00:00Is that the right interpretation? Is this the kind of the bottom? Is the glass half full from here after being half empty for so long? Do things get better from here?
00:09What I can tell you is that the first nine months of the year, 15 percent profit sales growth and 10 percent profit growth is not so bad at all compared to our peers.
00:19But I think that when you look at it, quarter by quarter, there has been a headwind and bringing the quarterly growth rates lower.
00:28If you project our numbers for the full year, actually, you see that quarter four should be in negative territory.
00:35So that you see mathematically.
00:36So this isn't the low point. The low point is still to come, but things get better from there.
00:39There's for sure a headwind against us.
00:42Yeah.
00:42Having said this, we are in a business of marathons and not sprints.
00:47OK. So there is a huge amount of unmet need with many patients still not on our medications or not on any medications.
00:56And I look incredibly forward, of course, as we go forward, taking over this new job, making sure that we expand the market and get to those people.
01:04You've been in the job for 91 days. You haven't let the grass grow under your feet.
01:08You're already talking about cost cuts. You will talk about in a minute. You've launched a big M&A deal.
01:13Is this the new Novo? Is this a more dynamic, aggressive Novo Nordisk under your tenure?
01:20The success we have had with obesity has meant that a lot of companies, pretty much all pharma companies out there, has gotten excited about what we do.
01:28So that is good from a patient's perspective. More players will come in.
01:32What about a shareholder perspective?
01:34But at the same time, we have to make sure we can outperform the competition from a shareholder perspective.
01:40So my job is to really make sure that we are ready for the headwind that we clearly are seeing coming towards us.
01:47When are you going to match Eli Lilly in terms of performance? They had results a few days ago. They were knockout.
01:52When are you going to be able to match that kind of performance? You talk about a kind of performance culture here.
01:56Again, my job is to put the patient in the center of what I do and not necessarily just my competitor.
02:01We watch them. We take all of our competitors seriously.
02:03But there are hundreds of millions of people out there that are suffering from diabetes and obesity that no one is right now addressing.
02:13My job is to sustainably lead ourselves towards that aim.
02:18How does MetSera help you do that?
02:20MetSera has some of the best complementary assets to our own phenomenal pipeline.
02:27So when the ambition is in billions and not millions, you need basically all the great assets to get.
02:35Great assets, but complementary.
02:37So why do you need complementary assets?
02:39Because you've got all these products. Why do you need to go and buy this business?
02:43Because obesity and diabetes is not a single disease. It's an individual disease.
02:48You basically have different preferences.
02:50Take a look at the great Vigovic pill we are about to launch in the U.S.
02:54Well, that's for people that don't like injection.
02:57Sure.
02:57They would like to lose weight, but they don't have a viable offering from us or the competitors.
03:03You've got very similar products.
03:05And the question that I've listened to a lot of analysts, talked to a lot of analysts, and the question they keep coming up with is,
03:10does this seem to signal maybe that you don't believe in the current Novo portfolio?
03:15Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
03:17We are in a situation where every single patient has a different preference.
03:22And we need to have the product offering that matches that.
03:26They've got a monthly, you've got a weekly. Is that really the big difference?
03:29Well, we saw that the weekly was a big difference to the daily one.
03:31So I would say for some...
03:32Monthly does make a difference?
03:33For some, probably yes. For some, probably yes. Others will prefer to have a weekly product.
03:38Is it more important that Pfizer doesn't buy it than Novo does buy it? Because that's another thing I hear as well.
03:43My focus is on Novo Nordisk. The way I see this is, there's a company for sale, there's a buyer and a seller, and basically one of the buyers doesn't like the price, and the other one does.
03:56My job is to make sure I look at what we did, and we would very much benefit from Mazzara's assets, and we put the right price up there for our price.
04:05What's the right price? Could you go higher?
04:06The current price in the market has been addressed by Mazzara's shareholders, and then we'll see where this goes.
04:13Do you think Pfizer comes back?
04:14I have no idea.
04:15You have no idea, but if they do, will you go higher? How important is this asset?
04:18I'm going to make an announcement today on how I'm going to treat this.
04:22How do you make sure you don't overpay for this asset?
04:24By having actually looked very deeply into the data. As I mentioned, we know this company very well.
04:29We have seen this company for a long time, and we like what we have seen.
04:33Okay. You're going to London, I think, tomorrow, right?
04:36Possibly.
04:36Okay. Are you going to the States after that?
04:40I'm looking at the whole world, so I'm going to go everywhere.
04:43So the rumor is that basically you're going to be in the White House on Thursday, and you're going to tell me that the deal's not done with the Trump administration on pricing, and I'm going to ask you, how close are you, therefore, to a deal?
04:54I'm going to say that we are very much aligned with the purpose of the negotiations and the discussions we're having with the administration.
05:02We both would like to provide access to many more patients out there, affordable access.
05:08Are you close?
05:08So we are discussing very closely.
05:11Okay.
05:12Okay, closely.
05:13One of the parts of the discussion, I'm assuming, has to be about what is happening with copycats, about the companies that are producing drugs that were allowed when there were shortages, but now are using loopholes to maybe continue to produce products.
05:28And I'm wondering whether or not a deal with the White House would include maybe closing some of those loopholes.
05:32What are the compounders doing in terms of your business right now?
05:34What I can tell you is that we have been quite surprised on how the compounding has gotten started.
05:40Right.
05:41Taking an API, the raw ingredient of a medication that has not been approved by FDA, and injecting that into human beings is something very far from what we have been educated in this industry.
05:55Yep.
05:55So we will continue to lobby for the administration.
06:00Is it going to be part of the deal with the White House?
06:01And what have you, that this is simply not right.
06:03Yep.
06:04Just, just...
06:04I will not get into the details of the deal, as you could imagine.
06:07We will wait and see what the deal looks like later this week.
06:10Mike, great to see you.
06:10Thank you very much indeed for stopping by to see us.
06:12We really appreciate it.
06:13And thank you for inviting us to the headquarters.
Be the first to comment