Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Emma Walmsley

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Emma Walmsley · The David Rubenstein Show

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  Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Best. Bloomberg Best is about the insight
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  Speaker 1: and the context that we get from our guests. It's
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  Speaker 1: a great way to catch up on some of the
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  Speaker 1: stories you might have missed on the Bloomberg Stories you're
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  Speaker 1: not going to find in any other news organizations. Bloomberg
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  Speaker 1: Best Bloomberg's Best stories of the week, powered by twenty
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred journalists and analysts in more than a hundred
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  Speaker 1: twenty countries around the world. I'm d Baxter and I'm
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  Speaker 1: Denise Pelligriny. On this weekend edition of Bloomberg Best. We
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  Speaker 1: can be increasingly optimistic that science will win. Efforts to
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  Speaker 1: develop a COVID nineteen vaccine gained momentum. The world will
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  Speaker 1: pay a very big price, not just for COVID, but
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  Speaker 1: beyond that. If we break trust. Risks are high for
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  Speaker 1: the drug makers. It is really hard to discover new
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  Speaker 1: drugs and vaccines. G SK CEO says cooperation is key
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  Speaker 1: to success. All this and more coming up in the
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  Speaker 1: next hour of Bloomberg Best. All right, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: we had a lot of good news on the COVID
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  Speaker 1: nineteen front, with so many companies reporting progress son of vaccine. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Denis and one of those involved is g SK and
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  Speaker 1: we had a chance to hear from the company's CEO,
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  Speaker 1: Emma Walmsley. She spoke on the David Rubinstein Show a
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  Speaker 1: peer to peer conversations and if it begins here by
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  Speaker 1: asking Walmsley how many times a day people ask her
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  Speaker 1: when the company's vaccine will be available? Yes, well, that's
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  Speaker 1: definitely a very regular question, whether it's from employees, customers,
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  Speaker 1: government's media or my mother, so very frequently, and obviously
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  Speaker 1: we've all been delighted to see the very recent news
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  Speaker 1: of some of the first results that's coming through on
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  Speaker 1: vaccines yesterday. I was just on a call last night
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  Speaker 1: with with ten of the global pharma CEOs who are
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  Speaker 1: all very heavily involved in bringing solutions to COVID, and
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  Speaker 1: we're really excited and optimistic to see some of the
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  Speaker 1: first data coming through and looking forward to seeing a
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  Speaker 1: lot more in the next six months or so. We
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  Speaker 1: have three vaccines in the clinic and two therapeutic treatments.
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  Speaker 1: Um everyone is understandably very impatient because I think the
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  Speaker 1: I m F said it's every month we wipe off
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  Speaker 1: the pandemic is five billion of value for the world.
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  Speaker 1: But I think right now we can be increasingly optimistic
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  Speaker 1: that science will win and our industry that's mobilized so
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  Speaker 1: fast will start to bring some scale solutions, and we're
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  Speaker 1: going to need more than one, that's for sure. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Normally to have a vaccine it takes four to seven years.
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  Speaker 1: The polio vaccine was seven years. I think Mom Seni
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  Speaker 1: Bowler was four years. So this has been done in
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  Speaker 1: basically a year or so. So is it because you
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  Speaker 1: have so many people working on it that you'll be
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  Speaker 1: able to do it so quickly or is it less
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  Speaker 1: complicated than people originally thought? Well, it certainly remains a
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  Speaker 1: very complicated effort. But when you're facing into a global
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  Speaker 1: crisis of this scale and this impact, there are many
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  Speaker 1: reasons that we have been able as an industry to
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  Speaker 1: mobilize behind getting to some faster solutions. But the real
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  Speaker 1: the ways you get to go faster are an incredible
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  Speaker 1: mobilization and partnership with regulators and governments. The fact that
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  Speaker 1: we have all been parallel pathing work that you might
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  Speaker 1: normally do sequentially, and that has been through putting capital
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  Speaker 1: at risk. But we've always and that's why many of
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  Speaker 1: us signed a commitment around the quality of the work,
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  Speaker 1: the scale of the trials, and the commitment to safety,
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  Speaker 1: and wherever the pressure might have understandably come from to
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  Speaker 1: go faster, we're all very committed to make sure that
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  Speaker 1: trust in vaccination is maintained, because the world will pay
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  Speaker 1: a very big price, not just for COVID but beyond that,
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  Speaker 1: if we break trust in the quality of vaccination. And
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  Speaker 1: it has frankly been the biggest contribution to human health
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  Speaker 1: since clean water, and we need to make sure that
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  Speaker 1: that that's maintained for the future. So some people are
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  Speaker 1: not willing to take a vaccination. Some people have said
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  Speaker 1: in surveys the United States, only or less people say
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  Speaker 1: they want to take this vaccine because they think it's
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  Speaker 1: either been politicized and not sure it's safe, or some
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  Speaker 1: people just don't like vaccines anyway. Are you worried that
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  Speaker 1: people won't take the vaccine, Well, yes, of course I
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  Speaker 1: do think um and we remain concerned about vaccine hesitancy.
