Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with Novartis (NYSE: NVS) CEO Dr. Vas Narasimhan on CNBCs “Squawk on the Street” (M-F 9AM– 11AM ET) today, Wednesday, January 12th. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com:
CARL QUINTANILLA: Day three of the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. Meg Tirrell joins us with a special guest. Hey Meg.
Dr. Vas Narasimhan, the CEO of Novartis, joins us now. Vas, its excellent to see you. How rapidly do you believe this might be able to get through regulators and out to clients?
DR. VAS NARASIMHAN: Yeah, thanks Meg. Now, this was the first data that we have clinically showing that the medicine is able to decrease viral load, speed up healing time and have a 79% reduction in hospitalization and death. Our objective is to scale up making to begin to have materials in the first half of this year with more scale up for the second half of this year.
TIRRELL: And I comprehend since of sort of the way this drug is produced, you might be able to make it more rapidly in bigger quantities, what type of dosage levels are you expecting in regards to the number of courses that could be available?
NARASIMHAN: You know, its an unique manufacturing process versus antibodies. Rather than utilizing mammalian cells, it utilizes bacterial production which permits us to scale production bacterial cell production, which enables us to scale up production to much larger volumes much faster, also has greater yields. I believe its too quickly to state exactly how much we might produce this year, but we definitely believe we will be in the millions of dosages and more than a million dosages and actually now the concern is how quick can we bring that forward. Again, assuming we get regulative approvals and other essential assistance from the US federal government in addition to other federal governments, however were definitely doing everything we can to scale up manufacturing as fast as possible.
TIRRELL: And I comprehend Novartis is also working on possibly a pan-coronavirus oral medication also, which perhaps might enter into clinical trials this year. Simply tell us about kind of how youre looking at COVID and what options are going to be required for it going forward? It doesnt sound like you believe this is something that were going to be finished with at any point soon.
NARASIMHAN: Well, certainly weve learned that pandemics are most likely to be with, with us in one form or another and certainly coronaviruses. Were working towards now getting that into the clinic and then hopefully well have data over the coming, coming year, years I would state to really get something for it but that would offer us an option for future pandemics. And I believe both with the first medicine ensovibep as well as this one, were attempting to take a longer-term view to offer solutions to the world.
TIRRELL: Well, a longer-term view is something that I believe a lot of individuals would invite particularly as were seeing whats taking place with screening right now. I also wish to ask you about some other news of the day which is the Centers for Medicare & & Medicaid Services coverage choice on the amyloid antibody drugs for Alzheimers illness. You understand, I wanted to ask you about this because you and I spoke after Biogen got that accelerated approval back in June and you noted, alright, theres this path, maybe for drugs in neurology and possibly this is something that everyone in the market need to be looking at. Does the stringent protection decision from CMS change the opportunity you believe you saw there from the FDA at all in neurology?
NARASIMHAN: Well, I think its a special set of scenarios we have here, one that definitely individuals whove been in the market for a long durations of time have actually not actually seen prior to where you have a set of trials which werent always going in the very same direction and some information thats somewhat difficult to interpret. I think what it points to is that even in neuroscience, we require robustly done studies that show not only a biomarker benefit, however also a scientific advantage for patients, for payers to want to cover, cover a medicine. I do believe that this is a pretty distinct situation with respect to the information and of course now the outcome from CMS.
TIRRELL: Alright, well Vas, we got ta leave it there. However we d love to have you back because theres a lot more to speak about with Sandoz, the profits from your Roche stake sale, lots more so Vas, thanks for being with us.
NARASIMHAN: Thank you Meg.
Updated on Jan 12, 2022, 12:31 pm
I think its too quickly to say exactly how much we might produce this year, however we certainly think we will be in the millions of dosages and more than a million doses and really now the concern is how fast can we bring that forward. TIRRELL: Well, a longer-term view is something that I believe a lot of individuals would welcome particularly as were seeing whats happening with testing right now. NARASIMHAN: Well, I believe its an unique set of circumstances we have here, one that certainly individuals whove been in the industry for a long durations of time have not actually seen prior to where you have a set of trials which werent always going in the exact same direction and some data thats rather difficult to analyze. I believe what it points to is that even in neuroscience, we need robustly done studies that show not just a biomarker advantage, but likewise a medical benefit for clients, for payers to want to cover, cover a medicine. I do think that this is a pretty unique scenario with respect to the data and of course now the result from CMS.
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