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Well, as you know, tariff talks continuing, as do presidential statements about more manufacturing back here in the United States. The pharmaceutical industry among the latest to be targeted by President Trump, who made comments Monday from Scotland.
We'll be announcing on pharmaceuticals sometime in the very near future. We have a very big plan on pharmaceuticals. We want to bring a lot of the pharmaceuticals back to America. Will you know the way they should be. We're going to want to be making a lot of them ourselves, all of them in a sense. But you also have a good pharmaceutical business. We'll be dealing with you on pharmaceuticals.
All right. That, of course, was President Trump on Monday from Scotland. We've got a great voice on this and really the overall pharma industry. Big Pharma. A company that reported earnings earlier today. We're talking about Astrazenica. Eighty hours of the company, by the way, are rallying more than four percent in today's session. Great to have with us in studio. Pascal Sorio. He is Astrozenica's chief executive officer.
Also with us a member of our editorial team here at Bloomberg knows this company and industry so well as Bloomberg News health reporter Madison Muller. Pascal, by the way, also a former CEO of Genentech. Thank you, thank you for joining us.
Welcome, thank you for having me. It's very a pleasure, thank you.
It's a pleasure for us. Big space, a space that's certainly garnered the attention of President Trump. I am curious, you know, in terms of the President talking about more manufacturing in the United States, and I know you guys are making some further investments here, talk to us about how presidential policy is impacting maybe your business.
Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, it's a great question. But first of all, it's important to really think about what every country.
Would want to do. Every country would want.
To make sure they can and they can secure the health of their citizens.
It's a question of national security.
So nobody should be surprised that the president wants to reshore manufacturing or pharmaceutical products. I personally, I have seen this happen since several years, and we decided several years ago to increase some manufacturing footprint in the US. So we can actually manufacture many scenes for American patients in America. Every country would want to do that, and a big country like America, of course, kind of thought to do it.
You said that you made that decision several years ago. How much of the fifty billion dollar pledge was planned before the President threatened these terraffts.
Well, we've been pursuing this strategy of manufacturing in China for China, in the US for the US since five six years and quite frankly, COVID actually showed us we were on the right track because we all saw what happened during COVID, and so we accelrated this movement and sour fifty billion commitment is a commitment to R and
D but also commitment to manufacturing. We announced together with the Governor of Virginia, a multi billion dollar investment in manufacturing in Virginia, and the Governor of Virginia has been incredibly fast with this team, thirty three days to reach an agreement. It's incredible, so we're very happy to be there. We are building a new R and D site in Kendle Square, Cambridge, Massachusett, with twenty five hundred scientists that
we'll be working there, and there's more to come. We're just finishing the build of a cels Rup manufacturing site in Rockville, Maryland. We've expanded in California. So so it's a sort of multi plane effort across many states across the US.
You know, you've said that Virginia obviously has made it easy to make manufacturing investments there in North Carolina is pretty similar. Are there other states in the US where you're having these types of good conversations that are you know, incentivizing businesses like yours to invest.
Well, you know, it's hard for me to point the point that any state that is better than another.
Let me just say that we have.
No problem from different in New Jersey.
Let me let me just say that the company like ours follow the science. So science is key, and so you need to be able to recruit the right scientences, the right engineers. And in Virginia you can do this because you have some of the best university universities. The other part is dealing with partners in a public sector that understand us.
That we trust each other, we can move fast.
You know, I always tell people in our company talk about as Tazenica speed, because there's a lot of competition. We need to move fast. I've learned Virginia speed. The governor has moved so quickly. So this is the kind of thing we want to see, whether it's in America, in a state or in a country. We want speed and we want people who understand how we think.
You want speed. You want people to understand how you think you want to You said you want to follow the science. There has been criticism that Robert F. Kennedy, Junior, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has not necessarily always followed the science with his comments when it comes to medicine, when it comes to drugs, when it comes to vaccines. How do you look at that and his role there.
Well, you know, I'm not here to actually get involved in political discourses. Let me just say that as a company, science is at the heart of everything we do. The reason we have such a large oncology pipeline in particular and beyond this is because we've focused on science for the last ten twelve years. And America is where science in our industry is happening. And that's why it's so
critical to preserve this biosciences leadership. The US has globally China is also becoming a very big source of innovation in our industry. Your open fortunately is falling behind for a variety of reasons. So innovation is happening here. We need to keep this going.
We need to.
Actually continue supporting the leadership. And that's why we invest fifty billion dollars in this country, not only in manufacturing but also in R and D.
What about China, I'd love you to kind of explore that a little bit. What are you investing in and building out in China and what might surprise our audience about the innovation that's happening in China, especially when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
Yeah, I think my great question, and I think we need to start.
With the the hypothesis, the assumption that basically the more products or the more innovation exists in the world, the better it is for everybody, for every patient, because if you have a patient with cancer, the only thing that you care about is to be cured if you can be cured, right, And so innovation in China has really
ramped up very rapidly in the last few years. China has gone from making generics to me toos to Metwo plus what we call meet two plus in our industry to truly innovate these days, innovate in new technologies and cell therapy in si RN, in many many technologies, and so China has become the second engine of innovation, not as big as the US. The US remains the leader in that field, but China is ramping up very quickly.
Is the administration with some of it, some would say questionable disruptive policies. There's been a lot of reporting about scientists kind of leaving the United States and going elsewhere. Are you seeing signs of that, whether it's to Europe, to China to elsewhere because of not supporting, you know, academia and academic universities. Some of that seems to be coming back.
