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Speaker 1: Vos Narasimon is the CEO of Novartist, a major Swiss

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Speaker 1: based pharmaceutical company. Born in the United States the Indian

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Speaker 1: immigrant parents, he was educated at Harvard Medical School, but

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Speaker 1: chose not to practice medicine. Instead, he chose to go

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Speaker 1: into the pharmaceutical industry and is now leading the transformation

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Speaker 1: of Novartists to one of the most important pharmaceutical companies

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Speaker 1: in the world. Had a chance to sit down with

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Speaker 1: Vos in New York recently to talk about this transformation.

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Speaker 1: So many people know the names of the drugs that

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Speaker 1: they use, but they don't know the names of the

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Speaker 1: drug companies or pharmaceutical companies that produce them. So for

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Speaker 1: people who may not know much about Nevardists, tell us

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Speaker 1: what drugs or pharmaceutical products as are produced that people

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Speaker 1: would have heard of.

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Speaker 2: There's a couple of major drugs we have right now,

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Speaker 2: and Trusto is a medicine for heart failure. Another drug

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Speaker 2: Couthentics for a whole range of immunology indications. We have

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Speaker 2: a drug called Kiskali for breast cancer. As you know,

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Speaker 2: these names are not always tying to what the drugs

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Speaker 2: actually do. But yeah, we have a pretty broad portfolio

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Speaker 2: of medicines over fifteen medicines, over a billion dollars of sales.

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Speaker 1: By the way, speaking of their brand names, who comes

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Speaker 1: up with these brand names? Because they there are names

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Speaker 1: that I can't pronounce. Sometimes you don't know what they mean.

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Speaker 1: Do you have a team of people.

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Speaker 3: That came up.

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Speaker 4: It's a whole industry.

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Speaker 2: Maybe private equity even interested to get into it, but

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Speaker 2: there's a whole industry of people who basically try to

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Speaker 2: find word permutations that might tie to the drug, and

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Speaker 2: then you have to send it to the regulators and

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Speaker 2: they have to be sure that this word will not

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Speaker 2: be confused in any number of different languages for some

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Speaker 2: other medicine or something else.

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Speaker 1: People who don't follow this industry carefully may not recognize it.

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Speaker 1: But the way the industry works, as I understand it

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Speaker 1: is that large pharmaceutical companies either develop internally or through

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Speaker 1: an acquisition a drug or pharmaceutical product that they can sell,

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Speaker 1: and it's patented, and the patents last for seventeen years,

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Speaker 1: seventeen years, seventeen years, and after seventeen years it becomes

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Speaker 1: what's known as a generic, which means that it's not patent.

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Speaker 1: Can get it for presumably a lower price. So is

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Speaker 1: that a good way to make a business? You have

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Speaker 1: you build products in seventeen years they're kind of gone.

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Speaker 2: It's a tough way to make a business, for sure.

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Speaker 2: It means you're on a constant treadmill and you have

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Speaker 2: to constantly have the innovation capacity to have what we

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Speaker 2: call replacement power. You have to replace your sales with

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Speaker 2: the next medicines, the next innovation. So the only winners

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Speaker 2: in the long run are companies that have the R

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Speaker 2: and D firepower, R and D capacity to keep inventing

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Speaker 2: medicines to rejuvenate almost their entire portfolio. So you think

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Speaker 2: of a company like US forty five billion dollars in

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Speaker 2: sales every year. We can have anywhere from two to

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Speaker 2: eight billion dollars plus going off patent, and we have

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Speaker 2: to generate enough sales to replace that and grow on top.

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Speaker 2: And that's why you have a relatively limited number of

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Speaker 2: very large by pharma companies.

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Speaker 1: When somebody develops a drug or pharmaceutical product in a

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Speaker 1: company like you, do you have a big lab. I

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Speaker 1: assume is it all over the world or you have

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Speaker 1: it in Switzerland.

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Speaker 2: We invest about nine and a half billion dollars a

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Speaker 2: year in our and DA research headquarters are in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 2: and bossles it so on.

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Speaker 3: So when you get the product and what do you do?

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Speaker 1: You test it first on animals, and then you test

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Speaker 1: it on small subset of humans and then a large

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Speaker 1: subset of humans.

