Hi everyone, I'm Nicolola Tangan, the CEO of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and today I'm in really good company with Vas Narasiman, the CEO of Novartis.

Vas has one of the most fascinating backgrounds in pharma. He is a trained physician who also worked on the front lines fighting tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries before rising to lead one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.

Uh we own 2.3% of Novartis and that's worth more than $5 billion. Roughly 10,000 Norwegian growner per Norwegian citizen. So Vas big thanks for joining us.

Great to be here Niclay. Um just uh briefly to uh kick off for those who are not familiar with Novartis in 10 seconds just what are your areas of focus?

Yeah, we're one of the largest biioharmaceutical companies uh in the world focused on innovative medicines in oncology, cardiovascular disease, neuroscience and in imunological diseases.

Well, I think it's uh it's helped in many dimensions. I mean being coming coming from uh being a physician coming from a scientific background I'm definitely steeped in the R&D elements of the work we do.

So I'm always thinking about the medicine how the medicines impact patients very data driven always thinking about how these medicines might fit into clinical practice.

And given that the core of what a biioharmaceutical company does is find breakthrough innovations that matter for patients in the long run I think it's a really helpful background.

You know, I had to learn a lot about business. I didn't go to business school. I had to learn all of the ins and outs of capital allocations and balance sheets, P&Ls, running businesses. But I think the combination of a medical background and business background has served me well.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, to be frank, uh business is is not so difficult compared to medicine. So, I think you you know the right things.

Now, you were you were running the uh the R&D efforts at Novartis before taking over as a CEO. So when you um when you took over what kind of changes did you implement?

Yeah, I think the biggest change that we we to we took on was to focus the the company and the idea was our best uh our best elements of Novartis were in our R&D engine finding breakthrough medicines that that move the needle on a range of of different diseases.

At the time we were a sprawling conglomerate and we had areas like consumer health, generics, uh we were in eye care and eye devices with the alcon business.

And so the idea was to focus as a pure play innovative medicines company.

Now it took a lot longer than than I expected uh to make that all happen. It took around five six years of spinning businesses.

So we did uh we we got rid of our consumer or moved out of our consumer health business. We spun Alcon, spun Sandos, uh sold our Ro steak.

And what's incredible to me now when you look at our company, our market cap is 235 billion. When you add back all of those companies that we put out uh into the public markets, you add another almost 100 billion to that market cap.

So in the end, we really unlocked a lot of value by focusing.

In the old days, you could argue that you had some really stable revenue streams which kind of offset uh patent cliffs and so on. Now you are as more a a pure streamlined farmer company. What does that do to the attitudes in the company?

I mean it it there was this belief that if you had these more stable businesses that you could offset the peaks and valleys of R&D productivity in our industry because naturally we have large patent cliffs uh and we have to manage through those patent cliffs.

But actually what we found is something else was happening. a lot of distraction and inability to allocate capital to where we found the most likely impact and the most most value.

So in the end, you know, we're appropriately diversified within biioharmaceuticals. We're in different technology platforms and we invest a lot. I'm sure we'll talk about these advanced technology platforms.

We're diversified in therapeutic areas, but being diversified across business lines just diluted our our effort.

Uh and in the end, it's really interesting if you look at Novartis' history. We've actually managed through all of our patent experies, major patent experts, not because we had these other businesses, but because our innovation engine actually delivered the next wave of breakthroughs.

So, in a sense, we have to bet on ourselves. Play to win and not play not to lose.

Do you think you structure your R&D differently uh compared to other pharma companies?

You know, we do do some things that that that are different. I mean we have a function called strategy uh and growth which we you know created uh a few years back.

It's run by a wonderful former Wall Street analyst from from Bernstein but has built a a whole team together that relentlessly looks at the outside world really brings in those insights and challenges even early stage researchers on is what they're doing really going to move the needle for for clinical care.

So we bring those outside insights even into the earliest stages of of R&D.

We also radically focused and that's something Novartis already always was not really good at. I mean we were in far too many therapeutic areas too diluted.

And what we did is we focused on four therapeutic areas cut out a lot of the other areas and then really built on the deep expertise and of our people.

I think that's really um delivered delivered results. And I think that now the question is how we can use AI and other technologies to to get an edge on our peer set.

