speaker 1: because as we know, you know, public measures are extremely
Speaker 1: important and right now wearing a mask and social distancing
Speaker 1: are critical. Treatment are very important to take care of
Speaker 1: people in the hospital, but to really get back to normal,
Speaker 1: we need to vaccinate people. And some of the focus
Speaker 1: on the vaccine front, which is really the piece side
Speaker 1: of the most So there are two things that I
Speaker 1: think we need to really invest a lot of. One
Speaker 1: is going after the top ten or twenty patrogens arrasies
Speaker 1: that are known to be at risk and doing extensive
Speaker 1: work doing all the poltical trilnical work in animals, run
Speaker 1: phase one, which is when you decide what those do
Speaker 1: you need, and then run phase two to give you
Speaker 1: around the fousand people of safety. Because if we had
Speaker 1: done that, for for example, mirth or salves the first
Speaker 1: sal us before the start of a year, when we
Speaker 1: got the sequence put online by the Chinese, we could
Speaker 1: have right away gone into a phase three. So instead,
Speaker 1: as Regina said on March six, seemed to start a
Speaker 1: phase when we could have started the phase three if
Speaker 1: we knew the dose and that already exposed enough people.
Speaker 1: Because it's only a few sequence change of mutation. So
Speaker 1: that's number one pre clinical and clinical work. And think
Speaker 1: about it. I will guess estimate it's around twenty four
Speaker 1: million dollar per virus, so times tennal twenty virus. It
Speaker 1: is nothing at the global scalaber granet. The complete is manufacturing.
Speaker 1: If we have had a big plant in Asia, a
Speaker 1: big plant in Europe, a big in Africa, one in
Speaker 1: the US North and Northern and souven hemisphere, that could
Speaker 1: make say fifteen million dollars a month, you could have
Speaker 1: had starting right away in January, fifty millions of the
Speaker 1: month that will make you around for army and those plants.
Speaker 1: By the summer, we have your face pre data. In
Speaker 1: June we have fermiaca. Other people think about the different
Speaker 1: the winter we will hopefully right now, step on. I
Speaker 1: want to jump in because right I understand that we
Speaker 1: could reduce the timeline. Dr Wu come in on this
Speaker 1: because I think a big part of this discussion is
Speaker 1: is it all about vaccines? Is it vaccines that save
Speaker 1: the world. I mean the w h O warning that
Speaker 1: they're not going to arrive in time for us to
Speaker 1: really deal with this second wave of COVID and that
Speaker 1: they should not be seen as a unicorn magic solution.
Speaker 1: Dr Wu, Are vaccines the answer to all of this?
Speaker 1: I think at this a moment is not yet. I
Speaker 1: think because the question you asked about how to let
Speaker 1: this happen again, I think most of the urgent question
Speaker 1: how to bring the epidemic under control. It's a very urgent.
Speaker 1: So just look at the beginning of the winter, the
Speaker 1: number of the cases continue to rise in the European countries.
Speaker 1: In the United States, number of dedy cases reaching over
Speaker 1: sixty six hundred of sound in the that's enormous, So
Speaker 1: when get to the winter, the number of kids that
Speaker 1: will continue. I think the public health methods like we're masks,
Speaker 1: social distance, hand washing and venti nation, all of these
Speaker 1: public health and meathods still the major effective methods to
Speaker 1: be used to control the epidemic. So the like saying
Speaker 1: it's a good message is a good uh. Technical weapons
Speaker 1: for control the epidemic, However, that cannot be used in
Speaker 1: the winter or cannot be brought the epidemic under control
Speaker 1: before next spring. So now we we think we need
Speaker 1: to have two strategic go hand by hands of the
Speaker 1: health at one hand and push vaccine other hands. That
Speaker 1: was Dr who Uno, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention, along with Stefan Boncell, chief
Speaker 1: executive officer at Maderna, and Regina do Gain, CEO at
Speaker 1: Welcome Leap, and they were at this week's Bloomberg New
Speaker 1: Economy Form talking about how to avoid another virus and
Speaker 1: rebuild global public health catch more discussions with global leaders.
Speaker 1: You could find that from the New Economy Forum just
Speaker 1: go to New Economy form dot com and also Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. That wraps up the first hour of the
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Carol Masser. Were coming up in our next hour, including
Speaker 1: exciting results when it comes to the vaccine this week,
Speaker 1: but we've got to slow down. There are still lots
Speaker 1: of questions to be answered about those results from Fiser
Speaker 1: and Maderna will cover that story, plus creating the world's
Speaker 1: safest restaurant franchise and the magic mushrooms that could change
Speaker 1: the world for millions of people. That's coming up on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Carol Masser.
