Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. I am here with
Speaker 1: Teva Pharmaceutical CEO Richard Francis joining me right now. Nice
Speaker 1: to see you in person.
Speaker 2: Crazy to be here, Katie. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the past year that you've had.
Speaker 1: Because you take a look at your share performance, shares
Speaker 1: up one hundred and eleven percent last year alone, that
Speaker 1: is your second best performance on record. How do you
Speaker 1: plan to keep that momentum going in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Well, so, thank you, thank of Mohamminson, Thank you for
Speaker 3: recognizing that, and maybe could I just take a book
Speaker 3: of bask in the fact that the team have achieved that.
Speaker 3: And I'm really proud of the team at Teva because
Speaker 3: we've had some tough times and to come back with
Speaker 3: that share growth happens because we've done a lot of
Speaker 3: things well, and I think it's primarily been driven by
Speaker 3: the fact that we've moved our innovative portfolio forward and
Speaker 3: we've sold that particularly well, commercialized it really well in
Speaker 3: the United States. Oesteto jaceti in a jovi and those
Speaker 3: who performed tremendously well raised our consensus twice in the
Speaker 3: year because of their performance. And then towards the end
Speaker 3: of the year, our pipeline started to mature and we
Speaker 3: saw some great data on our till one A and
Speaker 3: that was sort of, you know, I think, really surprised everybody.
Speaker 3: And so with all that, we had a great twenty
Speaker 3: four and in a way to be a little bit boring,
Speaker 3: it's going to be more of the same in twenty five.
Speaker 3: We're going to keep driving a stead of keep driving
Speaker 3: your steady, keep driving your Jovi, and bring that pipeline
Speaker 3: through because now people are really excited about the innovative
Speaker 3: aspects of TABA and our pipeline and still do that
Speaker 3: and on our generics and BIA similars, keep driving that.
Speaker 3: That's being a consistent driver for us and throwing off
Speaker 3: cash that allows us to invest in innovative business which
Speaker 3: is creating so much excitement.
Speaker 1: Well, in your case, more of the same is good.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your shareholders would be happy to see a
Speaker 1: repeat performance there. But I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about generic drugs and particularly prices, because prices for
Speaker 1: generics still going down in the US, and I believe
Speaker 1: you said on your latest earnings call that you expect
Speaker 1: generic prices to be push down further in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So against that backdrop, I mean, how do you sustain
Speaker 1: the generics business in that deflationary environment.
Speaker 3: Well, I think for Generics you've got to have a
Speaker 3: few things. You've got to be global in scale and
Speaker 3: we are. You've got to have a really deep pipeline
Speaker 3: which we do, a great manufacturing capability, which we do,
Speaker 3: and then a go to market model which.
Speaker 2: We have that global reach.
Speaker 3: We have to did all of those three three things
Speaker 3: really consistently. I do think, you know, they comes to
Speaker 3: a point where as much as we can offset those
Speaker 3: price decreases and keep growing the company, I do think
Speaker 3: healthcare systems in the United States and Europe need to
Speaker 3: understand are they paying the right amount for what are
Speaker 3: high quality medicines. I think TeV supplies roughly one in
Speaker 3: ten one in twelve.
Speaker 2: Scripts in the United States.
Speaker 3: Every ten or twelve scripts is a TeV script, and
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of that because we help affordable medicines.
Speaker 3: People have access to affordable medicines. But despite our efficiency
Speaker 3: and our scale, then I do think potentially we have
Speaker 3: to think about that if we want to have that
Speaker 3: level of service and not to have any issues supply.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into some supply questions here. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about Adderall because you have both brand name
Speaker 1: and generic Adderall in a shortage since twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: which of course you manufacture. What more can be done
Speaker 1: to end the shortage and what role do you think
Speaker 1: that the government and other companies should be playing here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is an interesting one because there's
Speaker 3: been a sort of dramatic increase in the prescriptions of
Speaker 3: this product, and so because of the type of product
Speaker 3: it is, we're given a quota by the government and
Speaker 3: what we can make, and so we make that amount
Speaker 3: and we max out on that amount because it's a
Speaker 3: restricted substance, and so it's quite a complex supply chain.
Speaker 3: I think part of it is about assessing is this
Speaker 3: this about supply or is this about prescriptions? And is
Speaker 3: this about overprescribing? And I think that's the area that
Speaker 3: needs to be looked at. But we're maxed out on
Speaker 3: what we're being asked to do, and we're committed to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: So I think it's a big and more complex story.
