惠氏的艾斯:服用一剂强烈的我dicine

投资者意识到，人们在经济困难的时候不会停止生病，传统上认为医药股是在经济疲弱的情况下的好选择。但如今，分析师和股东们担心，制药行业已不再是昔日的活力四射。最近，在经济不确定的情况下，由于投资者担心两位数的收入增长和强劲的利润率时代已经结束，哈药股价下跌。

在业界的问题中，飙升的开发成本和更少的大片药物，以推动长期销售增长。来自GE-NIC制造商的竞争和对大型买家的深度折扣，如州政府，正在推动价格，压缩利润率，并提高更多行业整合的幽灵。

一个潜在的收购候选人是惠氏，前身是美国家庭用品公司的惠氏Ayerst实验室部门。就全球销售额而言，惠氏在该行业排名第11位。1989年，罗伯特·埃斯纳（Robert Essner）加入惠氏（Wyeth）时，该公司是一家企业集团的一部分，在食品制造、农药、医疗器械和家用产品领域拥有股份。自从2001年成为首席执行官以来，埃斯纳已经转移了惠氏的注意力。如今，该公司80%的年收入来自于销售处方药，如Effexor（抗抑郁药）、Enbrel（治疗类风湿性关节炎）、Prevnar（肺炎球菌疫苗）和Protonix（治疗胃酸反流）。另外15%的销售额来自非处方药，如阿维地尔和罗比妥新，其余来自动物保健品。

But during that transformation Wyeth has operated under a cloud of litigation. Its diet drugs Redux and Pondimin, when taken in combination with phentermine, may have caused heart disease and other serious conditions in some 5.8 million people. Wyeth settled a class-action suit over the so-called fen-phen drugs for $16.6 billion in 2002. But claims outside that settlement persist. Late last month a Texas jury awarded $1 billion to the family of a woman who claimed to have contracted a pulmonary ailment from the medication. Wyeth expects the award to be slashed upon appeal and doesn't foresee increasing the remaining $3.5 billion it has reserved against fen-phen claims.

法律困境掩盖了惠氏的强劲表现。去年销售额增长了近9%，达到159亿美元，营业利润增长了10%。华尔街预计2004年利润将增长12%。由于2008年之前没有重大专利到期，而且还有一批前景看好的新药，该公司在未来的发展前景良好。但其股价在去年夏天接近50美元后，与去年同期持平，每股约40美元。埃斯纳最近在该公司位于新泽西州麦迪逊市的总部与机构投资者撰稿人安德鲁奥斯特兰（Andrew Osterland）讨论了该公司的前景。亚博赞助欧冠

Institutional Investor: How has Wyeth changed since you joined it?

埃斯纳：很多人对这家公司的印象是基于美国的家居产品。公司和我们的商业模式现在大不相同了，有时我们不得不让人们偏离他们的期望。我们剥离了非制药业务，并通过收购和许可协议加强了运营。最重要的是，我们加强了研发。我们没有太多的药物发现文化，但现在我们认为我们与任何人都有竞争力。亚慱体育app怎么下载

生产性研发的特征是什么？

We've focused our scientists on making drugs useful to patients and doctors. Some companies are nervous about being overt in this expectation. We aren't. You can do great science, get hundreds of patents and yet not produce drugs that make a difference. Our role is to make drugs that change people's lives.

该行业是否正处于一个重磅药上市数量减少的新时代？

Developing blockbuster drugs used to mean targeting a big disease like hypertension, developing a drug and selling millions of units at moderate prices. A lot of companies still define that as their goal. The problem is, those areas of research have been deeply mined over time. So we look at markets that don't exist or maybe exist in a primitive form. A case in point is rheumatoid arthritis, which used to be treated with chemotherapy agents. The side effects were maybe as bad as the disease. Now we have Enbrel, and we think that market is as big as hypertension. We're building enough capacity to sell about $6 billion annually.

来自普通制造商的竞争是多么脆弱？

We're insulated for several years from generic competition. Our first major drug to come off patent is Effexor in 2008, and our three other top drugs have patent protection out past 2008.

Wyeth is considered attractive to acquirers. Is bigger better in the industry?

规模本身并不是一个优势。一旦公司投资超过10亿美元的研发，尺度并不像一个因素。事实上，统计数据表明，Mega研发网络并不像小型服装那样生产性。规模比资产更具挑战。我们是可取的，而不是因为我们的规模，而是因为我们有一个有吸引力的投资组合和一个好的研发管道。

What is your strategy regarding alliances and licensing partnerships?

我认为有很多交易是不经济的。我们倾向于将我们的伙伴关系转移到药物开发的早期阶段。如果你愿意早点进去，风险会更大，但条件也会更好。

您最近将临床数据管理外包给埃森哲。为什么？

第三阶段研究[人类晚期临床试验]产生了大量数据，处理这些数据所需的基础设施非常庞大。我们发现可以通过外包来加快进程。药物开发是与专利时钟赛跑。如果剔除一个月的开发，经济效益是巨大的。

惠氏在生产足够的药物方面遇到了问题，比如普雷夫纳疫苗，而且通常在遵守食品和药物管理局的标准方面也存在问题。你把这些修好了吗？

The problem with Prevnar has less to do with capacity than with the nature of making biological drugs. It's as much an art form as a science, and much more difficult than making small molecular drugs. Like live organisms, they mutate and evolve in ways that are not always predictable. We've added some redundancy to our capacity that we wouldn't have built if everything was working right. FDA standards have changed dramatically in the past five years, and several years ago we probably didn't keep as on top of it as we should have. But since then we've done a lot to bring ourselves up to the highest standards.

围绕汾汾的法律问题何时解决？

尽管仍有一些问题需要我们去面对，但大部分问题已经过去了。我们与原告律师团达成的和解协议不幸被滥用，我们被无效和不当的索赔淹没。我们还在法庭上为自己辩护。美国解决此类争端的体制亟需改革。这是我们历史上痛苦的一章。我认为我们成功地避免了它影响我们的行动。自从减肥药退出市场以来，我们的销售额、利润和投资都有了大幅增长。

How will the new Medicare drug benefit plan affect Wyeth?

I don't think it's a big positive. Because of the effect on pricing and margins due to more consolidated buyers, the impact on our sales and profits will probably be slightly negative to neutral.

从加拿大进口更便宜的品牌药品现在是一个热门的政治问题。你怎么处理？

Most companies, including Wyeth, have policies to discourage illegal shipments of drugs back into the country. In most countries generic drugs are actually more expensive than in the U.S. That's because governments tend to reward imitation more than innovation. The U.S. government needs to see these price controls as discrimination against U.S.-developed drugs. Other countries need to open up their trade policies and bear their fair share of the cost of drug development.

Wyeth, along with its peers, has underperformed the market dramatically over the past 18 months. What will get your stock price rising?

I think the litigation has cast a bit of a shadow over us. Investors shouldn't look at the pharmaceuticals market as a whole but rather at individual companies. We're not all riding the same wave as much as we used to. Some companies have great potential, and others will struggle. We have three major things going for us: a great product line today, one of the strongest pipelines in the industry -- with more than a dozen drugs in Phase III trials -- and no generic competition in the immediate future.