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Speaker 3: Is that how it works?

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Speaker 2: Roughly, that's how it works, and it's a long journey.

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Speaker 2: First thing we have to do is we have to

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Speaker 2: discover or find what we call a target in the

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Speaker 2: human body that we want a drug. We think this

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Speaker 2: target has some ability to impact human health and.

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Speaker 4: A disease we're interested in.

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Speaker 2: Then we have to design a drug to either inhibit

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Speaker 2: or promote that target, and that takes some time. AI

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Speaker 2: might help us do that faster, we'll see. And then

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Speaker 2: once we have that target drug optimized, we take it

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Speaker 2: into animals, make sure it doesn't cause any preclinical safety signals,

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Speaker 2: and then we finally move into humans. And from the

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Speaker 2: time we move into humans to when we get it

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Speaker 2: to people, it's usually around nine years.

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Speaker 1: Last year twenty twenty three, we saw an enormous increase

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Speaker 1: in drugs being taken that reduce your weight, and they

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Speaker 1: seem to work quite well. There are two drug companies

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Speaker 1: United States and one in Europe that seem to dominate

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Speaker 1: that business.

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Speaker 3: Are you going to get into that business? And why not?

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Speaker 3: It seems to be extremely profitable.

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Speaker 4: It is a business we're interested in.

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Speaker 2: We're working on really the next wave of medicines because

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Speaker 2: I think these GLP one medicines that you're talking about

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Speaker 2: are very well serviced by the current companies. It's a

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Speaker 2: fascinating story goes back actually to the early nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 2: It took us almost twenty five years to realize the

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Speaker 2: potent effect that these types of drugs would have on obesity.

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Speaker 2: But we think there's opportunity to improve on them, and

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Speaker 2: we hope it'll be It's very early stage within nov Artists,

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Speaker 2: but can we come up with drugs that better preserve muscle,

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Speaker 2: are maybe easier to take and more infrequently taken. One

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Speaker 2: area of where Novartis is one of the leaders is

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Speaker 2: in what are called small interfering RNA therapies.

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Speaker 4: It sounds like a fancy.

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Speaker 2: Word, but really what it allows you to do is

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Speaker 2: take drugs that you normally would take every single day

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Speaker 2: and make them drugs you only have to take twice

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Speaker 2: a year. So in cholesterol lowering, we have a medicine

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Speaker 2: that you only have to take twice a year to

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Speaker 2: lower cholesterol sixty percent. We're working on similar medicines for hypertensions,

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Speaker 2: high blood pressure, other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. And

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Speaker 2: the idea is can you get to very infrequently dosed

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Speaker 2: medicines because most people don't stay on the drugs.

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Speaker 1: As I get older, the drug that I'm most interested

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Speaker 1: in is one that deals with Alzheimer's or dementia, because

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Speaker 1: I'm always wondering am I going to be getting this disease?

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Speaker 3: What are you doing in that area?

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Speaker 2: So we're active and I think what we're really interested

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Speaker 2: in is again the next wave of what might be

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Speaker 2: effective therapies for Alzheimer's disease. Today there are two one

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Speaker 2: drug license, another drug coming targeting the plaques in the

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Speaker 2: brain anti amyloid that drugs as they are called.

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Speaker 4: But we think the next generation.

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Speaker 2: Opportunities are going to be to target other elements that

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Speaker 2: accumulate in the brain. One is called TAO. There are

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Speaker 2: other targets as well. But I would say Alzheimer's is

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Speaker 2: a really tough space. I mean, one of the things

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Speaker 2: that's very hard is you need to intervene very early

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Speaker 2: because it's a very slowly progressing disease, and identifying which

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Speaker 2: patients to intervene on and then figuring out what to

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Speaker 2: treat them the patients with is really really difficult.

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Speaker 1: On cancer related drugs, there are some cancer related drugs,

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Speaker 1: and I guess you have some as well, but.

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Speaker 3: They tend to deal with cancer.

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Speaker 1: Once you have cancer, they try to ameliorate the side

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Speaker 1: effects of it or the effects of it. What about

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Speaker 1: something that prevents cancer? Is that realistic in my lifetime?