Speaker 1: Coming up in our second hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week. Highlights from our daily radio show,
Speaker 1: including stories in the magazine and some of our favorite
Speaker 1: interview and then includes the restaurant franchise idea that started
Speaker 1: out to do one thing and then found its footing
Speaker 1: in a COVID nineteen world. We'll talk about that with
Speaker 1: John Taffer, bar rescue host an executive producer. Also the
Speaker 1: Insider's Guide to Jeopardy Yes, that wildly successful and long
Speaker 1: running game show, and the magic mushrooms that the FDA
Speaker 1: says are a breakthrough therapy. First up, though, another story
Speaker 1: reported for Business Week about the optimism over vaccine developments
Speaker 1: from both Fiser and Maderna, and yet, as Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: health reporter James Patton points out, the remarkable vaccine results
Speaker 1: leave a lot of questions unanswered. James joined us from London,
Speaker 1: along with Bloomberg business Week editor Jill Weber, James Um
Speaker 1: and Bob Lang wrote, this story actually just sort of
Speaker 1: right off the heels of the Fightser News and then
Speaker 1: then Dinners stuff happened. And I still think that all
Speaker 1: the stuff that they raised in their story remains relevant.
Speaker 1: And you know, the one that I think is the
Speaker 1: elephant in the room is is one that I think, Carol,
Speaker 1: just playing off of what you just said, I think
Speaker 1: everyone is really interested in, which is how long will
Speaker 1: this efficacy last? UM? So okay, it over to Mr
Speaker 1: Patton with that what other question? Let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: that question. But I'm also interested in the other unknowns
Speaker 1: that UM. You know, we as journalists are are asking
Speaker 1: about UM and will continue to ask about as the
Speaker 1: race for a vaccine continues. Well, Joel mentioned one of
Speaker 1: the big questions is how long that protection is going
Speaker 1: to last. We we simply don't know the answer to
Speaker 1: that or when the immunity could wear off. So we
Speaker 1: don't know how often people may need to get booster
Speaker 1: shots down the road. That's a significant UM question. UM
Speaker 1: researchers are UM you know, also waiting for more data
Speaker 1: on the vaccine's ability to prevent not just serious illness
Speaker 1: but infections and to stop people from passing it on
Speaker 1: to others. UM. So you know, we've seen two press
Speaker 1: releases from from Viser and its German part or BioNTech,
Speaker 1: and now from Maderna UH. And you know these are
Speaker 1: hugely promising and the results are extraordinary. UM. But we
Speaker 1: don't you know, have all the data yet that experts
Speaker 1: need to UM to assess these products. Are still waiting
Speaker 1: for some key UH safety data. The people who UM
Speaker 1: ultimately receive the vaccines will need to be tracked you know,
Speaker 1: for many months UH to monitor safety. So UM, you
Speaker 1: know there are you know, not to mention the issues,
Speaker 1: I mean you're talking about vaccine insitancy, How many people
Speaker 1: are actually gonna take vaccines once they're rolled out, the
Speaker 1: production and logistics, storage, distribution, all of those, all those
Speaker 1: issues remain. So again, you know, we have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind that what we're seeing in the past week
Speaker 1: is a big turning point and and this is really
Speaker 1: positive news, but we still have to uh, we still
Speaker 1: have to wait to get answers to bunt of these questions. Okay, James,
Speaker 1: I want to ask um specific just um, you know,
Speaker 1: we had the Fiser stuff last week, We've had the
Speaker 1: Mandernal stuff. I'm wondering, UM, how much we should be
Speaker 1: reading into the differences between those two vaccines so far,
Speaker 1: since that's you know, one of those other questions that
Speaker 1: remains sort of um unanswered but very of the moment.
Speaker 1: How how are you looking at the differences between them? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's a good it's a good question. I mean, the
Speaker 1: the obvious um similarity is that both of these rely
Speaker 1: on uh, you know, this novel technology known as messenger RNA.
Speaker 1: Uh So you know that is an approach that's never
Speaker 1: been used before to develop uh an approved vaccine. And um,
Speaker 1: you know a number of others are using very different approaches.
Speaker 1: But one of the um uh they actually I'm in
Speaker 1: common is many of these vaccines under development are targeting uh.
Speaker 1: You know, everyone's heard of the spike protein now, UM,
Speaker 1: and that actually bodes well for many of the others
Speaker 1: as well, like Astra Zeneca and its partner UM University
Speaker 1: of Oxford that are going to have data coming coming soon.
