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Inflation is Here to Stay · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
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  Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Well, one of the
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  Speaker 1: key issues scrolling around markets these days is inflation. We're
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  Speaker 1: certainly seeing plenty signs of inflation. The question is is
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  Speaker 1: it more transitory as a photo reserve believes, or is
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  Speaker 1: it something more permanent that may pose a challenge to
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  Speaker 1: the markets. Let's bring in a doll Zaman partner at
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Alliance Group to get some thoughts he about.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us here. Again, that inflation
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  Speaker 1: discussion has really been heating up over the last several weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and it certainly has profound implications for the markets going forward.
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  Speaker 1: How do you guys at Wall Street Alliance view kind
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of what appears to be some growing inflation in this economy.
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  Speaker 1: Great to be with here for so, you know, we
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  Speaker 1: really feel that inflation over here is a dominant team.
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  Speaker 1: It's not transitory. It's here to stay. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: the jobs report this Friday will probably give affirmation of
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  Speaker 1: that as well. And you know, there are different reasons
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  Speaker 1: for inflation, one of which obviously is the labor shortage
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  Speaker 1: and being in New York City. I don't know if
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  Speaker 1: you guys have noticed this or not, but one of
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  Speaker 1: the things we are suffering from is that the uber
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  Speaker 1: and left prices have skyrockets. Yeah, and you know, year
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  Speaker 1: over year they've actually, according to research, have gone up
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  Speaker 1: by about and the reason for that is there's a
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  Speaker 1: shortage of drivers. So for this reasons and others, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we really feel that inflation is a dominant investment team
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  Speaker 1: for us at Wall Street Alliance Group, and we are
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  Speaker 1: investing in sectors and businesses that tend to do well
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  Speaker 1: in an inflationary And I'm i gotta say, um, that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't make me unhappy because those those guys, they work
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  Speaker 1: so hard and that is a tireless job. Sometimes they're
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  Speaker 1: putting in, you know, more than twelve hour shifts. And
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  Speaker 1: I did a little stint as a lift driver in
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  Speaker 1: an Aston Martin Vantage V eight once and how did
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  Speaker 1: that go? It was? Actually, that was pretty fun because
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  Speaker 1: I wasn't in Aston Martin, but most Uber drivers are not.
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  Speaker 1: You know. The the the interesting thing on the labor
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  Speaker 1: side is there are a lot of slots that aren't
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  Speaker 1: getting filled, not just Uber and Lift, but also hotels
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  Speaker 1: that we talked to, restaurants that we talked to because
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  Speaker 1: the unemployment benefits are so good and I'm wondering if
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  Speaker 1: that's also um the problem for Uber and Lift. Do
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  Speaker 1: you think we're gonna see this change big time in September?
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  Speaker 1: So definitely that is uh, we feel that that is
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  Speaker 1: definitely a factor. I'm come September, you know, we are
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  Speaker 1: going to be a change in this and you know why.
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  Speaker 1: Of the things that's going to happen, Paul, is that
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  Speaker 1: when these all these workers come back through the workforce
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  Speaker 1: after the bonus and unemployment is finished, we're going to
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  Speaker 1: get an increase in demand and that's going to cause
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  Speaker 1: prices to go up. So there's again going to pay inflation.
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  Speaker 1: So either way, you know, we cannot get away from inflation.
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  Speaker 1: It's here to stay. And the prudent approaches to identify
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  Speaker 1: sectors that will benefit from inflation. So for example, we
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  Speaker 1: are very constructive on the bank banking sectors because when
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  Speaker 1: interest rates go up, guess what's going to happen. Banks
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  Speaker 1: are going to be able to make more money on
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  Speaker 1: their loans. Right. Banks then to also do well at
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  Speaker 1: times of economic recovery because businesses have to restart their
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  Speaker 1: shelves so they have to borrow money, right, And then
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  Speaker 1: the capital positions of these banks improved, so they were
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  Speaker 1: able to do more buy backs, They're able to give
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  Speaker 1: out more dividends. So we feel that, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: banking sector as a whole is going to do well
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  Speaker 1: in an inflationary embo IMN. So that'll probably in that
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  Speaker 1: camp that says, you know, you're not going to get
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  Speaker 1: real sustained inflation in this economy until you get wage inflation.
