WEBVTT - Legendary Financier Milken Talks Medicine 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.920 These sees Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.920 Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio. Our next guest known certainly first 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.119 time on Wall Street, the Highs and Lows, and for 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:13.280 changing how Wall Street finances deals. A high yield pioneer. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.920 Much reporting has been done on his life, A very 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.520 private individual who has created very public forms via his 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:21.880 Milk and Institute and more to shed a lot of light, 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.240 conversations and action on the global challenges of our time. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.040 He's got a new book out. It's called Faster Cures, 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.600 Accelerating the Future of Health. He wrote it with Jeffrey 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.440 Evansmore Joining us is Mike Milk, and Mike joins us 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.800 via zoom in Los Angeles. Mike, nice to have you 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.960 here on Bloomberg. How are you. I'm Greg, Carol, looking 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.760 forward to seeing you at the Global conference later this month. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:45.600 I am looking forward to it, and I have to 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.479 say my first Milk and Institute there. I assumed it 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.159 would be a lot of financial types. I was surprised 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.240 by the wellness and the healthcare component, but in your 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.720 book you really bring it all together. I mean, you 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.400 can't have advancements if you will in healthcare and R 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.960 and D with also without not having that access to capital, 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.640 you bring it all together. Talk to us about why 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:10.800 you wrote this book specifically and why you wrote it now. 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.920 I would say why I wrote it now is a 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.400 very simple answer. We had geared up for COVID nineteen 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.119 and everything that went before it. An incremental funding by 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.160 the federal government of a half a trillion dollars laid 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:32.280 the groundwork, and it was nine weeks sixty three days 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:37.319 between the sequencing the DNA of the virus and putting 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.840 it in the first human We get geared up for emergencies, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.440 and then we get geared down. So the reason I 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:48.240 wrote this book was to reflect on fifty years of 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:53.080 medical and healthcare progress, but also as a call to 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:58.280 action now that the next generation the new technology is 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.960 to be deployed and we have an opportunity to finally 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.760 bring to an end many life threatening diseases. It was 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:10.640 to keep the energy going, both financially and continuing to 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:15.200 recruit the best and brightest into the field, landing it 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:17.320 wind down. Mike, I have to say one of the 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.720 things that struck me in your book, and I really 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.440 thought about this coming off the pandemic, the collaboration that 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.000 we saw on some existing work that had been done 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.919 years before, but just jumping on it and the coordination, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.560 if you will, that we saw. You talk about how 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.240 medical institutions are competitors, not collaborator, especially when it comes 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.440 to getting money for R and D. That system that 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:45.640 we still have inherently flawed. Well, it's changed dramatically in 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.120 the last thirty years, where I would say today you 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:54.399 have team science. So we just finished some major breakthroughs 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.880 coming out of Melbourne at the Peter mccollumn, but it 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.639 was coordinated in Europe, the United States and other parts 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.520 of the world as a team. And so there has 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:09.239 been but never have we seen cooperation as we did 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:15.720 during this recent pandemic between for profit academic science centers government. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.840 The idea that the government would put forth money to 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.880 build factories before we knew if the vaccines work, or 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:31.440 fun research and manufacture vaccines before we knew that they 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.840 would work. So that one the cost of the country, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.440 just this country, maybe a trillion a month, was so 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:44.960 great that investing in products and plants of a few 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.680 billion dollars if it didn't work, was small compared to 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.400 what was going on. Not just the United States, but 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.720 around the world. Mike before the pandemic, and I take 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.360 you back to you growing up in the fifties, and 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.400 you take us through your life and some of the 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.760 health crises that your family has had to deal with. 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.760 You talk about your dad, your mother in law, your kids, 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.480 and of course yourself a first cousin as well. This 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.640 book is very personal personal. What was it about the 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.600 crisis that your family, the medical crisis that you yourself 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.800 went through in your family, the impact that that had 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.000 that has gotten you to do what you have done 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.080 over the last few decades. Well, I would say just 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.160 the realization of my father's experience with polio and then 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:36.720 with melanoma, our children's challenges. No family, There isn't any 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.040 family that doesn't have these. Our family is not unique. 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.680 One and two men get cancer in their lifetime one 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:48.560 in three women. But the fact that I really could 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.760 not discuss with my dad what we've been able to 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.760 do to create access to capit on in the financial world, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.480 make it available to millions of company and these great jobs, etc. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:07.159 Because of his own medical issues in many ways, he 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.599 was not able to succuss his success with his parents, 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.039 and they both passed away. But I think there was 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:20.880 that very famous music and song that life gets in 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.480 the way. So you have a plan, but something happens 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.520 in life, and I don't feel people in economic terms 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.520 or in the financial world really realize that more than 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.200 fifty percent of all economic growth in the last two 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.680 hundred years can be traced to advances in health and 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:45.240 medical research. And if we just reflect that at the 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:50.279 start of the twentieth century, average life expectancy on planet 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.000 Earth was thirty one and today, one hundred and twenty 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:59.159 years later, it's in the mid seventies. This dramatic, dramatic 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.680 change not only in the extension of life, but the 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:07.760 quality of life has driven the world's economy. In Southeast Asia, 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:12.839 you've had a doubling of life expectancy in two generations, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:18.080 and now due to medical breakthroughs in Sub Sahara Africa, 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:22.560 many countries are seeing a doubling of life expectancy and 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:27.440 one generation. How that affects the economy, how it affects 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:34.039 relationships between generations is greatly underestimated. No, I think that 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.360 you know, we talked so much about economic impacts, market impacts, 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.120 and that is certainly clear when you think about it. 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.360 That way. I want to go back to what you 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.760 said you were quoting. I believe a song you have 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.800 a plan, life gets in the way. Talk to us 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.080 about you obviously had a plan and then life got 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.320 in the way. When you are forty six years old, 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.320 and there's been much written about your terminal cancer diagnosis 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.839 back in nineteen ninety three, I can only imagine how 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.920 that felt. But reading about it in the book, you know, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:05.880 you got your diagnosis, and then it seems like you 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.080 set about and got to work talking to a lot 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.960 of different doctors to figure out that there had to 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.520 be a better way. Well, I think one of the 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.440 things you learned that when people have life threatening diseases, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.360 and I had lost ten relatives by that time and 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:27.000 my prognosis was worse than all of them, is often 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:31.640 at the beginning they do the least possible, and when 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.520 you have a reoccurrence later, they'll do anything to try 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.160 to stay alive. And so I think one of the 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.680 things we're trying to bring to bear here is that 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:46.920 technology afford you such a better chance today. And I 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.920 would say, unfortunately, most of the people diagnosed in my 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:55.400 condition thirty years within five years had all passed away, 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:01.520 but I chose a different path that involved nutrition. Iervade 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.480 a medicine. I went to China to visit with doctors Russia, healers, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:12.640 witch doctors in Africa, Western medicine. But I found a 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:17.320 lot of strength in Indian medicine at that period of 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:21.160 time and continued with observing many of the things that 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.440 have been around for five thousand years to try to 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.480 energize my immune system. But the world is so different 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.080 today than it was when I was diagnosed. Then they 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.840 told me I had eighteen months to live. Today, if 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.800 you were diagnosed in my condition, someone might tell you 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.680 that you're not going to die from cancer. You're not 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.640 going to die from this disease. That we have solutions 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:50.280 and the marrying of really three things, one access to 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:55.079 capital to recruiting the best and brightest to go into 0:08:55.120 --> 0:09:01.199 this field. And three the tremendous advanced it's in technology 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.679 with computers a million times faster and data storage costs 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.720 one billion have brought us to where we are today. 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.240 That we have an excellent chance to find a solution 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.000 for each individual who has a life threatening disease in 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.359 their own lifetime, which is great to hear some optimism 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.960 having some own family members who are dealing with some 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.719 difficuent health issues, it does feel like there are a 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.840 lot more options. Hey, Mike. One of the things I 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.680 was thinking about and prepping for our conversation was that 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.120 when you got your diagnosis and you reached out to 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.880 the healthcare network that you knew or were able to 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.559 tap into various resources, you're already philanthropic and doing work 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.840 when it came to healthcare and medical research. You know 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.200 that access enabled you to I think open doors that 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.320 maybe some would say we don't all have. And I 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.079 feel like coming off the pandemic, we talked about the 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.000 inequities in healthcare. How do we get rid of the 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.959 inequities in healthcare? Is it even truly fully POSSI the ball? 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.880 I believe it's possible, and we're on the verge of 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.760 making it happen. So when you just think it costs 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.079 three billion dollars, took more in the decade to sequence 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.600 the human geno now less than an hour and one 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.800 hundred or two hundred dollars, and someday it will be 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.080 ten to twenty. It's available for everyone. And now in 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.840 terms of cost, the idea that we can get the 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.080 right treatment. So I was on a commission here in 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.960 California number of years ago when the name was the 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:38.560 Personalized Medicine Commission, and within six months or eight months, 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:43.079 we changed the name to the Precision Medicine Commission so 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.720 we could be precise. And when we submitted the report 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.760 after a couple of years, it was the Precision Health Commission, 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.720 so we could figure out not only to treat you 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.240 after you or sick, but before. But as you pointed out, 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.520 during the pandemic, we learned a number of things. We 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.959 knew there were food deserts where people couldn't access fruits 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.000 and vegetables in their neighborhood. We then discovered there were 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.520 financial deserts where people didn't have bank accounts, and when 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.680 the government wanted to write funding to serve as a 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.280 safety net, they couldn't get the money to people. And lastly, 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.439 there were health deserts where people did not have a 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.480 facility in the neighborhood they could visit to take care of. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.440 But if we start with just the United States, the 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:37.359 demographics in the United States and have changed so dramatically. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.720 So sixty years ago, seventy five percent of everyone that 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.280 was not born in the United States was born in 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:50.280 Europe and ten percent in Canada. Today seventy percent of 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.160 everyone not born in the United States was born in 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.880 Latin America, Asia, and almost eleven percent of everyone not 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.840 born in the United States was more in Africa or 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.960 seven or eight percent in the Middle East. So the 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.840 face of Americas changed dramatically, and we need to make 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:15.040 sure for clinical trials and access to healthcare every individual 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.559 has that opportunity, and that is one of our focuses 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:23.560 that faster cures. The center is health equities and access 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:28.640 because if we primarily have people of European ancestry going 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.280 into clinical trials, we're not going to get the exact 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.040 breakdown of the population, and so we need to find 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:40.080 a way to recruit and provide access. But the dropping 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:44.600 in cost of getting the facts. The idea that we 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.719 can change your genes, then we know we can do 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.240 that today by Christopher, we're not going to do it 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.280 because we don't understand all the ramification yet, but we 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.160 do know that you can change how your genes are 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:02.320 expressed by changing your micro biom and you can start 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.640 to do that in seven days by changing what you eat, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.079 what you drink, and your lifestyle. So there are numerous 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:15.280 programs available today throughout this country that are now reaching 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.280 out to a much more diverse population to make sure. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.480 What we learned during COVID is we have to find 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.120 a way to get healthcare to our entire population. And 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.800 as you know, there's been a lot of research. The 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.800 first thing that came out was that twenty minute subway 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.400 ride from Manhattan up to the Bronx or so you 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:43.679 reduce life expectancy by a decade or so, or if 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:46.880 you look at other parts in Baltimore, I think life 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.959 expectancy in the city is almost twenty years less than 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.199 it is in the suburbs. So we know the problems, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.400 we have the data, and now we need to put 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.679 the systems in place to take care of that shortfall. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.880 In your book and the interr the early innovation and 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.080 finance turned out to be a template for much of 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:10.080 what you all have accomplished in the search for faster cures. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.280 Your financial background, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.120 do you ever miss Wall Street or at least being 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:22.280 involved specifically with a financial firm, either on Wall Street 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:24.320 or out there on the West Coast in the day 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.280 to day mind if you will. The Milk, the Milken 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:32.120 Institute is heavily involved. Our Center for Financial Markets are 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:37.000 global efforts creating new financial markets. And you make a 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:41.120 very interesting point in that the analogy holds. When I 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:46.280 was a student at Berkeley, after the Watts riots had 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.920 occurred here in Los Angeles, when I was visiting on 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:55.480 August eleventh, nineteen sixty five, I changed my major to 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.160 focus on finance and access to capital. And then a 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.880 many young an American man who told me his father 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.240 didn't have access to capital because of the color of 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.600 his skin in nor would he and it didn't make 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.040 any sense to me, and so I switched and I 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.920 went back to Berkeley, and what I discovered was I 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.440 could access data as a student free that allowed me 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.120 to look at the history and books that have been 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.880 written about credit. And what I discovered is what everyone 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:31.359 was saying about credit was just wrong. The best credits 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.880 happened to be entrepreneurs and companies. The worst credit was 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:41.120 countries throughout all of history. But you couldn't access medical data. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.520 So today it's a totally different world than it was 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:50.040 when I was at Berkeley almost sixty years ago. Today, 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:55.080 this medical data exists. There's numerous companies that have loaded 0:15:55.120 --> 0:16:00.480 the data of individuals, their DNA, their microbio homes, their 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:06.360 biological history, their clinical history, and so today a young 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.280 student such as I was at Berkeley could access this 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.080 data as a medical student at a university today and 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.680 test out their theories the same as I was able 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.880 to test out my theories when I was both an 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.280 undergrad and a graduate student. And that is why we're 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:30.040 seeing this explosion of advances in medical research. We don't 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.520 have to guess anymore of what is the potential best 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.520 treatment for an individual or what their disease is. We 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.720 now can identify what is that disease, just like we 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.800 identified the DNA of the virus and COVID nineteen and 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.280 then created vaccines against it. And that's the big We 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.120 just got about thirty seconds, Mike. That's really the big 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.440 game changer when we think about what takes us to 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.400 the next level in healthcare, and again just got about 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:03.600 twenty five seconds. Well, we're on the verge of our 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:08.679 understanding of immunology to allow your own immune system to 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.160 rehabilitate you to deal with disease. And the once again, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.600 the reason I wrote this book now is that we 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:22.800 can seize defeat if we don't continue what we were 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.200 able to accomplish during COVID. We are on the verge 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:30.960 of a revolution that can eliminate many life threatened diseases 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.800 for our children and our grandchildren if we just stay 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.560 with it today. Well, so appreciate getting some time and 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:38.480 looking forward to being with you and your team out 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.080 there on the West Coast. Mike Milkin, thank you so much. 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.280 As we mentioned, the new book is Faster Cures, Accelerating 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:45.840 the future of health. Mike, thank you.