Speaker 1: But there is also a difference distinction between the Fiser
Speaker 1: Majornas Majornay vaccines in terms of in terms of storage
Speaker 1: and so that is um uh you know, that's another
Speaker 1: another one that people are going to be closely um
Speaker 1: following because UM that could you know, especially in the
Speaker 1: case of the Fiser vaccine, that could uh could slow
Speaker 1: things down a bit well. And actually, just to be
Speaker 1: very specific though, yeah, James tell us, tell us about
Speaker 1: the specific differences there, because the Fiser one obviously requires
Speaker 1: a cold storage that's colder, colder than my Freds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So UM. Basically today what was interesting is
Speaker 1: and this is a this is a positive um, a
Speaker 1: positive development. The UM the company pointed to data that
Speaker 1: basically shows that the vaccine is able at refrigerator temperatures
Speaker 1: for thirty days. Now that is much longer than previously estimated,
Speaker 1: and that is very important because of those storage and
Speaker 1: distribution uh issues that we're talking about that are seen
Speaker 1: as big challenges. So, you know, Fiser's vaccine needs to
Speaker 1: be stored at these like ultra cold temperatures until a
Speaker 1: few days before it's used. Um. And so those are
Speaker 1: important distinctions between the two. I think in the case
Speaker 1: of the Madurna vaccine, it could be kept in freezers
Speaker 1: though um it doesn't need um. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: need the same kind of facilities that the Fiser vaccine
Speaker 1: will will will need ultimately. So so that's a big
Speaker 1: that's a big issue, uh down the track. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a reminder that there are still several big issues about
Speaker 1: getting a vaccine out to the world. That was Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Health reporter James Patton and Bloomberg business Week getitor Joel Weber.
Speaker 1: That story, by the way, written by James along with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg healthcare reporter Bob la Greth. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. I suggest that the next thing people are
Speaker 1: gonna do after they get the vaccine as go to dinner.
Speaker 1: It started as an idea before COVID as a solution
Speaker 1: to a very tight labor market. Now it's finding itself
Speaker 1: right at home in the pandemic that's coming up. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Hi, I'm Karl Masser. Coming up in
Speaker 1: our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: Highlights from our daily radio show, including stories in the
Speaker 1: magazine and some of our favorite interviews, and then includes
Speaker 1: the restaurant franchise idea that started out to do one
Speaker 1: thing and then found its footing in a COVID nineteen world.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that with John Taffer, bar rescue host
Speaker 1: an executive producer. Also the Insider's Guide to Jeopardy, Yes,
Speaker 1: that wildly successful and long running game show, and the
Speaker 1: magic mushrooms that the FDA says our breakthrough therapy. First up,
Speaker 1: though another story reported for Business Week about the optimism
Speaker 1: over vaccine developments from both Fiser and Maderna, and yet,
Speaker 1: as Bloomberg News health reporter James Patton points out, the
Speaker 1: remarkable vaccine results leave a lot of questions unanswered. James
Speaker 1: joined us from London along with Bloomberg Business we getitor
Speaker 1: Joe Weber, James m and Bob Langwith wrote this story
Speaker 1: actually just sort of right off the heels of the
Speaker 1: Fighter News and then the Benners stuff happens, and I
Speaker 1: still think that all the stuff that they raised in
Speaker 1: their story remains relevant. And you know, the one that
Speaker 1: I think is the elephant in the room is is
Speaker 1: one that I think, Carol, just playing off of what
Speaker 1: you just said, I think everyone is really interested in,
Speaker 1: which is how long will this efficacy last? UM? So Okay,
Speaker 1: it over to Mr Patton with that what other question?
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about that question. But I'm also interested
Speaker 1: in the other unknowns that UM. You know, we as
Speaker 1: journalists are are asking about UM and will continue to
Speaker 1: ask about as the race for a vaccine continues. Mentioned
Speaker 1: one of the big questions is how long that protection
Speaker 1: is going to ask we we simply don't know the
Speaker 1: answer to that or when we immediate would wear off,
Speaker 1: So we don't know how often people may need to
Speaker 1: get booster shots down the road. That's a significant UM question.
Speaker 1: UM researchers are UM you know, also waiting for more
Speaker 1: data on the vaccine's ability to prevent not just serious
Speaker 1: illness but infections and to stop people from passing it
Speaker 1: on to others. UM. So you know, we've seen two
Speaker 1: press releases from from Fiser and its German partner by
Speaker 1: on Tech and now from Manserta. UH. And you know,
Speaker 1: these are hugely promising and the results are extraordinary. UM,
Speaker 1: but we don't you know, have all the data yet
Speaker 1: that experts need to um to assess these products. Are
Speaker 1: still waiting for some key UH safety data. The people
Speaker 1: who UM ultimately receive the vaccines will need to be
Speaker 1: tracked you know, for many months uh to monitor safety.