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  Speaker 1: And we didn't even have wage inflation, I would argue
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  Speaker 1: before the pandemic, when we were at full employment. Do
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  Speaker 1: you think we will in fact have meaningful wage inflation
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  Speaker 1: in this economy as reopens. So even right now, you know,
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  Speaker 1: even in your program, I'm I'm listening to the advertisements
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  Speaker 1: by Amazon about you know, how they're going to get
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  Speaker 1: bonuses to workers to lure them, right, So I think
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  Speaker 1: that you know, as the economy recovers, you know there's
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  Speaker 1: going to be demand for labor and you know, companies
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  Speaker 1: are going to compete for it and they're going to
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  Speaker 1: have to pay higher prices as they are right now.
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  Speaker 1: Another thing that we are seeing going on part of
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  Speaker 1: the PAUL is this infrastructure package, and you know, because
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  Speaker 1: of this, we do feel that that's going to in
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  Speaker 1: one way or the other, get past. And because of that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, again, you know, more jobs are going to
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  Speaker 1: get created and we are going to see you know,
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  Speaker 1: wages also go higher. And you know, speaking of this
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  Speaker 1: infrastructure package, we really feel that this is something that
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  Speaker 1: is of dire need in the US because you know,
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  Speaker 1: when you travel to countries like let's say China or Singapore,
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  Speaker 1: you see how badly the US is lagging the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the world in infrastructure. According to the American Society
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  Speaker 1: of Civil Engineers, currently the US give it gives the
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  Speaker 1: US infrastructure a C minus great. So we feel that
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  Speaker 1: there's bipartisan support for this. And you know, even if
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  Speaker 1: we have to expand the national debt too to pass
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  Speaker 1: this infrastructure package, we would still be fine with it
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  Speaker 1: because the infrast rates costs are extremely low right now.
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  Speaker 1: Del thanks so much for joining us A deals. I'm
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  Speaker 1: on there as a partner at the Wall Street Alliance
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  Speaker 1: Group talking to us about inflatation and infrastructure. Really a
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  Speaker 1: couple of hot topics. We're gonna get more out on
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  Speaker 1: the at the Beige Book later tonight and or later today,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I should say, and then obviously non farm payrolls on Friday.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Now. I love drugs, but they are expensive.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Our next guest wants to do something about that and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: make them better as well at fighting diseases. Dr David
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  Speaker 1: gil Johan joins us now CEO of Execure, and you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: are using really fascinating future tech not only to make
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: drugs that treat cancer and other rare diseases, but also
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to make them cost less. How's that working out? Yeah?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Absolutely happy to be here today. Um. So we're using
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: digital drug design, that's what we call to create new
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: DNA based medicines to basically go after underlying causes the
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: disease at their genetic source. The idea of being you
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: want to go upstream and kind of turn off the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: half directly where the disease is coming from. And we
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: can do that quite simply now by using your a's,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: g T, S and c's your genetic code to go
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: right to that source. All right, dr have we how
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: do any success stories in the biotech world using this
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: type of technology or is this something new? Well, it's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: extra for a brand new thing that we're doing to
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: go after some of these underlying causes genetic disease. But
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: there's a really fascinating example that everybody now knows, which
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: is Maderna. So Maderna used to create that vaccine for COVID,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you know that a g T c idea. You can
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: just simply look at the genetic code of the COVID
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: variant and you can start to create that drug directly
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: to make drugs faster and ultimately cheaper for patients. And
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: what else can they What else do you think we're
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to treat well with RNA with m
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: RNA drugs. Yeah, we're creating all kinds of different m
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: RNA and RNA drugs that execure. So we're going after
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  Speaker 1: things as diverses cancer, you know, which are genetically caused
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  Speaker 1: disease is Well, we have things like freeers of taxia
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  Speaker 1: Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's, things that are everywhere from your brain
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  Speaker 1: to your skin to your eyes, to your lungs, really
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  Speaker 1: everywhere within your body. You have the ability now to
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  Speaker 1: targets United code UM and finally that technology is arrived
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and we think execure has one of those keys to
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: allow that to be the case. So dr You know
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of folks out there when they think about
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the COVID vaccinations that are out there, whether it's the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: fires or them Darren or the J and J, you know,
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  Speaker 1: one of the concerns is, boy, they just gotta prove
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: so fast. Everybody's you know, I'm used to these drugs
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: taking years to get approved and NIGAT improved in less
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: than a year. What's what do you say to that?
