Merck CEO Rob Davis joins Bloomberg's Jonathan Ferro and Lisa Abramowicz to discuss the approval of the company's treatment for high blood pressure called Winrevair.
Mark has been one of the top performers more than twenty percent year. Today, the company winning FDA approval for a new drug that treats a rare form of high blood pressure. The drug's clearance coming at a critical time for merk as it prepares to lose market exclusivity for its cancer drug Keytruder. Merks CEO Robert Davis joins us now for more rop. Good morning to you, great, good morning. Can we talk about that approval yesterday? How much for breakthrough?
Well, you know, this is really, we think something special. The disease we are hopefully able now to really make a difference in is pulmonary arterial hypertension. And this is a rare disease. It's not a well known disease, but it's a devastating disease. You know, this is a disease that primarily affects women in the prime of life age thirty to sixty. Mortality rates of forty three percent and five years. So you can imagine impact not only to the patient but to the family of people who otherwise are in the prime of life. Is really tragic. Thankfully, and hopefully we'll make a difference in that. This drug now we're bringing forward. It's called wind Rever is a biologic. It's a first in class medicine. It's a new mechanism of action called an active and signaling inhibitor. And what it actually does is potentially remodels the blood vessels, your arterior vessels that allows them to open up. Because what pH does It causes your blood vessels and your lungs to thicken and narrow, which ultimately leads to heart disease.
How often do you take this? Every three weeks? How does this work?
Yeah, so it's a three week subcutaneous injection. Can be done by the patient or caregiver, and so this would be something you would administer we expect most people do in home.
I wish we could go into a whole segment about how you come up with these names when vera key, Truto, We can do that another time. You want to get a sense though, this whole idea of how you got into this through an acquisition to partner with someone, and then what the importance is of looking beyond some of the mainstays like cancer. It's sort of that diversity that we were just hearing about.
Yeah, well, you know, obviously or a science led science driven company, and this came about because we were already starting to look into this space. So our cardiovascular teams within Merk we're doing work in this space. When they saw the data from a company called Acceleron that had this asset, they came to me and said, you know, we're excited. This can be a difference maker, and that's why we moved on this and it really now is a foundational element in our broader cardiovascular and cardio metabolic portfolio. So it is one where we see the value diversification. Obviously, we're a leader in oncology, we're a leader in vaccines, we're increasingly moving into immunology, and this move into cardiometabolic space, which is significant for us.
There are a lot of people who are listening who invest increasingly in healthcare, and all they want to hear about is what's your solution for weight loss? Because that's really the reason why so many people have gone into the healthcare stocks and into the industry. You are working on a GLP one type of drug, but that's not for weight loss, it's for fatty liver. Why are you pro this differently and not necessarily directed at the weight loss itself and more on some of the illness that potentially some of the some of it can cause.
Yeah, well, so the mechanism you're talking about, we have a GLP one glucagon dual agonist. And this is important because while it brings weight loss benefits frankly similar to what you'd see with the zepic, our primary focus, as you point out, is fatty liver disease, which is a really an untreated area today, and our view of this space is obesity is important, but increasingly it's the cool mobidities around obesity. It's you know, it's heart disease, it's diabetes, it's liver disease. And so if we can affect those and bring outcomes that benefit patients clinically, there they get the weight benefit. But then as you think about reimbursement, as you think about value, that's where the value comes to society because actually we're making people more healthy than just losing weight.
Is this mostly a coverage play? Essentially, it's easy for this to get reimbursed and ensured. And that's one reason why if you gear it as some of the illnesses, you won't have to get into the whole debate. That's percolating elsewhere.
Yeah, well, again from a Mirkent perspective, it starts with the patient at the center, so we see this as a disease that needs to be dealt with. But yes, I think the benefit of this is if you can show outcome, if you can show that there's something beyond just a weight loss, then your ability to be and reimbursed and the ability to show value to society is different. It will be different.
But to your point, if obesity leads to so many other health issues, at some point, will insurance the government even be able to put this under their plans.
We would expect so, yes, for sure, and I think you're already starting to see that that start to shift. And it will be the outcomes driven approaches that drive that for sure.
We started this conversation by talking about this new drug that you've developed, got approval, stock run away high. Yesterday I was going through the cost, so the cost could be about two hundred and forty two thousand dollars ea. I've always struggled with this and I want you to explain to me why is it so much more expensive in America compared to say, the prices that I see for drugs abroad in Europe in the UK. What explains that difference.
Yeah, well, you know, it's hard to do in apples to apples comparison. If you look at what drugs are as a percentage of total health care spend in the United States, they run about fourteen to fifteen percent. If you look across Europe, for instance, it's about the same, it's about twelve to thirteen percent. So the reality of but is that healthcare as a total area, not just drugs, in the United States is more expensive. The percentage of cost of drugs in the United States is equal to what it is outside the United States. So it's hard to just take one element of the healthcare system and say, let's focus on it, not understanding the broader questions. You know, if you're in the United States, the thing we benefit from you get the fastest access, you get the most access to the most innovative medicine, driven by an industry that is based here in the United States and exports to the world. You know, so you need to look at the totality of what we see as really three elements. You have to think about access, affordability, but then also making sure you're protecting the innovation ecosystem that we value in this country.
Rob we appreciate the breakthrough, that's for sure. In the last twenty four hours of major breakthrough. Thank you very much for being with us. Robert Davis there, the Merk CEO