Speaker 1: So UM, you know there are you know, not to
Speaker 1: mention the issues. I mean you were talking about vaccine hesitancy,
Speaker 1: how many people are actually gonna take vaccines once they're
Speaker 1: rolled out, the production and logistics, storage, distribution, all of those,
Speaker 1: all of those issues remain. So again, you know, we
Speaker 1: have to give in mind that what we're seeing in
Speaker 1: the past week is a big turning point and and
Speaker 1: this is really positive news, but we still have to uh,
Speaker 1: we still have to wait to get answers to onto
Speaker 1: these questions. James, I want to ask um specifically just UM,
Speaker 1: you know, we had the Visor stuff last week, we've
Speaker 1: had the Mandernist stuff. I'm wondering, UM, how much we
Speaker 1: should be reading into the differences between those two vaccines
Speaker 1: so far since that's you know, one of those other
Speaker 1: questions that remains sort of um unanswered but very of
Speaker 1: the moment. How how are you looking at the differences
Speaker 1: between them? Yeah, well, it's a good it's a good question.
Speaker 1: I mean, the the obvious um similarity is that both
Speaker 1: of these rely on uh you know this novel technology
Speaker 1: known messenger RNA. UH. So you know that is an
Speaker 1: approach that's never been used before to develop uh an
Speaker 1: approved vaccine. And um you know a number of others
Speaker 1: are using very different approaches. But one of the um
Speaker 1: uh they actually have in common is many of these
Speaker 1: vaccines under development are targeting uh you know, everyone's heard
Speaker 1: of the spike protein now um, and that actually bodes
Speaker 1: well for many of the others as well, like astros
Speaker 1: Eneka and its partner UM University of Oxford that are
Speaker 1: going to have a data coming coming soon. But there
Speaker 1: is also a difference distinction between the fiveser Majorna's Majorna
Speaker 1: vaccines in terms of in terms of storage and so
Speaker 1: that is um uh you know, that's another another one
Speaker 1: that people are going to be closely um following, because
Speaker 1: um that could you know, especially in the case of
Speaker 1: the Fiser vaccine, that could could slow things down a bit.
Speaker 1: Well actually, just to be very specific though, yeah, tell
Speaker 1: us tell us about the specific differences there, because the
Speaker 1: Fiser one obviously requires a cold storage that's colder, colder
Speaker 1: than myphreds. Yeah, exactly exactly. So UM basically today what
Speaker 1: was interesting is and this is a this is a
Speaker 1: positive UM, a positive development. The UM the company pointed
Speaker 1: to data that basically shows that the vaccine is stable
Speaker 1: at refrigerator temperatures for thirty days. Now that is much
Speaker 1: longer than previously estimated, and that is very important because
Speaker 1: of those storage and distribution uh issues that we're talking
Speaker 1: about that they're seen as big challenges. So you know,
Speaker 1: Fisers vaccine needs to be stored at these like ultra
Speaker 1: cold temperatures until a few days before it's used. Um.
Speaker 1: And so those are important distinctions between the two. I
Speaker 1: think in the case of the Majorna vaccine, it could
Speaker 1: be kept in freezers. UM. It doesn't need um, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't need the same kind of facilities that the
Speaker 1: Defiser vaccine will will will need ultimately. So so that's
Speaker 1: a big that's a big issue, uh down the track. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a reminder that there are still several big issues
Speaker 1: about getting a vaccine out to the world. That was
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Health reporter James Patton and Bloomberg Business wee getitor
Speaker 1: Joel Webber. That's story, by the way, written by James
Speaker 1: along with Bloomberg healthcare reporter Bob blain Grith. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week. I suggest that the next thing
Speaker 1: people are gonna do after they get the vaccine is
Speaker 1: go to dinner. It started as an idea before COVID
Speaker 1: as a solution to a very tight labor market. Now
Speaker 1: it's finding itself right at home in the pandemic that's
Speaker 1: coming up. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. You know that sound
Speaker 1: that is, of course from the game show Jeopardy. And
Speaker 1: we recently got the sad news of the past thing
Speaker 1: of Alex Trebek at the age of eighty. Now he
Speaker 1: and the show Jeopardy inextricably linked, as Trebek hosted the
Speaker 1: show for thirty seven years. Journalist Claire mcneir has written
Speaker 1: a book about the show. It's entitled Answers in the
Speaker 1: Form of Questions, A Definitive History and Insider's Guide to Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: She gives us behind the scenes look into one of
Speaker 1: America's most popular and successful game shows, clear by the
Speaker 1: Way as a writer for The Ringer, where she covers
Speaker 1: sports and culture. We began by talking about the top
Speaker 1: performing contestant, Ken Jennings. Kind of such an interesting figure
Speaker 1: in Jeopardy's history, and obviously I am biased now that
Speaker 1: he has written my forward, but he is really a delight.