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Is that? Is that just a function of Hey, the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: technology is better? What do you say, Well, absolutely, I mean,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it's obviously driven by an urgent need, right, so we
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: need to move faster. Regulations need to be moved the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: l side in some cases to go faster. The amount
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of resources that was dumped into creating those technologies and
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: getting it up fast was also tremendous. But it really
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: just goes to show the hour of when you put
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: some of these new technologies like DNA and RNA medicines
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  Speaker 1: to work. How quickly you can solve something that's so pressing, Um,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: you know, societal challenge or a personal challenge for folks
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: as well. So that same technology can be applied to
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: everything from cancers to lung disease. We just have to
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: come up with the mustard to do it and the technologies,
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  Speaker 1: Like we have an execure in our spiritus leg after
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: it to go after it. So how long till we
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: find a way to cure cancer? How long do we
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: have to deal with cancer? Because it's a real pain. Cancers.
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  Speaker 1: Cancer is gonna be all around. I mean, cancers are
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: not going anywhere. I mean it's it's going to continue
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to manifest itself. You know, we have that issue. You
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: can't obviously go one step without running to somebody who's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: dealt with cancer in their family. Um. You know, the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: idea is, once you have that cancer, rather than use
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: something like a chemo therapeutic or an antibody, which can
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: be very non specific and lead to all kinds of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: side effects, why not go after that underlying genetics that's
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  Speaker 1: causing cancer. Everything comes down to your genes and end.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So why can't we specifically target those cancer cells when
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: they exist and go after treating those cancers, you know,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: rather than you know, using the nuclear option and going
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: after some of these things with not specific chemo therapeutics.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So at execure, what are you guys targeting? What's your
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: your home run that you're hoping to hit. Yeah, so
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: we're using a technology that we call spherical nucleic acid
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: or s n A. And so you are talking now
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: about DNA and RNA based medicines. This is a storical
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: version of the Yeah, coush balls, absolutely, so I really
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: love the couch balls analogy. Here, we put DNA and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: RNA on the outside of a nanoparticle, and by putting
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: DNA in RNA on the outside, we're able to get
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: those DNA RNA structures in the cells. And once we're
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: in the cells, now we can start going after those
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: defuncts or misread genetic codes to reprogram things, if you will,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: to be more correct for the patient need. And so
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: we're gonna able to do this very quickly. Yeah, I
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: gotta ask just finally, because he's going through a messy
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: process right now. But Bill Gates has done so much
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: for mankind already. What's it like working with a genius
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: like that? Yeah, well, very grateful to have an investor
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: like Bill Gates in our company. I think he sees
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the parallels between what we're doing, the a's, g's, t's,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and c's, which is the genetic code and the zero
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: one zero one of you know, the Internet age and
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  Speaker 1: DNA and programming right that you get on your computer.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Everything from your high phone to computer and everything in
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: between is is governed by those zeros and ones. So
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I think there's some great parallels there. I think Bill
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Gates is a visionary and putting those two things together
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and thinking about medicine the same way we're thinking about
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the digital age is a great way to look at
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: developing drugs for future. Yep, David, thank you so much
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: for joining us. We really appreciated Dr David gilt Johannes.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: He's a CEO of biotech company Execure. Let's getting now
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: over to Christina Hooper. She's a chief Global market strategist
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: at Investco and she joins us with um around of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: what we need to be watching right now for in
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: these markets. Christine, I guess, um the Beige Book comes
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: out tonight. How many watching closely for shortages of of
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: goods and also to see how tight the labor forces.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: But probably the big deal data point to follow is
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the non farm payrolls on Friday. Right, But what's great
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: about the Beige Book is it helps provide stories. It
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: gives color around the data points that we get. And
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: so the last page book that came out in April
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I think helped make a sense of the most recent
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that April jobs report, which was disappointing. Um, we're not
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: enough jobs were created as expected, as had been expected,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and that helped provide a little backstory on it all. Right, So, Christine,
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the key issues that investors are
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: trying to get a handle on right now is inflation.