Speaker 1: Two questions there, I guess, would do you expect that
Speaker 1: you know that ceiling on what you can make to
Speaker 1: move higher. And then what is your opinion. Do you
Speaker 1: think that this is an issue of supply or over
Speaker 1: a prescription.
Speaker 2: That's a really good question.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's one where when I look
Speaker 3: at it comparative to other markets than the usage and
Speaker 3: the supply is a lot higher in the United States,
Speaker 3: so you don't often see discrepancies on the geographics called
Speaker 3: scale like that. So I think it's probably something as
Speaker 3: people investigate it, and I think the government should look
Speaker 3: into it, and the FDA, I think it may be
Speaker 3: is a bit of both, but I think the supply
Speaker 3: is probably where it should.
Speaker 2: Be, maybe needs a bit more.
Speaker 3: I think the prescriptions is really accelerated dramatically, and we've
Speaker 3: got to ask why is that a change in the
Speaker 3: incidents the epidemiology.
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a big question when it comes to over
Speaker 1: prescribing that I won't ask you that particularly, but I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about GLP ones because you came
Speaker 1: out with your first generic GLP one drug. It's a
Speaker 1: copy of one of Novo Nordist's lineup. What are your
Speaker 1: plans for selling generics of the more popular GLP ones
Speaker 1: that are out there.
Speaker 2: So we plan to do it.
Speaker 3: So we have that one Victor's that that came out
Speaker 3: last year, and this year we planned to launch sex Enders.
Speaker 3: That's another GLP one And our aim is to know
Speaker 3: as a global generics company, any product that loses its
Speaker 3: patterned we sort of have in our line of sight,
Speaker 3: and obviously the bigger ones we definitely have in our
Speaker 3: line of sight. So all those GLP onees and those
Speaker 3: emerging other modalities in.
Speaker 2: Obesity we would target.
Speaker 3: But we always think about capital allocation because as much
Speaker 3: as we're a nine billion dollar generics business, but also
Speaker 3: one of the fastest growing innovative companies, and so capital
Speaker 3: allocation is very important. So we're still put in the
Speaker 3: majority of our capital into our innovative business because we
Speaker 3: have such a deep pipeline and such an exciting pipeline
Speaker 3: that we want to make sure that's properly resourced.
Speaker 1: Well to that point of capital allocation. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the M and A outlook here, because we're at the
Speaker 1: JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. We are being hit over the
Speaker 1: head with deal announcements and you're expected to see a
Speaker 1: more friendly regulatory environment, at least in the United States
Speaker 1: under the second Trump administration. What is your strategy when
Speaker 1: it comes to M and A right now?
Speaker 2: Yes, So we're sort of one.
Speaker 3: Our balance sheet allows us to do a certain amount,
Speaker 3: so I don't think this years go big. We're probably
Speaker 3: going to en license a lot of well looked at
Speaker 3: in licensed products. But the thing we have is because
Speaker 3: we have this pipeline that I keep talking about in
Speaker 3: late stage. We have a product dary in ASPA in
Speaker 3: phase three, we have a lands of Being in phase
Speaker 3: three for schizophrenia, and we have the TIL one A
Speaker 3: which everything's excited about at the end of last year
Speaker 3: phase two and now.
Speaker 2: Moving into phase three.
Speaker 3: So we have a lot of growth drivers coming forward
Speaker 3: in Teva. So and then we have other products that
Speaker 3: we've moved into phase two and resolvement for MSA.
Speaker 2: A read disease. So we're quite on our pipeline.
Speaker 3: So when we think about BD or M and A,
Speaker 3: we've got to think carefully because we can get a
Speaker 3: lot of capital to our own pipeline and I think
Speaker 3: give a good return for our shareholders.
Speaker 2: And so when we look outside, we're just going to
Speaker 2: be mindful.
Speaker 3: Is it worth bringing that in or do we have
Speaker 3: a pipeline and that's the challenge we always have in
Speaker 3: our industry, but I think we're in a particular privileged
Speaker 3: position with Tever because.
Speaker 2: Of the pipeline.
Speaker 3: We have to do some more in licensing than Big
Speaker 3: M and A.
Speaker 1: All right, well, that's a good place to leave it. Richard,
Speaker 1: really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2: Thanks Katie. Pleasure to be here.