Speaker 1: He was first on the show in in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: and he won seventy four games and of course became
Speaker 1: this kind of national sensation in this been on the
Speaker 1: show um many times since then, including this past January
Speaker 1: when he won the Greatest of All Time tournament, and
Speaker 1: so that he had kind of retired from Jeopardy game
Speaker 1: plan now is actually a consulting producer with the show.
Speaker 1: But he's really interesting case because he he has been
Speaker 1: able to sort of track these changes in the way
Speaker 1: that m Jeopardy is played over the years, and that
Speaker 1: was that was really something I was curious about going
Speaker 1: into the book and wanted to highlight. He He has
Speaker 1: said that really what we're seeing right now is kind
Speaker 1: of a moneyball moment for Jeopardy where it used to
Speaker 1: be in two thousand four, even ten years ago, but
Speaker 1: even less than that. It used to be like, if
Speaker 1: you were preparing for Jeopardy, you got the call to
Speaker 1: go on and and tape an episode, you had baby
Speaker 1: three weeks before your taping, you know, make some flash
Speaker 1: cards for the presidents and vice presidents and then you'd
Speaker 1: you'd be good to go. But now people prepare in
Speaker 1: this rigorous kind of academic way. In physical ways, people
Speaker 1: try to shave down uh their reaction time so that
Speaker 1: they can master the buzzer more effectively. They they you know,
Speaker 1: use all kinds of mass to tell them what to
Speaker 1: do in Final Jeopardy, and with daily doubles, it's it's
Speaker 1: become this really kind of advanced statistic sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the good old days and we just take
Speaker 1: the s a T and we didn't really think about it.
Speaker 1: Now it's like, man, everybody's got like, hey, listen, tell
Speaker 1: us about the test that contestants take, because my understanding
Speaker 1: is that Alex used to take it a lot, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, didn't you take it? I did? Unfortunately yes,
Speaker 1: M Yeah, So the any any aspiring Jeopardy contestant takes
Speaker 1: a fifty question UM online tests and it's the kind
Speaker 1: of material you would see on the show. You don't
Speaker 1: have to write in UM the who is or the
Speaker 1: what is, but it is that same kind of general
Speaker 1: interest sort of stuff you would see on any any
Speaker 1: given night. And it is generally thought that thirty five
Speaker 1: out of fifty is a passing score. It's a really
Speaker 1: hard test, but they don't even tell you how you do,
Speaker 1: much less what a passing score is. So of course
Speaker 1: it becomes this thing where after people take the test,
Speaker 1: they huddle with other contestants to compare answers and they
Speaker 1: figure out exactly how they did. It's like being in
Speaker 1: high school again, right exactly exactly, And and if they
Speaker 1: do pass, they might get invited then to an audition
Speaker 1: where they basically do the same thing over again. And
Speaker 1: of course what that looks like now is you do
Speaker 1: it over a video with with one of the show's
Speaker 1: producers and contesting coordinators UM, and it kind of in
Speaker 1: real time saying the answers UM, and then if you
Speaker 1: pass that, you move on to sort of a buzzer audition.
Speaker 1: Can you play the game? Would you? Would you work
Speaker 1: on television kind of thing. Um, and and then you
Speaker 1: might get invited to the show after after that final stuff.
Speaker 1: But yes, I was more or less tricked into taking
Speaker 1: the test by the producers. I'd I had gone to
Speaker 1: for the book basically file and one of one of
Speaker 1: the auditions last year, and uh, at the last minute
Speaker 1: they informed me that I would be required to take
Speaker 1: the past as well, and need lessen said, you will
Speaker 1: not be seeing me on Jeopardy anytime, and which is
Speaker 1: absolutely for the best. I know. That's that's UM with you.