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Speaker 2: That is something that's a heavy interest of the field,

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Speaker 2: and also at our company, we actually just got great

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Speaker 2: data on a breast cancer drug which can be given

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Speaker 2: to women who have had their breast cancer but resected,

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Speaker 2: but then to prevent it recurring. Now where there's a

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Speaker 2: lot of interest right now is can you identify things

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Speaker 2: in the blood and things are circulating so circulating tumor

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Speaker 2: DNA that would show that the cancer is starting to

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Speaker 2: happen in the body, but well before it would be

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Speaker 2: detectable in any kind of scan. If we can get

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Speaker 2: those tests up to an adequate level of precision and

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Speaker 2: start to treat patients well before the cancer shows up,

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Speaker 2: that would be the big opportunity, but that's still some

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Speaker 2: time away.

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Speaker 1: So you produce medicines that presumably help people with their

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Speaker 1: lives the better and live longer and so forth. Why

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Speaker 1: aren't you a more popular industry? You know, the private

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Speaker 1: equ industry has its attractors, have no doubt, but the

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry is not right too far behind us.

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Speaker 3: Why do people not love you for the drugs you're producing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a long story in terms of the history

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Speaker 2: of this industry. Even if you go back to the

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Speaker 2: seventies or eighties, we were a much more popular sector.

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Speaker 2: I think one of the things that happened is as

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Speaker 2: we brought more and more medicines forward and patients got

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Speaker 2: on more and more therapies. The one thing we weren't

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Speaker 2: watching carefully enough as an industry was what was happening

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Speaker 2: at the pharmacy counter. There's a lot of focus in

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Speaker 2: congressional hearings and other places on list prices, but list

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Speaker 2: prices mean very little in the sector because you have

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Speaker 2: pharmacy benefit managers, you have retail pharmacies, you have wholesalers.

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Speaker 2: But what really matters is at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: when somebody comes to the pharmacy counter. Can they afford

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Speaker 2: their medicines? And we're starting to address that. Some recent

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Speaker 2: legislation addresses that. We're thinking a lot about it. But

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Speaker 2: that's what we've got to figure out how to solve.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about your background. So your parents came from where.

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Speaker 2: They came from Tumbil Nadu in southern India.

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Speaker 3: And when did they come to the United States.

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Speaker 4: They came in the late sixties and early seventies.

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Speaker 3: And were they educated?

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Speaker 2: They were they actually, you know, my father was alongside

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Speaker 2: his brothers were some of the first people in our

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Speaker 2: family to go to college in India. Father did his

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Speaker 2: PhD in India. I was able to work his way

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Speaker 2: up and then it was one of the first people

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Speaker 2: to come to the United States.

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Speaker 4: My mother came to Carnegie Mellon. She did a.

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Speaker 2: Degree in nuclear and becoming a nuclear engineer. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: it was I think a pretty extraordinary story and that

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Speaker 2: they were able to come from relatively modest beginnings, so

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Speaker 2: beginning with my grandparents in relatively small places in India

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Speaker 2: and ultimately find a way to the United States.

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Speaker 3: So you grew up in the Pittsburgh area.

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Speaker 4: I grew up a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

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Speaker 3: Indeed, And I assume you did well in high.

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Speaker 4: School, did well, did well?

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Speaker 3: So you went to univer Chicago, went to the University

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Speaker 3: of chicag And why did you go there as opposed

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Speaker 3: to other good schools.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's an interesting story.

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Speaker 2: I actually applied to all of the ivs and applied

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Speaker 2: to a number of schools, and I didn't get in anywhere. Actually,

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Speaker 2: the one school that I did admit me was a

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Speaker 2: University of Chicago, and it ended up being such an

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Speaker 2: incredible gift in the end, because the University of Chicago,

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Speaker 2: I would still credit, perhaps more than any other educational experience,

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Speaker 2: taught me how to think, how to synthesize, how to

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Speaker 2: be relentlessly curious.