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  Speaker 1: But we also have to be incredibly respectful about why
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  Speaker 1: people have these questions. You know, have we been able
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  Speaker 1: to move fast, have the companies put in the right
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  Speaker 1: kind of processes and scales of trials, what transparency are
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  Speaker 1: we going to bring to these processes and why do
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  Speaker 1: you hear about things being stopped and started? And what
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  Speaker 1: does all of this mean? So I think we our
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  Speaker 1: job is to make the commitments we have and we
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  Speaker 1: have very publicly about that alongside other manufacturers, but but
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  Speaker 1: also make sure we share data transparently and partner with
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  Speaker 1: governments who alter ly are those that guide in different
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  Speaker 1: countries around policies and distributions to to reassure people. And again,
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  Speaker 1: because you know vaccine, we don't worry about our children
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  Speaker 1: dying of measles anymore, you can. You know there are
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  Speaker 1: smallpox is not has been eradicated, Polio nearly so and
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  Speaker 1: this is because of this incredible contribution to protecting people
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  Speaker 1: and protecting life is always better than intervening at a
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  Speaker 1: later stage. Now you have teamed up with the for
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  Speaker 1: the coronavirus vaccine with Sonophi, which is another large pharmaceutical company.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just curious why did you team up with someone else?
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  Speaker 1: You you're the biggest manufacturer of vaccines. Could you not
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  Speaker 1: have done this yourself? Well, um, I think it's one
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  Speaker 1: of the great things that we've all seen in many
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  Speaker 1: industries through this pandemic. Is this incredible collaboration against a
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  Speaker 1: common competitor or enemy. And when we announced our approaches
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  Speaker 1: to vaccines development in the beginning of February, we said
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  Speaker 1: our best chance of the contributing g SK science technology
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  Speaker 1: and know how was to offer our adjuvant technology it's
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  Speaker 1: called which helps make other vaccines more effective, and an
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  Speaker 1: adjuvant technology that has been proven in pandemics to any
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  Speaker 1: credible partners. So we have three vaccines partnered in the
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  Speaker 1: clinic with others including Sonophie, because that adjuvant technology is
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  Speaker 1: proven in pandemic to work on older people and means
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  Speaker 1: and is a more effective way to get to scale manufacturing,
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  Speaker 1: which is the other real challenge here. We need to
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  Speaker 1: probably provide up to fourteen billion doses if we're in
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  Speaker 1: two dose vaccines to really protect the world, and so
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  Speaker 1: as well as getting to a safe and effective vaccine,
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  Speaker 1: we need to get to scale as fast as possible,
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  Speaker 1: and our route to that was partnership. Okay, there are
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  Speaker 1: two questions that people often to ask as well about
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  Speaker 1: whether vaccines are not only going to be available, but
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  Speaker 1: to whom are they going to be available. First, let's
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  Speaker 1: suppose you come up with one who gets them first?
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  Speaker 1: Private equity professionals do they get the first or not
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  Speaker 1: in the first in line? And secondly, what's it going
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  Speaker 1: to cost? Well, firstly, these are two fundamental questions. And
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  Speaker 1: again right from the beginning we said at GSK that
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  Speaker 1: our principles were around global access, which is why scale
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  Speaker 1: of manufacturing, getting to billions of doses and having multiple
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  Speaker 1: vaccine solutions not just the first one off the block matters.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the new technologies that are being distributed have
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  Speaker 1: to be distributed at minus seventy degrees I think, which
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  Speaker 1: is not suitable for going into some of the developing world.
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  Speaker 1: So we need access and we need responsible pricing, which
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  Speaker 1: is why we declared that we would not expect to
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  Speaker 1: profit from any COVID vaccine during the pandemic phase. We
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  Speaker 1: would reinvest any short term profits in pandemic preparedness donations
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  Speaker 1: to the developming world. We in terms of who gets it,
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  Speaker 1: we are contracted to governments in the U, the US, Europe,
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  Speaker 1: the UK, Canada and others. But we also just recently
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  Speaker 1: with Sonofi, committed to two hundred million, two hundred million
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  Speaker 1: doses for Kovacs as a starting point, which is particularly
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  Speaker 1: about supplying to the developing world where you have many
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable populations. The first principle should be the people who
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  Speaker 1: get it first are the people who need it most. Now,
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  Speaker 1: you are the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, as
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  Speaker 1: I understand it. Um some people say that vaccines are
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  Speaker 1: not the most profitable part of the pharmaceutical industry because,
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  Speaker 1: as I understand it, with a regular drug that one
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  Speaker 1: might manufacture, people might take it once a week, once
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  Speaker 1: a month, or so forth. With vaccines, you take it
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  Speaker 1: once or twice and you're done. So some people say
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  Speaker 1: that the pharmaceutical initially doesn't really care about vaccines as
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  Speaker 1: much as maybe they should. Is that fair and is
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  Speaker 1: it that profitable business to be in the vaccine business? Well,
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  Speaker 1: first of all, I think everyone in the world, every family, community, company,
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  Speaker 1: and country, cares a lot more about vaccines and is
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  Speaker 1: looking at a lot more now than perhaps we did
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  Speaker 1: two years ago or a year ago. And we are
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  Speaker 1: the largest manufacturer. We have more than thirty vaccines. We
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  Speaker 1: shipped two million vaccines a day. I think we vaccinate
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  Speaker 1: about of the world's children, and it is a profitable business.