Speaker 1: I'm with you on that. Um. What I want to
Speaker 1: ask you is Alex Trebeck. What was he like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he he was. He was so what he seemed like
Speaker 1: on the show. He he so much. Was that that
Speaker 1: kind of scholarly, smart, sharp, curious, kind of a cerbic,
Speaker 1: self deprecating person. He was really funny too, and I think, well,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite discoveries in this was, um, you
Speaker 1: could see at the end of episodes Alex Turbec approaches
Speaker 1: the contestants podiums and and kind of has like a
Speaker 1: chit chat, shakes the champions hand, but you can't hear
Speaker 1: what they're saying. They turned the mics off for that,
Speaker 1: and I talked to a whole lot of contestants who
Speaker 1: had been on the stage, and what they said is
Speaker 1: that more often than not, what he was saying was
Speaker 1: he just wanted to talk about whatever the final Jeopardy
Speaker 1: question is. Then he wanted to ask the people who
Speaker 1: got it, how did you work that out? And he
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of softly chib the people who didn't
Speaker 1: get there, who of course are heartbroken that they were
Speaker 1: just lost on Jeopardy, And he just he he really
Speaker 1: did care about those things. He cared about the trivia.
Speaker 1: It was important to him, um and I think that
Speaker 1: just it came through in his hosting, and I think
Speaker 1: it did so much to help the show have that identity.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is it is so hard to imagine
Speaker 1: Jeopardy without Alex Trebeck. You know. I think Ken Jennings
Speaker 1: and bodies a lot of what people would want in
Speaker 1: the Jeopardy contestant in that he has a lot of
Speaker 1: those same qualities, and that he is very smart, he
Speaker 1: does care very much about these things. He is funny,
Speaker 1: obviously because he's been on the show so much over
Speaker 1: the last sixteen years. He is kind of synonymous with Jeopardy,
Speaker 1: we shall see what happens. That's Clara mcneir, writer for
Speaker 1: The Ringer, where she covers sports and culture. Her book
Speaker 1: Answers in the Form of Questions, A Definitive History and
Speaker 1: Insider's Guide to Jeopardy. Here's a question, who will be
Speaker 1: the next host of Jeopardy? All right? Straight ahead on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week. Someone who is trying to find answers
Speaker 1: for millions of sufferers and the answer that may lay
Speaker 1: in something that's been around for thousands of years. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with GARYL. Masser
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. We're gonna wrap up this week with
Speaker 1: something innovative, provocative and still yet in the early phase
Speaker 1: and be featured in an upcoming edition of Bloomberg bus
Speaker 1: As we talks. It's about one of this year's successful
Speaker 1: I p O is a company that has patented a
Speaker 1: synthetic version of the active ingredient and so called magic
Speaker 1: mushrooms for use in treatment resistant depression. We caught up
Speaker 1: with Compass Pathways chairman, CEO and co founder George Goldsmith.
Speaker 1: He joined us from London and talked to us about
Speaker 1: what has been a very personal story from our point
Speaker 1: of view. We had our son really struggled with mental
Speaker 1: health issues when he lent to university, like far too
Speaker 1: many young people do. We thought, how hard could this be?
Speaker 1: You know, they're good treatments and therapies, Yet the more
Speaker 1: he encountered, the more difficult it was for him to
Speaker 1: be recognizable to us with the side effects, and it
Speaker 1: didn't really help him. So we then started talking to
Speaker 1: lots of different people doing our own research, my co
Speaker 1: founder and wife as Guy, as a doctor and in
Speaker 1: her own researchers, she stumbled across philocybin and philocybin research
Speaker 1: and we became really intrigued by this um. The other
Speaker 1: thing that happened simultaneously is the more people we talked
Speaker 1: about our own challenges that we were facing, the more
Speaker 1: we heard from others about their challenges. These would be
Speaker 1: long term friends who we've known for quite a while,
Speaker 1: but they never felt comfortable sharing their own challenges until
Speaker 1: we did. And that really led us to to understand
Speaker 1: that almost everybody has a story of you know, how
Speaker 1: the current system isn't quite helping enough people well enough,
Speaker 1: and that really inspired us to look at this research.
Speaker 1: We saw this promise, and and the issue is how
Speaker 1: do we bring it to patients, not just bring it
Speaker 1: into the next journal article. And journal articles are critically important,
Speaker 1: but they're necessary but not sufficient to bring this to patients.
Speaker 1: And that's really our well. And I do you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting I was doing some reading on this and
Speaker 1: that my understanding is for those you know, patients and
Speaker 1: individuals who deal with and and suffer depression, that there
Speaker 1: the existing treatments only really work for about seventy patients,
Speaker 1: leaving as many as ninety millions still struggling around the world.