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Speaker 4: It was really positive.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So Harvard recognized and gets a mistake from before,

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Speaker 1: admitted view to the medical school, right, they did. And

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Speaker 1: so you went to Harvard Medical School. I assume your

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Speaker 1: immigrant parents were saying, great, my son is going to

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Speaker 1: be a doctor. Yes, So when you told them you

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Speaker 1: weren't going to be a practicing doctor, what did they say?

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Speaker 2: They were very confused. They were very very confused. I

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Speaker 2: you know, I had this idea in my mind, I

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Speaker 2: did a lot of work in public health. I had

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Speaker 2: some great mentors at Harvard, and I really wanted to

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Speaker 2: see how could I have a bigger impact beyond an

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Speaker 2: individual patient care, and so I wanted to I first

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Speaker 2: went to the World Health Organization, then I went to McKinsey.

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Speaker 2: But all of this time, I certainly think my parents

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Speaker 2: were assuming I was going to go back and do

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Speaker 2: a residency and become a cardiologist and kind of finish

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Speaker 2: the journey, and it never actually worked out that well.

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Speaker 1: For a while, you were, I guess, a protege of

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Speaker 1: Paul Farmer, the famous doctor who was at Harvard for

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Speaker 1: a while, among other places. And you then did other

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Speaker 1: things to help people in India. You went back working

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Speaker 1: with street children in India.

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Speaker 4: That's right.

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Speaker 1: So did your parents say, you have a Harvard Medical

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Speaker 1: School degree and you're making no money in India is

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Speaker 1: a great country, but why don't you go practice medicine?

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Speaker 2: Say that my father would ask, I worked so hard

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Speaker 2: to get out of these places, why are you working

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Speaker 2: so hard to go back to them? Was certainly a

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Speaker 2: confusion he had in his mind. But overall my parents

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Speaker 2: were very supportive of this public health goal.

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Speaker 1: I had okay, So you ultimately came to McKenzie after

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Speaker 1: some public health work and why did you not stay

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Speaker 1: at McKenzie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, McKenzie was a great training ground for a physician

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Speaker 2: who didn't know anything about a P and L, a

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Speaker 2: balance sheet, knew nothing about M and A or evaluation.

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Speaker 2: I learned a lot very quickly, but I just felt

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Speaker 2: like it was a little bit detached from the real action.

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Speaker 2: And I had an opportunity presented to me to join

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Speaker 2: Novartists Pharmaceuticals to really try to look at our R

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Speaker 2: and D strategy at Novartists at the time, and it

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Speaker 2: was a little bit of a whim sort of a

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Speaker 2: gamble to try to see how that would work out.

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Speaker 4: I would have never imagined it would have unfolded the

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Speaker 4: way it did, but it was really great.

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Speaker 1: So you work your way up and then at the

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Speaker 1: age of forty, somebody at Nevarda says, we have a

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Speaker 1: forty year old who didn't go to business school, is

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Speaker 1: not from Switzerland, and he's a medical doctor who's never

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Speaker 1: practiced medicine.

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Speaker 3: Let's make him the CEO. It's right, So were you're surprised?

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Speaker 4: I was shocked.

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Speaker 2: I was shocked when they first asked me that to

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Speaker 2: even be part of it. I mean I had been

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Speaker 2: a head of drug development. I had the opportunity to

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Speaker 2: do so many different roles at Novartists in developing vaccines.

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Speaker 4: I worked in our vaccines.

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Speaker 2: Division, leading a little bit of our generics unit, working

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Speaker 2: in drug development for many, many years. And I think

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Speaker 2: part of the reason they were interested is because I

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Speaker 2: had gotten a background in R and D. But I

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Speaker 2: think it was also not only my age, but also

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Speaker 2: the fact that I think no other major pharmaceutical company

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Speaker 2: had an R and D head, our development head as

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Speaker 2: their CEO.