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  Speaker 1: But it's a business that comes with responsibility around access
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  Speaker 1: to so why do you think it is that pharmaceutical companies,
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  Speaker 1: and you're one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world,
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  Speaker 1: generally the public says, maybe they're making too much money
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  Speaker 1: and maybe your image is not as good as you
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  Speaker 1: know you would like it to be. Why do you
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  Speaker 1: think that's happened? And do you think there's anything the
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  Speaker 1: industry can do to improve its image with the public.
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  Speaker 1: I think this is a really fundamental question for our
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  Speaker 1: industry because I mean, you just need to look this
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  Speaker 1: year at how uh mobilized we've been, what a difference
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  Speaker 1: we can make, and how much for heal healthcare resilience
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  Speaker 1: globally our contribution is required. And I am really proud
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  Speaker 1: of my company, but our industry for the way we've
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  Speaker 1: tried to collaborate for that. But the fact remains that
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  Speaker 1: we're still turning up in movies as the industry that
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  Speaker 1: people have criticisms of. And fundamentally, you can understand why
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  Speaker 1: there is this when people not just in developing countries
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  Speaker 1: but in the most powerful countries in the world, they're
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  Speaker 1: still fighting for access to healthcare for themselves of the
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  Speaker 1: people they love, and there is this tension, as you say,
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  Speaker 1: between the human right to access to healthcare, and profits
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  Speaker 1: in big corporates that perceived tension, and frankly, I think
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  Speaker 1: the industry hasn't always historically helped itself, either because of
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  Speaker 1: a small number of egregious acts on pricing or not
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  Speaker 1: enough transparency about why we do what we how we
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  Speaker 1: do what we do, and why it matters. And I
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  Speaker 1: think that what we can do about that is to
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  Speaker 1: do a better job of fulfilling our purpose two protect
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  Speaker 1: health find new solutions to fight new diseases responsibly, so
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  Speaker 1: partnering with governments to help address out of pocket challenges.
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  Speaker 1: To bring more transparency and stability to how people can
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  Speaker 1: engage with healthcare, to champion access across the world, to
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  Speaker 1: be responsible always in our pricing, to bring transparency to
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  Speaker 1: the way we work, but also do a better job
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  Speaker 1: of showing why it matters to everybody that we do
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  Speaker 1: that profitably. Because one in two of us gets cancer,
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  Speaker 1: one in three of us, maybe it's one and two two,
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how successful all the people are that
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  Speaker 1: you interview with that we don't have treatments for dementia
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  Speaker 1: and Alzheimer's, and we need to keep fighting and investing
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  Speaker 1: to be able to solve these problems for the future.
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  Speaker 1: So is it cheaper and easier for a company like
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  Speaker 1: GSK to go buy somebody that has already made a
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  Speaker 1: product and put it into your system rather than try
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  Speaker 1: to develop it yourself. Because I realized that it takes
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  Speaker 1: ten years or more to develop a products. So is
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  Speaker 1: it easier sometimes and better to go buy something? And
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  Speaker 1: how do you see the trade offs between the two?
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  Speaker 1: What we're all working hard to do and it is
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  Speaker 1: get to a better quality pipeline. And it would be
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  Speaker 1: incredibly arrogant to think, you know, all the world's best
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  Speaker 1: scientists sit inside your company, which is why business development
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  Speaker 1: and m and A is so common in our industry.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing to remember is that because of the
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  Speaker 1: patent cliff model in Farmer, you are having to read
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  Speaker 1: and it's another reason why as well as delivering on
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  Speaker 1: our purpose responsibly, we have to do it profitably. You
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  Speaker 1: are having to reinvent your portfolio on a rolling decade basis.
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  Speaker 1: Because we invest in the innovation, we build that drug
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  Speaker 1: and then rightly it comes off patent can be genericized
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  Speaker 1: and the sales are lost, you know, very aggressively and quickly.
