How Are Healthcare CEOs Steering Through Uncertainty?

Goldman Sachs Exchanges

Julia McGonagle

Business

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Healthcare CEOs in the US are “trying to set course in an otherwise unpredictable, highly uncertain world,” according to this episode’s guest, Marshall Smith, global head of Goldman Sachs’ healthcare investment banking. The uncertainty, stemming from global growth concerns, trade policy risk and drug pricing debates, is a consistent theme across the healthcare industry, but that doesn’t mean corporations are sitting back and waiting. Growth strategies are top priorities for executives, Smith explains, with pharmaceutical companies turning to M&A–both to acquire smaller biotech companies for their drug portfolios and to merge with other large pharma companies. Smith also discusses how being the son of a doctor spurred an early interest in healthcare. “My dad would come home from the hospital [and] we’d have dinner together, all seven of us sitting around the table,” Smith recalled. “And so, invariably, we ended up talking about medical cases at dinner pretty much every night.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is exchanges at Goldman Sachs where we discuss developments currently shaping markets, industries
0:13.4	in the global economy.
0:14.4	I'm Jake Stewart, global head of corporate communications here at the firm.
0:18.0	Today we're going to dive into the health care landscape and specifically what's on the minds of
0:21.4	top pharma CEOs.
0:23.2	We're joining the studio by Marshall Smith,
0:25.1	Global Head of Health Care Group
0:26.2	and the firm's Investment Banking Division.
0:27.8	Marshall, welcome.
0:28.7	Thank you very much.
0:29.4	Great to be here.
0:30.6	Help us understand what's going on in the room when you're talking to large pharma
0:35.6	CEOs today around the world. What are the top questions they're asking a view? What's on
0:39.8	their minds? I would say the general theme is trying to set course in an otherwise unpredictable, highly uncertain world as it relates to the macro environment, certainly as it relates to markets and then ultimately specific dynamics that are affecting the health
0:55.2	care and pharmaceutical industry.
0:57.2	And so global uncertainty, trade policy and trade war, invariably permeates and causes a level of uncertainty generally that is making it difficult
1:06.1	to set course for, I'd say any organization, but certainly for health care companies and certainly
1:10.3	for pharmaceutical companies.
1:12.1	That of course bleeds into markets.
1:14.7	As the equity markets from a broader industry perspective
1:19.8	continue to chug higher, the equity's environment for health care companies has also been pretty
1:25.2	choppy. For example, biotech companies have sold off pretty materially. Pharmaceutical companies have
	...

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