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Speaker 1: Your strategy has been different than the strategy you inherited,

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Speaker 1: and the artist was in many different areas. They had

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Speaker 1: a generic drug business and you sold that. Yes, so

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Speaker 1: why did you get out of that business? It seems

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Speaker 1: to be a recently profitable business.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: As you know, when we have these conglomerates, you have

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Speaker 2: to ask is there value in the conglomerate? Is their

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Speaker 2: value in building all these different businesses together? And then

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Speaker 2: the question is what are we really great at? And

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Speaker 2: when I came into the role as CEO, I looked

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Speaker 2: we were in consumer health, we were in I care devices,

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Speaker 2: we were in generics. We had a broad range, broad portfolio,

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Speaker 2: and I think what our company's really great at is

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Speaker 2: discovering these novel breakthroughs and then getting access to over

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Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty million patients, which is our reach today,

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Speaker 2: largest we believe of any pharma company to all of

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Speaker 2: these patients. And so in order to do that well,

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Speaker 2: I didn't think we could allocate capital successfully across all

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Speaker 2: of these different businesses. So we spun al Con, the

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Speaker 2: largest public market spin in recent memory in Europe. We

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Speaker 2: spun out Sandos, We sold our consumer health business. It's

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Speaker 2: about one hundred and thirty billion dollars of transactions. Later,

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Speaker 2: we come out as a pure play medicines company, which

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Speaker 2: I think we're a best positioned for the long run.

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Speaker 1: Soh you're the CEO and you go to the board

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Speaker 1: and say, you know, we've been in the generics business,

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Speaker 1: we're in the consumer drug business, and we're going to

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Speaker 1: get out of all these except we're going to be

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Speaker 1: in the one business that we were now in. Did

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Speaker 1: they say, you know, you weren't qualified to make that

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Speaker 1: judgment or what did they say?

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Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 2: I think they went along, and I think they generally

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Speaker 2: were aligned. But I think it also was a step

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Speaker 2: wise journey. I mean, first we did consumer health and

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Speaker 2: we saw how that went, and then two years a

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Speaker 2: year later we did al Con, Then the pandemic came,

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Speaker 2: then we did did Santos. Because I think the fear

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Speaker 2: comes back from what we discussed earlier. When you have

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Speaker 2: a business in innovative medicines and you have these patent cliffs,

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Speaker 2: if you have these other businesses which are much more stable,

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Speaker 2: there's a feeling like you can offset your risk. You

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Speaker 2: have stable businesses and you have this one business where

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Speaker 2: you face these cliffs every fifteen to seventeen years.

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Speaker 4: I take the view that the only way you're going

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Speaker 4: to generate.

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Speaker 2: Enough medicines to keep growing as you focus your capital

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Speaker 2: on innovation.

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Speaker 1: So last week, as we're talking now, last week you

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Speaker 1: made another acquisition, I think for roughly five billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: You bought a company that is dealing with blood cancer.

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Speaker 1: So why was that a good acquisition? And how does

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Speaker 1: it as long does it take you to make an

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Speaker 1: assessment of whether an acquisition is good or not? And

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Speaker 1: do you come up with the ideas yourself, or does

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Speaker 1: some investment banker come along and tell you it's a

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Speaker 1: great idea.

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Speaker 4: We limit our use of investment bankers. In general.

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Speaker 2: What we try to look at is in the therapeutic

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Speaker 2: areas we're in. So we're in blood cancers. We've been

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Speaker 2: in blood cancers for over twenty years. Some of the

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Speaker 2: most pioneering drugs and blood cancers have come from our

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Speaker 2: research labs, and we say, if this is an area

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Speaker 2: we're in we have deep understanding, therefore this makes sense

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Speaker 2: to actually add another medicine to that portfolio, and so we.

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Speaker 4: Make that assessment.

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Speaker 2: If it's a good strategic fit, in this case a

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Speaker 2: good financial fit, we'll make the bet. One of the

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Speaker 2: things we've tried to be much more disciplined on is

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Speaker 2: to try to go at the lower end of the

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Speaker 2: range to under five billion dollars for acquisitions and really

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Speaker 2: ensure that they're in areas we have deep understanding. Generally,

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Speaker 2: when we've gone too far away from our core, the

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Speaker 2: value creation hasn't been there.

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Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, AI burst onto the scene. Everybody

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Speaker 1: is now excited about AI. How is AI affecting your

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Speaker 1: company and do you think it's going to help your company?