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  Speaker 1: We certainly see it in various parts of the economy,
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  Speaker 1: whether you're looking at uh, you know, of the economy,
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  Speaker 1: whether you're looking at commodities such as the soft commodities
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  Speaker 1: or even metals or and crude. The question is is
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  Speaker 1: it something transitory like the Federal Reserve is suggesting, or
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  Speaker 1: is it something more long lasting which may be problematic
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  Speaker 1: to the markets. Where do you come down on that question? Well,
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  Speaker 1: the irony is we won't know until it's in our
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: rear view mirror, right, But what I would argue is that.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's more likely to be transitory. We are
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: right now witnessing uh an incredibly strong UM economic growth spurt. UM,
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  Speaker 1: we are reopening the economy, we have elevated household savings,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: we have pent up demand. It's almost a perfect storm
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: in the positive sense. So it makes sense that we
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  Speaker 1: would see just a very significant increase in demand for
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things. We have the supply chain disruptions
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  Speaker 1: contributing to these issues, and of course UM there is
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a smaller group of people willing to work right now
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: because of concerns about COVID nineteen which is ebbing, but
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: also of course difficulty with childcare. Some schools are still online,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: daycare isn't at full capacity in some places. So all
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: those things are likely to get worked out over the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: shorter term. We're not going to be taking vacations forever.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: We'll get it out of our systems soon. So I
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  Speaker 1: would argue it's more likely to be transitory. UM. Even
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: if that's the case, there are still problems with price
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  Speaker 1: increases in a lot of really important areas like housing
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and I I saw a great piece on the m
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Live blog today from West Goodman pointing out that central
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: banks in Europe, in the UK and Canada and the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: US are all watching this closely, all a little bit
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: worried that this could be the straw that breaks the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: camels back in terms of tapering. What do you think
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of the soaring housing prices. Well, it's certainly a concern,
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  Speaker 1: and we do have members of the S well i'm see,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: who are focused on that um But what I would
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: say is that it is not um It is not
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to me as big a concern as for example, wage growth.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: We want to follow that closely. That tends to create
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: uh stickier inslation. Just because housing is a function of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: a variety of other components, like, for example, a desire
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to um own as opposed to rent, there's always the option.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I think the market often corrects itself when prices get
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: too high, people opt to rent. So I don't worry
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: as much about the housing market as I worry about
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: other parts of the economy. Christina. Earlier this morning, Tom
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Keene and I were speaking to Doug Cass of Sea
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Breeze Partners, and he was making a case that he
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: is pretty darn close to becoming net short this market,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: setting a number of reasons including valuation, How do you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: feel about valuation of this market right here? Well, valuations
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: are stretched for parts of this market. UM. But having
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: said that, UM, we have everything is relative and we
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: have to look at in the context of monetary policy,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: which is incredibly accommodative right now. UM. So I think
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it does really alter UM the landscape when we look
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: at valuations. So what I would say is that we
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: don't want to abandon the stock market, UM, but we
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: do want to add in components of our portfolio that
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: have lower valuations, and sometimes that means going outside the US,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: going outside the US and where too, well, Uh, European
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: equities have lower valuations, emerging markets equities, and you can
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: make the argument with Europe that it is following the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: path of the US, UM, but it has longer legs
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: just because it is not as far along and it's
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: it's economic recovery. All right, Christina, thank you so much.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: We always appreciate getting your market opinions and thoughts here.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Christina who she's a chief Global market strategist for invest Go.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: One of the leading stories in the world of sports
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: right now is Naomi Osaka and her withdrawal from the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: French Open. Naomi cited, among other things, dealing she needs
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to deal time to deal with some mental health issues,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and that certainly brings to the for you know, mental
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: health and the pandemic and how that's impacted mental health
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: of folks across the board. Our next guest has some
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: thoughts there, George Goldsmith. He's co founder, chairman and chief
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: executive officer of Compass Pathways. Uh and talking about you know,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: mental therapy using potentially psychedelic therapi is George, thanks so
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: much for joining us here. Again, mental health always on
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the front of people's minds, but maybe even more so
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: during this pandemic. Talk to us about what you folks
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: at Compass Pathways are doing towards this issue. Thanks so
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: much for having me on. I really appreciate this opportunity.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And you're right, you know, not only is this top
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: of mind for so many of us, particularly coming out
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of the pandemic, and we're reading about it, whether it's
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: sports stars or royal family members, I think that it's
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: now something we can talk about and it's really important
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: because this is a huge, un undescribed problem. Far too
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: often there's just in depression alone. We have a hundred
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: million people who aren't helped by what exists today in
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: terms of therapies, and we created Compass really to look
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: at how we create affordable new treatments for that. And
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: one of the things that's really caught our interests and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: focus is looking at psilocybin, which is a psychedelic medicine,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and bringing that into clinical trials based on some really
