Speaker 1: These sees. Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stanovic on Bloomberg Radio. All right, Tim, time take a
Speaker 1: little bit of a deep dive into biotech stocks, because
Speaker 1: as a whole, they were down about last year compared
Speaker 1: with a thirty three percent drop in the now's deck
Speaker 1: one hundreds. A little perspective there, and I do feel
Speaker 1: like a day does not compile that there isn't some
Speaker 1: news out of the biotech space regarding test trials on
Speaker 1: some drug development or some kind of investment or deal
Speaker 1: that going on. So really smart for us to take
Speaker 1: a deeper look into this group. You're really excited to
Speaker 1: speak to Debra net Shirt Health Sciences, portfolio manager at
Speaker 1: the registered investment advisor Jennison Associates. It's got a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty four billion dollars in assets under management. Debra
Speaker 1: joins us on the phone from New York City. Good
Speaker 1: to have you with us this afternoon. So before we
Speaker 1: we start about talking about what's happening this year, let's
Speaker 1: just think back to the last couple of years, because
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of investors, biotech came on
Speaker 1: their radar with talking about you know, companies like Derna
Speaker 1: developing an m R and a vaccine, and perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: a different group of investors now paying attention to a
Speaker 1: group of companies that has been historically volatile but has
Speaker 1: also offered potentially a lot of promise. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's right. I think that when you look at all
Speaker 1: of the different UM investors that came into the market
Speaker 1: during COVID, they looked at the madernas and the biontics
Speaker 1: and the Nova vaxes and all of the rapid development
Speaker 1: of the COVID nineteen vaccines and started to think that
Speaker 1: there was going to be an opportunity to see accelerated
Speaker 1: development UM like this in other categories. And the problem
Speaker 1: with UM, you know, with that is is all of
Speaker 1: these vaccines were really developed under an emergency use authorization
Speaker 1: and that was a very distinct pathway used at the FDA,
Speaker 1: and and development takes time, and I don't think that
Speaker 1: the pathway that the FDA used and the rapid development
Speaker 1: we saw in COVID nineteen vaccines is really going to
Speaker 1: be relevant. And so some of these investors really expected
Speaker 1: us to see follow on with with UM. COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: paired with RSC, paired with flu and really start to
Speaker 1: be able to see these vaccines kind of coming out
Speaker 1: a really rapid rate and UM and some of the
Speaker 1: reality of the kind of going back to the normal
Speaker 1: drug development timelines, and then just the reality of the
Speaker 1: you know, the bulliest of patient population that these vaccines
Speaker 1: were serving kind of brought people back to reality. You know.
Speaker 1: I have to say I always love UM the different conferences,
Speaker 1: whether it's ASCO which looks you know, into cancer, because
Speaker 1: you always get a lot of news out of it
Speaker 1: in terms of drug development or what companies are working
Speaker 1: on what So what might kind of be some really
Speaker 1: innovation UM or innovation that we're going to get out
Speaker 1: of the biotech sector this year that investors should maybe
Speaker 1: take note of. Well, there's I would say, there there's
Speaker 1: there's always a lot of innovation, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of UM. There's a lot of data that comes out
Speaker 1: at all the of all of the conferences, So you know,
Speaker 1: there's We're we're starting to see a lot of things
Speaker 1: UM you know coming out a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of innovation is actually interestingly happening in the larger cap
Speaker 1: companies and it's the first time that we've we've seen
Speaker 1: the larger cap companies start to UM enter new product cycles,
Speaker 1: have a resurgence and growth and and have the ability
Speaker 1: to to really positively impact their revenue and EPs profile
Speaker 1: over the next couple of years by some of these
Speaker 1: big markets. Obviously, we've seen UM a huge increase in
Speaker 1: the use of the g lp ones that are approved
Speaker 1: for diabetes but are also UM in certain instances, UM
Speaker 1: approved for obesity and and soon to hopefully be approved
Speaker 1: for obesity for for other companies. And you're seeing a
Speaker 1: huge use of this group of drugs, and I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna start to see a lot of additional indications
Speaker 1: coming out of that. UM. We're starting to see some UM.
Speaker 1: You know, we have gene therapies that have now been
Speaker 1: approved better on the market. So it's going to be
Speaker 1: really interesting to see how the business models for these
Speaker 1: single very expensive yet UM. You know, sometimes curative UM
Speaker 1: are really gonna be able to be Now debor forgive
Speaker 1: me for interrupting, And I know your portfolio manage, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how deep you can go for us.