Speaker 1: I think that's some world health organization. So it is
Speaker 1: a huge and I hate to put it in business terms,
Speaker 1: but we are Bloomberg. It's a huge market. It is
Speaker 1: hate give me great markets of suffering, for it is
Speaker 1: a huge market, right in that sense. And so there's
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of suffering and I think we've been
Speaker 1: pretty good at developing tools to ameliorate of that, but
Speaker 1: is quite quite difficult because what happens is with each
Speaker 1: new treatment, those people actually have less and less likely
Speaker 1: that to be helped by what's next. And there's been
Speaker 1: a very large studies in the US by the National
Speaker 1: Sudamental Health and we really have documentation for that. So
Speaker 1: if we have the opportunity to do something unique here,
Speaker 1: which is well do so what we do is we
Speaker 1: provide a very high dose of suicide in a carefully
Speaker 1: controlled setting under supervision by especially trained therapists. So this
Speaker 1: isn't anything that anyone do at home and um patients
Speaker 1: listen to a special soundtrack and they're really supported through
Speaker 1: this process. And what happens is that afterwards, for many
Speaker 1: patients they experience an immediate reduction and depression that actually
Speaker 1: lasts for quite a while. And what are research really
Speaker 1: looking at is well, who benefits not everyone, so who
Speaker 1: doesn't and what separates the people who benefit for a
Speaker 1: few weeks from the single dose for a few months
Speaker 1: of people who actually have even longer experiences. So we've
Speaker 1: went to the FDA and actually we're operating now in
Speaker 1: ten countries dueing clinical research, twenty one research sites, and
Speaker 1: we're really looking at how do we do the real
Speaker 1: deep research to generate the information and insight. We need
Speaker 1: to go to what's the next phase rest which would
Speaker 1: be phase three trials, and we'll be reporting out on
Speaker 1: our Phase two trials about a year from now. So
Speaker 1: we're and really excited about the progress. And I should
Speaker 1: say that the FDA has named your experimental treatment quote
Speaker 1: a breakthrough therapy, which is, you know, really wonderful to
Speaker 1: kind of get that acknowledgement, but it also means now
Speaker 1: you've got to do more rigorous, more risk adverse testing.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of pressure, I'm assuming, and you've got
Speaker 1: to make sure you're working with the right scientists, the
Speaker 1: best scientists, the best clinical trials correct well, absolutely and
Speaker 1: absolutely and then even more so right because obviously there's
Speaker 1: a history here um as what we're looking to do
Speaker 1: is the highest quality, rigorous, most rigorous research. The first
Speaker 1: support of Call for Us was actually even before we
Speaker 1: formed the company, to speak with regulators players just to
Speaker 1: understand what did they think about this and what we
Speaker 1: were really struck by in all the conversations, and the
Speaker 1: breakthrough therapy designation is I think a perfect example of this.
Speaker 1: The problem is so big, and that's what you said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's such a huge amount of suffering here.
Speaker 1: The tools we have are good for some, but not enough.
Speaker 1: They saw this is the promising So what we found
Speaker 1: is that a huge amount of support, but we really
Speaker 1: have to get this right. We have to get it
Speaker 1: right for patients, for their families and society. How big
Speaker 1: of a market opportunity do you think is there for
Speaker 1: compass pathways just quickly, Well, I think that what we
Speaker 1: see and this is not obviously they're about ninety million
Speaker 1: people suffering from so called treatment resistent depression. But to
Speaker 1: be clear, this isn't people who is not a group
Speaker 1: of people who are resisting treatment. This is a group
Speaker 1: of people for whom are treatment stoke work and so
Speaker 1: perhaps you know, I think this is really really important,
Speaker 1: but that's just the start, because really what we're looking
Speaker 1: at is working on areas of mental health where people
Speaker 1: get caught in patterns of negative thinking or patterns of
Speaker 1: obsessive thinking that happens in other areas like anxiety or
Speaker 1: O c D or other things. And we're really curious
Speaker 1: about how could this mechan is um of a high
Speaker 1: dose of psilocybin therapy yield benefit for other classes of
Speaker 1: people who aren't help enough. So is this like a
Speaker 1: potentially a multibillion dollar drug potential um? Well, I think
Speaker 1: that it is potential to have it be a therapy.
Speaker 1: It's really important that it's not a drug drugs. It's
Speaker 1: given in constant combination with psychological support and that's the
Speaker 1: critical pick. Hey, So before I move on, though, you
Speaker 1: did say and I thought this was a really important distinction, George,
Speaker 1: as you said, it's not a drug, it's a potential therapy.