I'd say the one other thing that we do that's unique is we invest in these technology platforms. We're the world leader in radolyan therapies, the world leader in cell and gene therapies, one of the world leaders in RNA therapeutics.

And that's a belief that you have to keep investing at the cutting edge of science to lead in the long run.

So if you think about where this industry will be in 2035, you have to keep investing in these leading edge technologies so that you're ahead of the curve.

If you were to rank uh your therapeutic areas according to attractiveness, how would you how would you stack him?

That's a tough one. And uh of course uh there there's no different metrics I think you you would you would use. I mean clearly each one of these areas has different dynamics.

I mean in cardiovascular disease, you're looking at large-scale population health topics and trying to figure out how to better tackle heart disease and related cardiovascular conditions at scale.

In neuroscience, we're very focused on neurodeenerative diseases and genetically driven diseases.

These are much more focused areas where you're really, you know, mining the mysteries of of the mind.

Um, you know, immunology has a whole set of different challenges. So, it's not easy to to rank. I I really like to think that we need to be strong in all of these these four areas.

It it does bring to mind an important tangent though that that I think we always have to remind ourselves when we think about R&D uh in our sector.

I mean what we do is remarkably hard. I mean when you think about it we are trying to unpack two billion years of evolution of cells and these processes that happen in multisellular organisms and to find a single drug target and then actually drug that target so that it impacts the human body in effective way is an incredibly daunting enterprise.

And the fact that we do it at all I like to tell our people it's a miracle that fits in the palm of your hands. It's a miracle we do this at all, much less doing this multiple times over 200 200 years.

So I think it's always important to remind oneself of how hard it is to do the work we do in each one of these therapeutic areas or the modalities that we work in.

Well, we we're living in a we living at a time where there are more miracles than uh than normal because of uh the way science is moving, right? So when you look at um everything you you are involved with what are the most significant scientific uh breakthroughs on the horizon that you are excited about?

Yeah, I think I think a couple things and and they range across a whole spectrum. I I think on the on one part in terms of population health, our ability to intervene earlier and earlier in disease to hopefully prevent diseases from even getting to late later stages I think will be incredibly important.

uh demography in the world is is only getting more challenging. Huge aging populations, health care systems under strain, uh not enough young people always with the fertility rate falling to actually fund these healthare systems.

So, we're going to have to prevent disease. And our experience is, you know, you can go earlier. We're working very hard to find how can you intervene earlier and earlier in various cancers.

We just had another important data set in prostate cancer intervening early. And the idea is how how can you intervene so that the the cancer doesn't get to a stage where ultimately it requires hospitalizations.

So I think early intervention is a is a huge area of focus.

I think another exciting area clearly is the idea of can you completely reset diseases. This all comes out of the world of cell and gene therapies where we already learned that for certain genetic diseases and Novartis is one of the leaders here.

we're able to almost deliver a cure or a dramatic response by using the gene therapies to actually replace a gene in the body.

So now what we've learned and there's actually data coming out just this week that you can actually use cell therapy to reset the immune system.

And there's a whole range of imunological diseases that are very severe affecting young people and old people. And the idea here is with these therapies using cell therapy you can reset the immune system and turn back the clock on their disease by 15 or 20 years.

And so this is I think a staggering innovation that will change the lives of you know hopefully over time millions and millions of people.

Another area I'm very excited about is an area called RNA therapeutics that allows you to give medicines that you usually take every day. You only need to take them every six months or maybe once a year.

And most people don't take their preventative statins or other medicines. So if we can get to infrequently uh administered therapies, that would be incredibly exciting as well.

And if you'll indulge me, just one other I I think is super exciting is is radioarmaceuticals or radolyan therapy where Novartis is a pioneer here.

What we've learned is we know radiation can can attack tumors and and stop tumors from growing or even eliminate tumors.

But now we can micro basically target radiation right to where the tumor is in the body using a drug linked to a radioactive particle and this is opening up a whole new area of medicine.

So these are just some of the examples that we see.

Well, so these are some of the examples but I mean how do you how do you personally stay on top of this?

I'm quite passionate about it. I mean, as I said, I'm a physician scientist, and you know, my favorite meeting of of the month always is our innovation management board, which I've I've chaired now for 13 years since I was the head of development all through my time as CEO.