But yeah, but you know, in these things, it's always difficult to discern what is anecdotal versus what is systemic. What we have seen in China is really a substantial return of scientists from the US but also from the UK and elsewhere, but not because of policy, simply because they could see opportunities in China. There is money, there is capital that can be invested. The Chinese are willing to take rise. The government has facilitated the return of
the scientists, and they've come back. But I can tell you that a lot of the scientists we work with and China in about the companies that we partner with, many of these people are American, the American Chinese. I mean they go back and forth, back and forth. There are bridged between the US and China. But they've gone to China because of the opportunities to create a company, be funded, tach risk and and.
Hopefully be successful and buy and large. They've been quite successful.
I want to say though, that the leadership remains with the US and we need to maintain this, of course, I mean the country needs to maintain this.
There's been some concern though that companies like yours, you know, not necessarily astro, but big pharmaceutical companies are going to China for most of their biotech deals. Now, you know, what would you say to that and what would US biotech companies need to do to sort of attract investments from from well, I.
Mean the first thing I would say is that if you're a patient, you don't care. What you want is a drug that will help you. Right, So when we do a deal with a Chinese company, typically it's because they've discovered a product and they need help to globalize it. Because discovering something in a lab is one thing. It doesn't require a huge amount of money. It require us very talented people, but the capital requirement is limited. When you want to develop globally, then you need to scale.
You need billions of dollars of investment in phase two, phase three, and you need to scale. You need the people, the expertise. So what we do is we lice on sindle product and then we develop them globally and then bring them to patients so they start the innovation started in China but becomes a global medicine for everybody, so it really benefits everybody around the world.
I want to go back to sort of a global domestic question the idea of your listing, and the Times of London has said that Astro Zeneka is looking to move. It's listening to the US.
Are you going to do that?
Well, you just shirt with us.
Yeah.
We don't comment on rumors, and you know, as a company over the last ten years we've had so many rumors. We don't comment on rumors. The only thing I will say really is the United States is really core to our company. By two thousand and thirty, we expect fifty percent of our revenue to come out of the United States. Today it's forty four forty five percent. We're all tremendously
in the US, and the first half. The US is the country that innovates, I just audio, but also the countries that uptake the innovation faster, patients benefit much faster. So we want to invest here and we want to grow here, and that is a very critical part of our company globally.
Just curious in terms of growth. You know, we've talked about earnings and your cancer drugs are certainly important in terms of growth. Where do you see kind of the most significant growth trends when it comes to pharmaceuticals. We've spent the last what is it, Madison, the last couple of years talking about the obesity drugs and weight loss drugs, But where do you see it? We talk often about
genes and genetic and immunotherapy. Where do you see the real growth coming in the next I don't know, five to ten years.
The great question, but it's almost all of the above. I mean, of course, my check managing what I would call sant rolo abdominal fat because everybody talks about obesity, what really matter how much FA do you have in your abdomenins that surrounds you your liver, your punkreas, your heart and creates inflammation and insulin resistance and all the consequences.
We can think about hypertension and others.
So this is really a big epedemic globally. We need to address that and that's what companies like lilian Over are doing today and we are we want to do.
This with all agents.
But then you know, we have development in antibody drug conjugates, We have developments in by specific antibodies for cancer. One of the most exciting new technology is cell therapy because cells upy will apply to ematology, cancers, but also potentially sol tumors and immune diseases. We have no cases, small numbers early days, but small cases that young women who suffer from lupus, which is a terrible disease.
Can be family member who has lucas, it.
Can be I mean, these patients their life is about taking drugs. Theories with all the consequences. You can imagine the organs are destroyed over time by the disease, they can be cured. You have people with my looma that can be cured. And so as we progress this technology and make it more usable, is more easily usable, and more affordable, it can really transform many fields of medicine, phrom oncology to iminology.
I know you've had an amazing tenure at Astra and there's sort of an obsession in the UK with your succession plans and what comes next. You know, not to say that you're leaving anything you don't. We don't want you to go. What do you want to accomplish before you and your tenure at Astra.
Well, one of the things is that I wanted to do is have a great team, and I have a great team.
That's it.
I have really a fantastic team, and that's why what you should worry about my succession. We have a great team and people who can succeed me. So that's I think one thing, and we need to we constantly try to improve the team, not only my direct reports, but they are direct reports and the company as a whole. Two is the second piece is almost unachievable because science is never going to be stopping. And the more I progress, the older it gets, the more science get exciting and
the more excited you. I mean, there's no better time to be in our industry than there's so much innovation, so much hope to cure diseases that can't be cured today. And the last thing was really to finish our site in Cambridge, because I keep joking internality, I want to have the two Cambridges, one in Cambridge, you care when in Cambridge and bos them.
But that's for the joke.
But the most exciting really is the science and the pursuit of new technologies and new products that will make a difference and change the few Joe medicine. So that's those other things I want to add, Rice, But I have to accept that some is going to catch up with me.
And unless you create a pill that keeps us going, I'm kind of giving my fingers crossing exactly glp ones right. We think it's going to be. You're all, Pascal, we really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for having me for all the time. Pascal Sorio. He is astrosenic as chief executive officer, and of course Bloomberg News his own health reporter Madison Muller, always a must read on the Bloomberg and at bloomberg dot com,