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Speaker 2: I think a it's going to have a big impact,

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Speaker 2: but I think it's going to take more time than

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Speaker 2: most people expect. I think first in productivity areas, AI

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Speaker 2: has media applications, and I feel like in productivity we

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Speaker 2: can use AI for document management, document generations, not really

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Speaker 2: sexy areas, but things that really tractable in our sector.

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Speaker 2: Most uniquely, the big question is can you speed up

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Speaker 2: or increase the efficiency of drug R and D? And

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Speaker 2: there we're doing a couple of things, working on clinical

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Speaker 2: trials and optimizing our clinical trials. But the big bets

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Speaker 2: we've made are with Palenteer, Microsoft Research Labs, Google deep Mind,

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Speaker 2: and a few other partners to say, could you really

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Speaker 2: discover novel drugs that maybe weren't discoverable without AI? Can

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Speaker 2: you optimize drugs much more quickly? And this is all

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Speaker 2: building on the pioneering work that Google Deep Minded on

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Speaker 2: a technology called Alpha fold. There's a huge opportunity here,

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Speaker 2: But I think we also have to acknowledge that we

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Speaker 2: only understand about five to ten percent of what is

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Speaker 2: going on in the human body. So to expect AI

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Speaker 2: to use that five to ten percent to extrapolate and

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Speaker 2: come up with big discoveries is going to take time.

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Speaker 1: So other than AI, what medical technologies do you think

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Speaker 1: are coming along that in the next one, two or

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Speaker 1: three years are likely to change what you do or

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Speaker 1: change the medical world.

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Speaker 4: I think a couple of things.

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Speaker 2: One RNA therapeutics as I mentioned earlier in the broadcast,

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Speaker 2: or RNA therapeutics sRNAs.

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Speaker 4: These are really coming to life now.

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Speaker 2: What this allows you to do is treat diseases that

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Speaker 2: were not treatable or treat them with very infrequent drug dosing.

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Speaker 2: And if you could imagine if we could take on

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Speaker 2: blood pressure and cholesterol with once year dosing, hugely transformative.

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Speaker 4: Another one is sell therapy for immune diseases.

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Speaker 2: We've seen extraordinary results in early phase studies that if

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Speaker 2: you can reset somebody's immune system there are autoimmune disease

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Speaker 2: actually goes away, and we'll see if this is sustains.

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Speaker 2: But these are some of the most impressive results that

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Speaker 2: we've ever seen in early stage clinical studies. And then

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Speaker 2: the last is we're very big in an area of

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Speaker 2: cancer called radio ligend therapy. This is the idea that

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Speaker 2: can you bring nuclear particles right next to a cancer

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Speaker 2: in the body and deliver the radiation very locally, and

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Speaker 2: this has the opportunity to treat a whole range of

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Speaker 2: solid tumors in ways that we couldn't afford.

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Speaker 3: What do you do to kind of lower your global

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Speaker 3: footprint carbon footprint? What do you do?

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Speaker 2: Our big topic on sustainability is much more on access

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Speaker 2: to medicines, and so we have a big effort on

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Speaker 2: global access to medicines, trying to make sure our innovations

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Speaker 2: are accessible. The work we do in areas like malaria,

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Speaker 2: on leprosy, sickle cell disease to ensure populations around the

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Speaker 2: world can get access to these medicines.

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Speaker 3: How do you pay for that?

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Speaker 2: So it's all part of our sustainability efforts and we

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Speaker 2: view it as part of our core mission to deliver

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Speaker 2: these global health therapies to patients around the globe. So

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Speaker 2: we have a huge effort in global health R and

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Speaker 2: DST two hundred and fifty million dollars actually in trying

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Speaker 2: to discover the next wave of medicines to treat these

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Speaker 2: global health conditions.

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Speaker 3: What about DEID We're on a good track here.

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Speaker 2: We've actually about forty eight percent women in management media

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Speaker 2: and pay for women and of artists is higher than

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Speaker 2: for men.

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Speaker 4: So we have more work to do at the upper

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Speaker 4: levels of the company. But we're overall doing really well.

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Speaker 1: I think, what skill set do you think somebody should

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Speaker 1: develop in order to rise up to be a CEO?