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: exciting early stage studies. So what can be done? I'll say, UM,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I agree that I don't think mental health issues should
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: be stigmatized. I think it should be like physical health issues, um,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you know, like if you break an arm or if
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: you have back problems. I had, I think, a really
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: intense about of depression and anxiety brought on by lyme disease.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And I was fortunate enough to find doctors, um who
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: understood what was going on and gave me fluvoxing me
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and some other drugs that really helped a lot. And
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I was back on my feet and and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: ready to rumble in a month. And I'm I'm really
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: glad that I didn't kind of hide away as was
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: my initial you know, as was my initial reaction or
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: my initial um uh IDEA, what can be done with
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: silo cybin that can't be done with ss r I
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: s and other drugs that are so helpful already. Sure,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I think that they are. There's a lot of different
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: treatments that do make a difference for a lot of people,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately not for nearly enough. And this is the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: hundred million people who are so called treatment resistant. And
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: by the way, I really appreciate you sharing your story.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: We like to say everyone has a story, and as
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: we look around, whether it's friends, family, we all see
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: someone who has struggled at some point, and often, you know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: even ourselves, and I think this is really important. So
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: thank you for sharing your story, and hopefully more people can.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: What's different about our approach is that, first of all,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: it's targeted for people who aren't helped by current approaches,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and there are a lot of them. As I mentioned,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: our approach is really very, very different. It's a single
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: dose of a high high dose of psilocybin um, which
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. It's a psychedelic
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: medicine that was really explored a great deal in the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, and then obviously they became illegal as
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: they escaped the laboratory, and we have the sixties and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: so forth. Um but Alee and the acid test still
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: on tour with the Grateful Dead and friends, you bet right,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and so so all of this then somehow inspired a
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: group of scientists because between ninet nineteen sixty people were
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: in trials with LSD and lesser psilocybic. This revisited in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the two thousands by JOHNS. Hopkins, n y U, U
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: c L A Imperial College in London, all showed really
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: promising studies. We created Compass to build on the early
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: evidence and bring it to patients and make sure it
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: was accessible through rigorous clinical trials. And right now we're
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: finishing up our phase to trial, which is the phase
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that goes before the next. It's the next, the last
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: phase to get to patients, and we'll be reporting out
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: on that next year or d end of this year actually,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: And I think what's really important is we're doing that
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in ten countries because the problem is global and the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: need is high. So we're really excited about the work
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that we're doing and we'll have results to report out
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and hopefully those will build on the incredibly interesting results
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: of the prior studies. Again, what's really cool here a
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: single dose on carefully controlled, simple situation given by professionally
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: trained people. Um, it's a really different model, and how's
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: people see their lives differently. What you mentioned cost before,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Can you give us a sense of kind of the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: cost of maybe this type of treatment that you guys
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: are focusing on versus maybe what's more traditional in the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: marketplace now? Well, I think one of the things that's happening,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've covered it other places, it's a move
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: to value based pricing and how that works, and we
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: really think it's we're accountable for how much value can
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: we create. So it's premature until we have the research
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to be able to talk about how much this would cost,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: until we understand who benefits, how how much of benefit,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: how long it lasts. So that's all work being done.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: But we clearly make a view that this has to
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: be affordable. The problem is huge, and again with such
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: large patient markets, obviously you can have it be affordable
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and still have a large benefit for investors. And it's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: clearly our investors believe in that post going public in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: September and also in our most recent follow on fundraising
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: on the market of NASAC. I mean when I was
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: a kid in eighth of shrooms was about thirty dollars.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's changed that much. Um. Today you've
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: got the whole clinical aspect around it, so it's not
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: like you know, you're sitting in your mom's living room
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: listening to alas looking at the oriental rug. Yeah. I'm
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: telling you that some of that experience. So look, I
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: think let's be really clear. We're no mushrooms are harmed
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: in our work. We're doing this at a global level.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Synthetic psilocybin developed the highest standards g MP, working with
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, and then
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: developing this in with lots of data, so people can
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: feel confident that, um, when they have this experience, it's
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: backed up by really data, significant data. We have FDA
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Breakthrough Therapy designation for our work and treatment resistant depression.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: So it's a little different than the purchasing magic mushrooms
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and hang out in the oriental carpeted room. Hey, George,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Really fascinating store here.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: George Goldsmith He's co founder, chairman and chief econd officer
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of accompass a pathways with some potentially new therapies UH
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: for mental health and certainly an issue here, evermore so
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: given the pandemic. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at Matt Miller three. On Fall Sweeney, I'm
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at pt Sweeney Before the podcast. You can
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio