Vanguards of Health Care by Bloomberg Intelligence

“I suspect that RNAi-based medicines will approach, rival, maybe even exceed what we’ve seen with monoclonal antibodies historically,” says John Maraganore, the CEO of JMM Innovations and founding CEO of Alnylam. He joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior pharmaceutical analyst Sam Fazeli to reflect on RNAi’s journey from scientific curiosity to durable drug platform. Maraganore explains Alnylam’s reliance on big pharma partnerships for relatively non-dilutive capital, why rare diseases were the right entry point for commercialization and how mission-first culture sustained the company. He also discusses biotech’s “Sputnik moment,” FDA efficiency and where AI is already delivering real impact in drug discovery.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“One of our busy surgeons said, when they do an aprevo procedure, it’s a boring day in the OR and that’s actually a good thing,” Carlsmed’s CEO Mike Cordonnier tells Bloomberg Intelligence, as he explains how the use of AI technology is the future for spine procedures. In this Vanguards of Health Care episode, Cordonnier sits down with BI analyst Matt Henriksson for an in-depth interview about the design of the aprevo system, with its customized implants. He dives further into how aprevo reduces planning time, provides better alignment and lowers revision rates, creating favorable economics for hospitals. Other highlights from the episode include how he combined his experience across medtech and software to build this novel AI approach.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Now we’re seeing how there are new medicines that act directly on the heart itself and less on downstream consequences of heart disease,” says Robert Blum, president and CEO of Cytokinetics. On this episode of Vanguards of Health Care, Blum speaks with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Andrew Galler about Cytokinetics’ transition to a commercial-stage company following the approval of Myqorzo, its competitive positioning in the obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy market, and its potential to differentiate from competitors with upcoming ACACIA-HCM data. They also discuss Cytokinetics’ pipeline, which includes multiple assets targeting heart failure.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Glen Tullman, CEO of Transcarent and veteran healthcare entrepreneur, discusses building an AI-first, mobile-native platform to remove friction and deliver 24/7 care. He explains Wayfinding, the Accolade acquisition, scaling to millions of members, new AI features like voice scheduling and symptom checking, and how AI can create abundance while keeping human guardrails in place.

Despite all the noise -- tariffs, regulation, geopolitics -- the fundamentals are amazing, because our companies save people’s lives and the demand for innovation is absolutely real.” says Antoine Papiernik, Sofinnova Partners Chairman and Managing Partner. Speaking with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sam Fazeli, Papiernik explains why biotech remains a defensive, long-duration industry. He details how Sofinnova leverages AI to connect decades of proprietary data, uncovering emerging science across Europe to identify the next generation of biotech leaders. The discussion also covers the rise of AI-native drug discovery, the impending pharma patent cliff, and why capital is flowing toward platforms that deliver real clinical impact.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Revenue cycle is really about solving two problems: generating an accurate receipt and then jumping through the fifty hoops to get paid.” says Dr. Michael Gao, CEO of Smarter Technologies. In this episode of Vanguards of Health Care, Gao joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jonathan Palmer to explain how AI is transforming hospital revenue cycle management (RCM). He walks through Smarter’s approach to clinical intelligence and automation, why AI works best as a first pass with human supervision, and how smarter workflows can lift margins for hospitals operating on razor-thin economics. The conversation also explores Smarter’s formation with New Mountain Capital and Gao’s mission to reduce the trillion-dollar burden of health care administration.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Our mission is to create both strategic and financial returns by backing scalable technologies that can transform how biopharma operates.” Bill Taranto, president and general partner of the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, joins Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jonathan Palmer to break down how Merck’s $600 million evergreen venture arm invests at the intersection of biotech and health tech. Taranto explains why GHI focuses on pharma services across drug development, supply chain, patient access and real-world evidence, how ecosystem investing and private equity drive scale, and why AI and data are reshaping the future of pharma operations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“We were a very valuable deep-science company that had the wrong business strategy,” Zymeworks CEO Ken Galbraith tells Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sam Fazeli on this episode of the Vanguards of Health Care podcast. In discussing the company’s strategic reset, Galbraith explains how Zymeworks shifted from a platform-heavy biotech to a partnership-driven model that balances innovation with capital discipline. The conversation covers zanidatamab’s path to market, lessons from partnering with Jazz and BeOne, the value of asymmetric antibody design and why retaining upside through milestones and royalties could reshape long-term value creation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vanguards of Health Care: Penumbra Expands CAVT Awareness “With pulmonary embolism, just like with stroke and some other things, where there’s an acute moment usually happening — the patient’s not doing well, decompressing on the table — time matters a lot. And because of the STORM-PE trial, we have the data on what that device time is in a pretty rigorous randomized study. And it just doesn’t compare to anything else out there. It’s dramatically less”, Penumbra CEO Adam Elsesser explains to Bloomberg Intelligence. In this Vanguards of Health Care episode, Elsesser sits down with BI medical technology analyst Matt Henriksson for an in-depth interview on Penumbra and how computer-assisted vacuum thrombectomy (CAVT) technology continues to improve, cutting the time to remove the clot while limiting blood loss. He also dives deep into the clinical results of the STORM-PE randomized clinical study, highlighting how CAVT demonstrated superiority over the standard of care to treat pulmonary-embolism patients, and its partnership with the PERT Consortium to drive public awareness of the need to treat this devastating disease.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Drug development has become slower and more expensive despite all the new technology,” says Eric Hughes, executive vice president of Global R&D and chief medical officer of Teva Pharmaceutical. “That’s caused by increased regulatory scrutiny, more needs for quality, more needs for real treatment effects. But we’re in a unique position where we can stay really hyper-focused on what we’re doing. I’m on calls every week driving teams on enrollment studies, looking at data as quickly as possible, being able to pivot on things that I see that they’re bringing to me and being able to make decisions very rapidly and drive programs forward. I think that that ability to be like a biotech in a very large company is part of the secret sauce of what Teva’s doing right.” In this episode of the Vanguards of Health Care podcast, Hughes sits down with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ann-Hunter van Kirk for an in-depth interview about how the legacy generic manufacturer has built an R&D engine by replacing silos with a matrix structure, building partnerships and capitalizing on speed with AI.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.