Uh, I read every one of those documents because, you know, that that's in the end, I think, what a company like us has to deliver.

Tell me tell me tell me about that meeting. So it's once is this is this like the is this like the the lifeblood meeting of the company?

I do feel like it's the lifeblood meeting of the company. We review the projects that our research teams are bringing into later stages of research which are so how many I'm sorry.

So how many how many people so so who who are in the meeting? How many people are you?

H well there's a lot of people who end up attending but the core members is about seven seven leaders head of research development strategy and growth are commercial leaders and myself and the CFOs maybe eight people.

how long does it last

sometimes it's two four hour meetings sometimes it's one six hour meeting uh but it is it is a long meeting it's not for the the

do you run it

I do I I chair it and I I've chaired it now for uh a number of years from development times to to today.

But Of course, chairing a meeting like this is really just getting the best perspectives from all of the leaders in the room. I mean, what can I possibly know compared to all of these experts,

but we always have the teams come in, our experts, uh, in whether it's cancer or heart disease or research experts or development experts, scientists, physicians.

Uh, and I think one of the most important things we've gotten much better at is having a debate. And I think debate is the only way you can navigate these complex topics and finding these these miracles that we talk about.

If you're not willing to have the counterveiling position in the room, if it's just rubber stamping, then of course you're liable to easily fall into all of the biases that come in to taking decisions in in medicine and R&D.

So V, I'm now your uh I'm now top uh cancer researcher. Okay. I come into this meeting uh you know on you know uh I've given you 200 pages to read beforehand and and here I come Nikolai Tangan the great cancer guy. So what happens I I come in there I do I present or you just go straight to questions or what what happens?

We've evolved this over the years. We used to have long presentations. Now we assume the pre-eread is read and we ask the person the the leader to give us you know just a three minute summary um of the case.

And then um we usually try to also put up a slide that has from the team's view what were the reasons to do the project or what were the reasons not to do the project.

Uh we also have a portfolio analytics group that gives us lots of data and analyses on these projects and then we have a discussion and my role is to get that the room to really discuss the topic and have a debate and see uh are we doing the right thing by funding this project to the next tollgate.

and if you were to terminate uh a project does that happen in these meetings?

Yes, that and that is I think one of the most important things a well-run R&D organization has to do. You have to be intellectually honest as to where projects are.

Do they fit in your strategy? Do they have the data to support going? Uh and you have to have the courage to kindly but firmly explain to teams that we have to stop here and we've got to use the resources for other things.

That's obviously never uh easy, but we always try to celebrate the teams and tell them it's not the teams that failed. If they did their work right, the science simply didn't deliver the way we expected.

And that's okay. That's just part of the work that we do. most of our projects ultimately fail.

Well, I have to say I would have loved to sit in in that meeting. That sounds even more interesting than our investment meetings at uh in the fund, you know.

Yeah, our six can get a little tough. So, that's uh that that's where I think I've built up some meeting endurance over the over the years.

Um moving on, um AI and digital, you've been you really have been a champion in the digital transformation in pharma. Now what um you mentioned briefly in the beginning some of the digital initiatives but what would you say are the most important ones that you have?

I I think clearly AI's impact in research and development in our industry will likely have the longest lasting ex impact. There's a lot that's happening in operations manufacturing supply chain finance uh and that I think is is important clearly having an impact already but ultimately will become I think standard across our sector and other sectors.

The biggest question here is can you use AI um to either discover what is a drug target?

So think of it as the key lock that we need to unlock. So find those key locks and then can you also use AI to optimize the key into the lock so that that key can ultimately unlock the biological process that we're talking about.

Uh now as to where we are today, we're already using AI with Isomorphic Labs, the Google Deep Mind Company, other partners to optimize those keys.

AI get takes all of the information known uh out there and inside the company and optimize those candidate drugs and then helps us speed up the process by predicting how it will ultimately do in pre-clinical safety toxicology uh in terms of its uh pharmacocinetics its manufacturability that process is now and that's really happening now at scale and companies like ours and at other companies uh and I think that will hopefully shorten the drug development early drug development process by years and that's I think really exciting.

And then the bigger question is could you actually unlock biological processes with AI and actually understand and that I'm think we're further away from.

So I you work with Microsoft Palanteer but you mentioned the um isomorphic labs which is Habis's uh venture right you got the uh Nobel Prize um inside uh inside Google just how do you work with them what do they do for you

So I you work with Microsoft Palanteer but you mentioned the um isomorphic labs which is Habis's uh venture right you got the uh Nobel Prize um inside uh inside Google just how do you work with them what do they do for you

yeah so it's a it's a very I think we're one of their two partners and basically ally what we do is we give them again to take the the key the key lock and the key analogy we give them some locks that we know or we hypothesize are very important in diseases like cancer or heart disease that we simply have not been able to drug or i.e find the key for.

And we say we've struggled with our traditional methods can AI can their capabilities uh ultimately enable us to to find those keys.

And so what they do is they use AI to design new drugs and what's been very interesting is they come AI comes up with drug structures that you know we've not thought about or really explored um and so we're starting to see the early results.

I think we now have over six different projects going with them and hopefully to expand more into the future.

And we'll If AI can solve what we call our undruggable targets. So, can the AI help us drug the undruggable? That's the question.

It's interesting how relationships with uh technology companies has been key to success in pharma, right? Because that wasn't the case in the old days. H how how do you see this changing going forward?

Just it's a big shift. I mean, I think you know, we've learned over the years. Palanteer has been an amazing partner of ours. We've been working with them since 20 2017.

They've helped to build a data lake we call data 42 which we think is one of the most advanced in the industry. Helps us mine all of our data just using a simple text field.

Microsoft Research Labs has been a great partner. I think what it is is, you know, you have to find the right use cases.

It's easy to try to chase all kinds of things and we fell into that trap. We chased far too many AI and data science projects.

But as we've learned over the years, if you get the right use cases and you find the right partners, I mean, Amazon has helped us completely automate our patient services in the United States as another example, you need those partnerships because we simply don't have the technological know-how in house.

Do you think you're better at working with the tech companies than your competitors?

I don't know. You'd have to ask the the the tech companies. I mean, I do think, you know, one of the great things about Novartis is we're willing to pioneer at the cutting edge.

I mean, if you look at a lot of the technology areas in our industry, whether it's therapeutic platforms, AI, data science, we're always at the leading edge.

That also means we often have to fight through many of the early challenges and often means also we have the failures associated with that, but that's kind of the ethos of our company. We're at the leading edge.

You've been uh very outspoken about the challenges facing the European pharma industry. And I I I heard you for instance in divorce and I was just like wow this guy is actually he's he's pretty outspoken you know he's like he's telling us what he really thinks and and there are many cos who actually don't do that. So so tell us about this tell us about the situation of pharma in Europe in kind of no uncertain terms and and that I I've pretty consistently done uh to to also directly to the senior leaders.

You know, Europe has been the the home of the pharmaceutical industry. I mean, when you look at it 100 years ago, the earliest pharmaceutical companies all came up along the Ryan River and in related parts of of Europe, it's where the industry ultimately was created.

And over the last century, it still has been the real powerhouse of the world. When you look at where drugs are most most manufactured right now, uh it's in it's in Europe where a lot of R&D activity is happening in Europe. Clinical trials is happening in Europe.

But at at the same time what's happened is European governments have just commoditized the innovation that that we deliver and more and more through budget uh constraints constraining how they uh reward innovation propping up the generics industry with artificially elevated prices not taking on the hospital sector.

they've constrained and constrained to the point now where Europe at population slightly larger than the United States its market size is half or even less than half of of the US and not growing whereas the US and now China I mean China is the second largest pharmaceutical market in the world growing almost at 20 or growing certainly double digit.

And so Europe needs to do something because clearly you know the US administration wants manufacturing to move we've seen $250 billion of announcements from companies saying they're going to invest more US and European companies saying they're going to invest more in the US.

So Europe has to act they have to figure out how to reward innovation by not capping drug prices, penalizing companies when they have new technologies and new uh innovations, not artificially finding ways to really constrain the innovation environment or it it will over time leave.

I mean, it's just the economics.

is Europe acting not fast enough.

No, I mean I think Europe is trying at the European level to do what they what they can uh easily, but I think the real hard conversations still have to happen and I think certainly the the trade situation will push that topic even even harder as will the Trump administration's push on international reference pricing.