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Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing I think about is curiosity,

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Speaker 2: just relentless, relentless curiosity. I think whatever position I was

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Speaker 2: put in at Novartis, it was usually a place where

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Speaker 2: I didn't know anything, had to learn teach myself, be

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Speaker 2: relentlessly curious and then apply it and having experiences in

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Speaker 2: a range of different parts of the business world is

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Speaker 2: going to be a huge success.

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Speaker 3: How many employees does Novardis have now?

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Speaker 4: Seventy six thousand.

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Speaker 3: Seventy six thousand.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of employees, so you frequently get a

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Speaker 1: chance to meet them in some organizations somewhere or some meeting.

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Speaker 3: How do you deal with all those employees?

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Speaker 2: I think the most valuable thing I find in my

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Speaker 2: job is to go around the world and meet these

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Speaker 2: meet our people, be able to have town halls and interactions.

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Speaker 2: It used to be before we spun off all these

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Speaker 2: businesses one hundred and thirty five thousand people, so we've

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Speaker 2: definitely slimmed down. But I think there's nothing that can

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Speaker 2: replace showing up face to face and describing why.

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Speaker 4: We do what we do.

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Speaker 1: So, as the CEO of the artists, you tell your

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Speaker 1: subordinates these are the areas that I think we should

445
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 1: work on and see if you can come up with

446
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:26,880
Speaker 1: a pharmaceutical product in that area. Or do they come

447
00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:29,200
Speaker 1: to you and say, we have a prospect here and

448
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:30,800
Speaker 1: you bless this. How does that work?

449
00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:31,239
Speaker 4: Well?

450
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:33,440
Speaker 2: In general, I have a philosophy that we call in

451
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:36,720
Speaker 2: our culture unbost and we try to unboss our people.

452
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,159
Speaker 2: We want our people to actually bring the ideas up

453
00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:41,119
Speaker 2: and then we of course have to challenge them, but

454
00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:43,399
Speaker 2: then we make the call. So I really believe that

455
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:46,520
Speaker 2: in our sector where some of our scientists are world class,

456
00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:49,159
Speaker 2: many of our scientists are world class, they should be

457
00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:51,360
Speaker 2: bringing up the ideas and we have to curate them.

458
00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:54,720
Speaker 2: But certainly, I'm not sitting on some mountain here knowing

459
00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:55,760
Speaker 2: what the right thing to do is.

460
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:56,680
Speaker 4: Certainly so, if.

461
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:59,720
Speaker 1: Somebody is saying, I'm graduating from college or graduate school

462
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:02,800
Speaker 1: the next year or so, and I want a nice career,

463
00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 1: why should somebody want to be in the pharmaceutical industry.

464
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,560
Speaker 1: Why not go into something sexy like private equity or

465
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:10,560
Speaker 1: investment banking or something like that.

466
00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:14,639
Speaker 2: You know, despite some of the things people have, concepts

467
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:16,800
Speaker 2: people have about our industry. In the end, what we

468
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:19,240
Speaker 2: do is we create these miracles that fit in the

469
00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:22,320
Speaker 2: palm of your hand, these little medicines that can transform

470
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:24,399
Speaker 2: a human beings life. And if you look at the

471
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:27,200
Speaker 2: arc of history, in the last one hundred and thirty years,

472
00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:29,640
Speaker 2: we've been able to move through the power of medicine

473
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:33,439
Speaker 2: life expectancy from thirty years to eighty years. We're now

474
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,399
Speaker 2: able to cure diseases. We're able to give people, you know,

475
00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 2: with debilitating disease their lives back.

476
00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:39,760
Speaker 4: So if you're part of.

477
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:41,920
Speaker 2: That kind of enterprise, you can get up every day

478
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 2: knowing you're moving the needle for society, you're moving the

479
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 2: needle for mankind. I think we do reimagine medicine with

480
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:50,119
Speaker 2: the medicines we create, and I think that's a pretty

481
00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:51,360
Speaker 2: inspiring way to spend your time.

482
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:54,160
Speaker 1: So suppose a president came along to you and said,

483
00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:56,800
Speaker 1: I know you're living in Switzerland, but it'd be great

484
00:20:56,840 --> 00:20:59,680
Speaker 1: to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services or

485
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:01,000
Speaker 1: head of FDA or something.