Speaker 1: Having said that, I do think you know our listeners
Speaker 1: are curious, UM about how big that market size might
Speaker 1: be anxiety disorders to print it, the depression treatment market,
Speaker 1: it's expected to be something like So what's your expectation
Speaker 1: or thoughts on this? So a few things. One is
Speaker 1: I appreciate your digging into this. So just to give
Speaker 1: you some and your listeners some perspective. Depression is the
Speaker 1: leading cause of disability worldwide, just depression, UM. And in
Speaker 1: the US, the annual costs of depression is forecast to
Speaker 1: be about two hundred billion per year and a large
Speaker 1: number of that is direct costs of out patients in
Speaker 1: patient medical services, pharmaceutical services, and the number you referred
Speaker 1: to is largely in the pharmaceutical space. Now, what we
Speaker 1: know is that about a third of patients, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: simply aren't helped, and the third of patients that aren't
Speaker 1: helped actually are about three or four times more expensive
Speaker 1: two or three depends on kind of where where you're
Speaker 1: doing the data UM than patients who are helped by
Speaker 1: these medicines UM. And so we have not only a
Speaker 1: very large group of patients who aren't helped, but also
Speaker 1: those are the most expensive patients. And so if we
Speaker 1: could make a difference in their lives, I think there's
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity to really um develop a new model
Speaker 1: of care for them. And this is what's so interesting
Speaker 1: about what we're doing. It is therapy, right, It's a
Speaker 1: single dose under supervised circumstances, with preparation and then some
Speaker 1: follow up afterwards. And what's really unique about this. So
Speaker 1: they did some really fascinating work at Johns Hopkins where
Speaker 1: a lot of this research was reborn in the over
Speaker 1: ten years ago. One of the questions they asked patients
Speaker 1: who had gone through this, and they asked this question
Speaker 1: six weeks after this experience, They said, how meaningful would
Speaker 1: you say this experience was in your life? Personally meaningful?
Speaker 1: And people were given you know, is at the most
Speaker 1: meaningful of the top five you know? And so over
Speaker 1: seventy said the single experience was one of the top
Speaker 1: five most meaningful experiences of their life. Right, So you
Speaker 1: can't you can't really put you can't you can't write no, no, no.
Speaker 1: And I wish you we were in person because you
Speaker 1: could see me smiling, because you can't put a value
Speaker 1: on it. And I have a sister who works in
Speaker 1: this area, so I've kind of grown up learning about this,
Speaker 1: and I agree that there's an unbelievable cost by not,
Speaker 1: you know, helping out this sector of our population. And
Speaker 1: also it's invaluable in terms of they basically get their
Speaker 1: lives back. Having said that, you kind of evaded my answer.
Speaker 1: So there was this like a multibillion dollar potential treatment
Speaker 1: or tens of Yes, I think it is multi billion. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and you know we've had so But again that's if
Speaker 1: the trials were well, what's let's let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: because that's a big deal. I mean, listen, we're all
Speaker 1: learning about the drug process, right because of the drug
Speaker 1: approval process, because of COVID. What challenges does does the
Speaker 1: US present? What regulatory hurdles still remain? And I do
Speaker 1: wonder if you're following kind of the playbook from marijuana
Speaker 1: kind of prescription first, recreational second, how are you thinking
Speaker 1: about it? Not at all. We're really thinking about the
Speaker 1: huge unmet needs there is for patients. Uh, And that's
Speaker 1: you know, what we're really focused on is access. Nuts
Speaker 1: means approval by medicaid, by you know, insurers. So from
Speaker 1: day one, we've been really focusing on making sure that
Speaker 1: if this in fact is successful in trials, people have
Speaker 1: access to it, and that means working with insurers even
Speaker 1: in the design of clinical trials to make sure they
Speaker 1: have the evidence because hey, this for this patient population,
Speaker 1: so that's super important to us. It's a different model
Speaker 1: than a recreational model, and that's Compass Pathways chairman, CEO
Speaker 1: and co founder George Goldsmith. And that wraps up the
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser. Be sure
Speaker 1: to tune into our daily show Monday through Friday, starting
Speaker 1: at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. Be
Speaker 1: sure to also check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget we're also
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Just search on Bloomberg Global News and check
Speaker 1: out our Bloomberg Business Week Extra podcast. We had a
Speaker 1: chat with Mattel President Richard Dixon on a new digital
Speaker 1: platform called Hotel Creations. Bloomberg Business Week available on newse
Speaker 1: Stance Now online and of course always on the Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Have a safe weekend, everybody. This is Bloomberg.