Name: Bristol Myers Squibb CEO details promising acquisitions, healthcare message to Biden administration
Uploaded: 2021-01-27
Duration: 7 min 58 s
Description: Giovanni Caforio cites BMS’s medicine pipeline as strong financial asset.

Giovanni Caforio cites BMS’s medicine pipeline as strong financial asset.

Bristol Myers Squibb CEO details promising acquisitions, healthcare message to Biden administration

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BMS CEO details acquisitions, healthcare message

Giovanni, Thank you so much for joining us when you spoke at JPMorgan's healthcare gathering recently, you described Bristol Myers as having a huge variety of drugs, whether it's for cancer treatment for heart disease, autoimmune disorders, diabetes and the list goes on, What do you want? Bristol Myers to be most famous for? What's at the top of your list? Thank you, Susie, Let me say, Last week at JP Morgan, I was able to describe the strong foundation that we've established for Bristol Myers Squibb over the last 12 months as an innovation company and as a growth company. So last week I was able to describe three medicines as examples. One mother, Campton, which we acquired recently from Maya Cardia for patients with a serious cardiovascular disease, the other one to have a sit in it, which is an internally discovered medicine that has promising potential in psoriasis and other or immune disorders, and the third one, rebel Ozil, to treat a form of severe anemia in patients with cancer. These are great examples of the level of innovation and Bristol Myers Squibb. Do you see these in the future as being your blockbuster drugs? It's really uh, the strong pipeline that we have one of the strongest in the industry. We actually are launching eight new medicines, So there is innovation across multiple therapeutic areas from oncology, hematology, cardiovascular medicine and immunology. And those medicines are among the most promising that are in our pipeline. Because our objective really is, uh, to accelerate the renewal of our portfolio, grow the company in the next five years. And we've made great progress already. I'm going to follow up about the pipeline in just a moment, but I do want to talk to you. Also about two big acquisitions you've made in the last year ago. There's, uh, Celgene, which, uh focuses on cancer therapies and Maya Cardia, which feels mostly in the heart disease area, which, which company shows the most promise? Are you leading in one direction or the other? Well, I'm very pleased with how the integration with Celgene is going, and, uh, one year after we're closed on that acquisition, things are very much on track. In fact, we announced that we are ahead of where we thought we were going to be. From a synergistic perspective and clearly what's most important. The pipeline of Celgene is progressing very well. Remember, we had acquired Celgene in order to diversify the business of Bristol Myers Squibb and create a company with a younger portfolio for the second half of the decade. Were very much on track to accomplish that. In the case of myocardial, it's really about breakthrough innovation and cardiovascular medicine. What we're calling the precision approach to cardiovascular medicine. And both of those acquisitions are really representative of how we think about innovation, the combination of internal, R and D and bringing into the company external innovation, which is our strategy for growth. Well, it sounds like you have a lot of interesting drugs in the pipeline. Is there one that you would single out that you're most excited about? Just one. Well, I'm excited about Ukraine a settlement, but it can be a really important medicine to treat autoimmune disorders. We are looking forward to seeing an important study in the first quarter of this year so very, very soon. And, uh, you know, this is a medicine that has potential to help patients with psoriasis, but also in the future, we are going to be studying its potential role for patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's Lupus. These are very serious diseases where there is need for new therapists, and I am really excited about the potential of the cross settlement. And it's just one of many medicines in our rich portfolio. Well, some of your blockbuster drugs like elephants will be going off patent in the next few years. How are you preparing for that financial hip? It's really about accelerating the renewal of our portfolio through the very exciting pipeline we have. So at JP Morgan last week, I described our launch medicines. We see the potential for this portfolio at 20 to $25 billion in peak sales. That's very significant. And beyond those eight medicines, we have a mid stage pipeline that is very promising as well. Uh, to assets in that pipeline are our factor 11. A program again, a cardiovascular medicine and a very innovative portfolio of medicines for hematology, which are called the Cell Modes. So these are just examples of our innovation, the strategy for growth of the company, and we're making great progress. Well, as you know, Giovanni, we have a new president in the White House, and he's been talking a lot about new plans to improve health care if he turned to you and ask for your opinion of what's the single most important change to make in the drug industry? What would you tell him? Well, what we've seen last year or when the pandemic hit was the the fact that the health inequality was a really big issue in the country. And in the case of pharmaceuticals, the issue patient affordability, medicines, affordability is for patients is really an important issue. We look forward to partnering with the president and the new administration to address that issue. I think it's important that our medicines are affordable for our patients and there are policies that can be developed in order to make that happen at the same time as we continue to support innovation and our ability to invest in research and development, because it's never been clearer, the importance of the role that our industry plays and how critical it is to continue to support bringing new medicines to patients. So we look forward to working with the new administration on this really important topics. Well, I think I can say that consumers would be very happy to see a drop in the prices that they pay for drugs. But whenever the subject comes up with drug companies, they basically say, Look, if you want breakthroughs and innovation in treating medicines, you know you're going to have to pay the price for it. So if there is a dramatic change in drug prices, what impact did that have under industry? I think that, as you mentioned, what's really important is that what patients pay for medicines, uh, is a price they can afford. And, uh, that points to a need to really reform, uh, the design of benefits and the fact that today patients pay much more for medicines than they be for any other health care expense, and there are clearly incentives in the system that are no longer aligned. And so, from my perspective, it is possible to continue to reward innovation and the important work we do and the investments we make at the same time as we redesign some elements of the system to make medicines more affordable for patients. Because many of the discounts, for example, that we provide don't make it to patients. And so it's really about realigning incentives and making sure that patients pay less for medicines, and I think that is an area where we look forward to working with the administration. We have proposals that we would like to make, and I think it's very much possible that we make progress this year.