486
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 3: What would you say?

487
00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:03,520
Speaker 4: I would think hard about it.

488
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:07,600
Speaker 2: At the moment, it would feel like a really daunting

489
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:09,000
Speaker 2: task given the politics.

490
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:11,960
Speaker 4: But on the flip side, I do think public.

491
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 2: Service, of course, has so much power, and I think

492
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 2: if you're in the right context, you could do a

493
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,159
Speaker 2: lot of good for good for the world. But I

494
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:20,959
Speaker 2: think it's very context dependent. As you know, it can

495
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:23,880
Speaker 2: be a very short time in some of these roles

496
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,119
Speaker 2: with some of the recent recent cabinet members.

497
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,520
Speaker 1: Suppose I said, I'm a stock market picker and I

498
00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 1: want to be buying good stocks and companies that are

499
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 1: going to grow and so forth. Why should I want

500
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: to invest in the pharmaceutical industry? Is it going to

501
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,240
Speaker 1: continue to grow as it did last year? And what

502
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 1: about your own company?

503
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,360
Speaker 3: Do you think it's going to have good growth prospects

504
00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:42,879
Speaker 3: over the next couple of years. We do.

505
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 2: We've signed up for a five percent plus growth, forty

506
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:49,879
Speaker 2: percent plus margins, and very consistent growth over time. I

507
00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:52,080
Speaker 2: think the reason to invest in the sector is the science.

508
00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:53,760
Speaker 2: I mean, when you look again, if I go back

509
00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:56,440
Speaker 2: into the history, for most of the last century, we

510
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:58,040
Speaker 2: were only giving people pills and.

511
00:21:58,080 --> 00:21:59,679
Speaker 4: Small, small molecule drugs.

512
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:01,960
Speaker 2: Then we discovered that we had this whole world of

513
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,000
Speaker 2: biologics and we could treat diseases with biologicals. More recently,

514
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:09,239
Speaker 2: we've discovered that we can reprogram yourselves, we can edit

515
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,320
Speaker 2: the genome, we can use these RNA therapeutics to completely

516
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:15,880
Speaker 2: transform areas of medicine. Those technology areas are at their

517
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:18,159
Speaker 2: very nascent stage, and what we're going to find is

518
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:20,399
Speaker 2: they're going to open up whole new areas of growth

519
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 2: from our business standpoint and a human health impact standpoint.

520
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:26,159
Speaker 2: And so to get in now, as that's happening, and

521
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:28,680
Speaker 2: you've seen how the obesity companies have cleared five hundred

522
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 2: billion market cap, we hope that as we work in

523
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 2: our areas like cell therapy and RNA therapeutics, we will

524
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 2: also be able to climb to a whole other level

525
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:38,400
Speaker 2: of market cap over time.

526
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:40,440
Speaker 1: So as you look back on your career and are

527
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:43,400
Speaker 1: still very early in the career relative to many other people,

528
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: I often talk to any regrets about going this route

529
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 1: or not becoming a medical doctor and working on patients, No,

530
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:51,520
Speaker 1: I have to say.

531
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 2: I mean, when I look at the reach of our

532
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 2: medicines and the impact they have, I'll just go back

533
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 2: to my time with Paul Farmer just to say that

534
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 2: who unfortunately passed away, but it was an incredible mentor

535
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 2: and inspiring mentor. I always told him, I want to

536
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 2: have this big impact on public health. He of course

537
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:08,920
Speaker 2: did it, working with patients and some of the poorest

538
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 2: communities in the world. Today, Novartis are malaria drug Coartem.

539
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:17,160
Speaker 2: Coartem is almost ninety nine percent effective when it's given

540
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 2: on time to.

541
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 4: Treat a malaria patient.

542
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,959
Speaker 2: Over four hundred million children treated with our malaria medicines

543
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 2: and the biggest malaria pipeline, so even from a public

544
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,919
Speaker 2: health standpoint, the opportunity to have an impact at scale

545
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:30,440
Speaker 2: has really been fulfilled.

546
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 4: With this role.

547
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You

548
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or

549
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 1: wherever you Lisien