The JPMorgan Healthcare Conference is the biggest health care investing event of the year. About 9,000 attendees walking in and out of meeting rooms here at the St. Francis — Westin in San Francisco. This is where attendees (investors) figure out where they’re going to put their money in the year.
Maria Bartiromo sat down exclusively with the CEO of Celgene, Bob Hugin; Bill Marth of Teva Pharmaceutical’s North America Division; the bosses at Boston Scientific, Mike Mahoney and Hank Kucheman; George Scangos at Biogen; and Jeff Leiden of Vertex. Here are the headlines.
Teva Pharmaceutical
Teva’s Bill Marth is excited about the possibility of 40 product launches this year. Marth said that’s worth “about $30 billion.”
This has been the “largest year for patent expiration in generic markets,” added Marth.
Teva is not only a powerhouse in the U.S., they “do generics around the world.”
Teva is the biggest generic drug-maker in the world. “We are number one in Europe, number three in Japan, we have growth globally. U.S. market is a great market, but the global market is a $130 billion market,” said Marth.
Celgene
Celgene’s Bob Hugin believes the company has “strong operating momentum.” Hugin said it’s been “a decade of investment and we are seeing the benefit of it.” Celgene made a decision five years ago to go global and the company is seeing that in their business model today. Hugin said 2012 — 2015 will be an emerging markets story for Celgene.
- Watch Bob Hugin's CNBC Interview
Hugin pointed out the company has grown organically, R&D investment in own pipeline. Hugin said, “most exciting thing in near term is Pomalidomide for multiple myeloma. We think make it available to patients in Europe and US much earlier than anticipated.”
Boston Scientific
It’s been a long twelve months for Boston Scientific , with the stock down more than 20 percent. The company named an interim CEO as the incoming CEO transitions out of Johnson & Johnson.
Michael Mahoney, incoming CEO, believes this is a “logical, smart succession plan.” Hank Kucheman, interim CEO, said “Mike and I worked together previously. The trust relationship is there. We think a lot alike. Made fun of a lot of times …we complete each other's sentences sometimes.”
- Watch CNBC Interview with Kucheman and Mahoney
As for the company’s growth plans, Mahoney said “Our goal is to move the stock price. We generate about 100 million of free cash flow per month.” Kucheman added, “our plan is to grow our EPS by double digits, $715 million of operating profit by 2012.”
The buzz here this year is all about: (1) innovation: a year jam-packed with new milestones (2) collaboration: academia, pharma, biotechs, device makers, VCs, non-profits (3) deal-making: pace of deals is likely to pick up as big pharma looks to replenish pipelines.
Donna Burton contributed to this article.
_____________________________
_____________________________
Questions? Comments? Write toinvestoragenda@cnbc.com