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  Speaker 1: Now you're a member of the Microsoft board. So I
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: assume you have a fair degree of background now in
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  Speaker 1: technology and I T and other things like that. How
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: have you been able to apply that to what you're
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: doing at GSK. Well, I would never describe myself as
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: having a background in technology and I TUM and I'm
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I'm absolutely sure that was not why I always brought
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  Speaker 1: onto the Microsoft board. But it's an extraordinary company doing
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary things in an incredibly responsible way at a time
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: when technology is changing the world and an industries, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I believe can be an incredible force for good. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I it'll be interesting to see what we
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: look back on the twenties as as standing for and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: meaning and what evolved. No doubt loads of people will
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: be writing books about how to lead through a COVID crisis,
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  Speaker 1: But I think most of us believe that there will
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: be other, you know, huge global issues that will have
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  Speaker 1: to address, like climate change and inclusive economic recovery, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: But I also believe health resilience will be on the agenda.
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  Speaker 1: And the advances that the world has seen in biology,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: all of the genetics and genomics data that's coming through
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  Speaker 1: at the same time as the advances the world are
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  Speaker 1: seen in AI and machine learning combined together have a
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  Speaker 1: real real shot over the next decade to improve the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: productivity of R and D and science in my industry incredibly.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it is really hard to discover new drugs
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and vaccines of them fail. It takes a long time. Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: the world is mobilized right now to get to faster solutions,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and I hope we learned lessons in a way we
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: partner with regulators and use new technologies to to to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: permanently accelerate some of these processes. But the opportunity to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: use technology to do it, to identify and the enormous
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: amounts of data to identify better quality targets, so we
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: have a biological targets, so we have a higher probability
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of success of developing better medicines faster for these enormous
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: unmet needs in the world. I think we'll be defining
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: for the next decade. When you grew up, UM, you
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: went to Oxford and you majored in UM modern languages
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and classics. And as a general rule of most people
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: running pharmaceutical companies are not majors in classic or Romance languages.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: So when you were in Oxford. Did you say you
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to do what you're now doing or do you
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: what was your career ambition? Yeah, I think it would
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: be fair to say that I spent most of my
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: time and my master's looking at Latin poetry, which was
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: not an obvious path towards this destiny so far. And honestly,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I am probably the person you've interviewed who had the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: least strategic career plan ever. I am. My entire work
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: experience up until I left all studies was waitressing. I
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: never had, you know, any kind of internship or anything
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: like that. I went into consultancy for a few years
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: because I needed to pay off my debts, and and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: then because I spoke French, I was shot in charge
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of benchmarking Laurel and I just got super curious about
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: that industry, and then took a pake up to go
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and be the assistant assistant product manager on a home
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: hair color, and then spent seventeen years going all around
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the world, just tremendous opportunities, living and working in Paris,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: in New York for five years, and then in China
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: um and never thought I'd leave, And then had one
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of those kind of accidental meetings at the time in Shanghai,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Ah with the then CEO of GSK who explained, explained
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and convinced me that I should move into the consumer
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: business at GSK UM and I couldn't resist the chance
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: to pursue. I thought of a business with an incredibly
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: important and impactful purpose, UM, which is health and and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: also have the chance to run a global division. I
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: had no idea that that would then lead to this,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: but it's been exciting so far. So what did your
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: family say when you said I'm going to be in
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical or healthcare business? Um? Well, my family, because
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I had four children, we were living in in in
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Shanghai and China, and I said, guess what, I've got
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: a new idea. We're not completely thrilled at the prospects
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: of the time, but they, uh, And then you know, obviously, Um,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up my father was in the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Navy his whole career. I grew up in a in
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: a military family where there was a tremendous sense of
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: work ethic and duty and responsibility. And and I think, um,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you know, they were incredibly proud when we eventually came
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: back to the UK after being out for ten years
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and excited to see the work that we've been doing since.
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  Speaker 1: So you're a consumer healthcare specialists in addition to a
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: being a classics person in a modern language person. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: then you in effect sold off or you've joint ventured
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: your consumer healthcare business. Did you ever expect when you
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: came to GSK that you would actually not be doing
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: consumer healthcare and you'd be doing the traditional pharmaceutical healthcare. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the short answer that is no, But I'm incredible excited
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to see, frankly, the creation of two world leading businesses
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  Speaker 1: and UM in consumer health We built the joint venture
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: with Visor and declared at the time of doing that
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: deal that we would buy around mid twenty two separate
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that company out to be an independent company because it's
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the only UH stand alone dedicated to consumer healthcare consumer
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: products company in the world. It's got leading positions in
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: leading markets and leading UH categories, and frankly having it
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: inside as a slightly invisible division a much bigger company
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: whose number one priority is to