Nordic Life Science 1
72 ”THE NUMBER ONE MISTAKE THAT BIOTECH CEOS MAKE
IS THAT THEY CONFUSE REGULATORY SUCCESS WITH FINANCIAL SUCCESS.” TIM OPLER TF In Stifel’s most recent newsletter, you predicted a continual shift towards more big drugs for big diseases, such as heart failure, COPD, autoimmunity, and of course, obesity. What’s the main reason for this shift? TO This industry really took off in the 20th century, I’d say. It’s fair to say that initially, drugs were made for illnesses that really mattered. But somewhere along the way, in the early 2000s, Genzyme had this idea that a drug could actually be made that would serve people with a relatively rare disease but for a much higher price. The realization that much more could be charged for drugs that really made a huge difference electrified the business side of the pharmaceutical industry. Cancer drugs went from costing, say, USD 20,000 to USD 200,000. Suddenly, by somewhere between 2015 and 2020, the industry was giving much more attention to specialty drugs and drugs for rare diseases. At some point, and I can’t tell you the exact moment, things started to shift. I Tim Opler, Managing Director, Stifel think probably the best big event recently was when Novo Nordisk presented a study showing that people lost dramatic amounts of weight on semaglutide. And it wasn’t just that they lost weight, their health also improved, and the light bulb went off … this semaglutide, it’s not cheap, right? But it’s making just as much of a difference as those rare-disease drugs. Then the idea quickly spread. Okay, how many people might use semaglutide? Do the math. Well, if that’s the case why am I spending all my resources as a venture capitalist on these rare-disease drugs? So there was this shift, and what we’ve seen, really I’d say in the last four or five years, is that companies that are focused on the larger diseases have done much, much better. Suddenly, inside pharmaceutical companies there’s a lot of scrambling around going on, because many plans had been laid for developing a lot more of these rare disease drugs. Those plans are still with us, but I think the emphasis has shifted. INVESTMENT OUTLOOK // CONVERSATION PHOTO MATT STOKES