Speaker 1: I know our audience always loves whether it's sectors specifically
Speaker 1: or talking some names like are there, And again I
Speaker 1: don't know how deep you can go. Can you throw
Speaker 1: out some names to us that you think, Wow, these
Speaker 1: are definitely on my radar, Or if I'm looking to
Speaker 1: commit some new money for investors, that's what I'm going
Speaker 1: to think about. I would love to do that, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately I would have had to UM, I would have
Speaker 1: had to have things cleared before doing that. On today's program,
Speaker 1: No problem at all, Deborah. We needed to ask, Hey, Um,
Speaker 1: one thing that I really want to hear from you is,
Speaker 1: obviously the investment question is is really fascinating. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, your cover a space that is just
Speaker 1: really exciting from a human perspective. We all know people
Speaker 1: who have been affected by just terrible diseases, and I wonder,
Speaker 1: given what you cover and how much research you do
Speaker 1: into these companies, what just excites you about living in
Speaker 1: a world where we could soon, you know, be living
Speaker 1: longer and saying goodbye to some diseases that previously were
Speaker 1: death sentences. I mean, I think exactly that I think
Speaker 1: you know. I always I always say that it's a
Speaker 1: gift to be able to get what I do, because
Speaker 1: if you have endless intellectual curiosity like I do, UM,
Speaker 1: you can't you really are able to stay on the
Speaker 1: forefront of really looking at the at the diseases and
Speaker 1: UM and all of the new innovative treatments that are
Speaker 1: coming out and UM. You know. And I also view
Speaker 1: my job as a shareholder of companies to be helping
Speaker 1: companies who are going at this for the first time
Speaker 1: and helping them to Okay, so fall into paint a
Speaker 1: picture for us, you know, ten fifteen years from now
Speaker 1: when it comes to some of these moon shots. I mean,
Speaker 1: do we say goodbye to to chemotherapy and and instead
Speaker 1: we can talk about gene therapy or I'm taking well,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I you know, I hope that in
Speaker 1: ten years we are saying goodbye to to chemotherapy or
Speaker 1: we're finding a way. We've seen innovation with chemotherapy through
Speaker 1: UM drugs called antibody drug conjugates that take the chemotherapy
Speaker 1: and develop it to only the cells that need it,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a blading all fills, and so that
Speaker 1: has allowed cancer patients to already receive chemotherapy in a
Speaker 1: way that it's not so toxic. UM. So hopefully we're
Speaker 1: either you know, continuing down that and you know, there
Speaker 1: could always be a use for chemotherapy. But hopefully in
Speaker 1: a decade we are we're really changing the curve on
Speaker 1: personalized medicine where we're really starting to understand and individual
Speaker 1: cancer in the individual person and being able to target
Speaker 1: that cancer in a super specific way. UM and you know,
Speaker 1: and curing cancer individually, one person at a time. And
Speaker 1: we know that you're you're um. You know. Part of
Speaker 1: the managers for the PGM, Jennison Health Science has fun
Speaker 1: And I just want to because our audience cares about
Speaker 1: things like this. Three years, if I look at the
Speaker 1: average annual performance according to Bloomberg Data up about eleven,
Speaker 1: putting it in the ninety percentile UM and United Healthy,
Speaker 1: like literally Mark, these are some names that are in it, Humana.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you say, there's a lot of large
Speaker 1: cap names. While we often think of biotech, it's kind
Speaker 1: of smaller startups. It really is a lot of these
Speaker 1: bigger cap names that are very involved in setting the
Speaker 1: trends of what's to come when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 1: It is the larger companies are definitely the ones who
Speaker 1: are saying the trends in a in a way, UM
Speaker 1: and the innovation happens in both camps a lot of this.
Speaker 1: A lot of the innovation that is currently in the
Speaker 1: hands of Eli Lily or a Murk or or you
Speaker 1: name the large cap company came from a small cap biotech.
Speaker 1: So it's not to say that it's the innovation starts
Speaker 1: at the larger or the small. It kind of happens
Speaker 1: across the spectrum. But you know, the super innovative companies
Speaker 1: that develop drugs that are going to be incredibly efficacious,
Speaker 1: typically we'll wind up becoming part of a larger company
Speaker 1: over time. So there's an ecosystem there that that has worked,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty well over time. And listen, do you
Speaker 1: really care about what the Fed does or what inflation does?
Speaker 1: And just got about thirty seconds. Does that really shape
Speaker 1: your investment decisions? I mean it has to around the edges.
Speaker 1: I think all of us have had to have had
Speaker 1: to become armchair macro um macro experts here and there um.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, my colleagues and
Speaker 1: I Agena been really trying to focus on the fundamentals.
Speaker 1: All right, really appreciate it, Deborah and uh look forward
Speaker 1: to next time and maybe digging a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: into your portfolio holdings. A Debora net Church. She is
Speaker 1: health Sciences portfolio man and your Jennison Associates a