What's but what's what's preventing Europe from moving?

That's a good question. Right. I mean I think it's political will um ultimately and and a fundamentally a belief that the industry won't move or or it won't lead to a shift.

And as you know I mean these shifts don't happen like you know rapidly but slowly over time in 10 years from now you start to say today about 40% of new drugs 30 to 40% of new drugs are not launched in Europe.

European patients don't get access to them. They're primarily launched in the US to some extent China and Japan. That number will slowly increase.

Slowly but surely you'll see manufacturing leave. Novartis had four manufacturing plants in the UK. We have zero today.

Uh step by step you'll see and then suddenly I think it'll get to a unfortunately to a crisis as it did in Japan for the pharmaceutical sector and then governments will act because patients will demand where are these medicines.

Governments will be looking at where do the jobs go. But unfortunately I think until we get to that crisis point it's easy just to hope that the status quo will be good enough.

Is the problem uh Brussels or is it the individual countries?

I mean I think I think that the challenge of course Brussels would say they don't control innovation ecosystems and individual markets. Um and so individual countries have to make their own decisions.

uh that said I think with a 27 member block without some sort of coordinated action given the trade is ultimately managed at the EU level it's going to be very difficult to tackle this problem because of the just this the dispar the differences in uh GDP per capita across the European Union.

And so I think Brussels needs to come up with a framework to guide the countries otherwise we won't get out of the situation.

what would what would it take for the countries to think more about the uh common destiny of Europe rather than just their on situation because it's not only in the farmer industry we seeing this right we're seeing it in pretty much every industry.

it's true and it's not and of course I think governments would say they've got to figure out defense they've got to figure out energy they've got figure out the pharmaceutical sector.

I mean I think it's going to take ultimately leadership and uh you know I think some more of the European leaders have to galvanize support across Europe uh and I think that of course that's challenging but you need I think some senior leaders in Europe to say they're going to take this on.

I think if each country sits in their corner and kind of hopes that this will work itself out, I think the the story will keep unfolding the way it's unfolding.

Well, I mean, Draghi wrote the report, but uh I guess not so much is happening. Um despite um the despite the world changing, right, with uh tariffs and barriers and so on uh moving, are you are you surprised that not more is happening after this report?

I mean I think there was at least recognition and I I have to say that at at least the tone uh from the European Commission is much more about economic competitiveness and less about uh you know the whole period of time where we had so many new bureaucratic elements being added whether it was CSRD or uh the due diligence or water and all of these things added on top of each other.

Um that said I think action has been been slow. Uh I think uh and I think while the talk has been you know high ultimately companies respond to when they see real concrete action.

Uh the EU did put out new pharmaceutical proposed pharmaceutical legislation which improves somewhat from their already really damaging approach to protecting pharmaceutical data. But already that's still worse than where we were 3 years ago.

So we actually went from a place where we got much worse and now we're less worse and then that's supposed to be a victory.

Um so you know I I think there has to be more of a sense of urgency.

So Vas, I'm giving you this magic wand. You can change three things in European farmer. What would you change?

I would say the that we should have uh Europeanwide uh list price system that then countries can adjust based on GDP per capita that then gives us a framework for list prices across Europe.

Uh I think second there should be no allow allowance for capping growth of the pharmaceutical sector.

So basically like if you take a country like Italy, our entire growth in Italy is paid back to Italy at the end of the year.

Uh and so it's very hard to to grow a business if you're always paying back your growth to the to the c many countries have this. So we've got to end this end this practice.

Um and then and then third I think uh Europe has to end also its practice of propping up the generics industry.

Uh go to the US model where we have high innovation and then generics prices that are the lowest in the world. Uh and then you'll find the fiscal space to invest in innovation.

These are three I think very doable uh changes. We tal wrote about it in the financial times.

and let's see how does the new geopolitical situation impact the way you think.

Well, I think first what I tell my people is we've been around for 250 years. We have to focus on our controllables, focus on our finding the next wave of medicines, launching them well and doing our work.

That's where the energy of Novartis has to go. Now, I think on how we adjust uh to the current situation, I think the most important thing is to have more flexibility.

And what we've decided to do is ensure we have manufacturing capacity in the US for the US so that we can manufacture our most important medicines for the US in the US for Europe and then similarly have manufacturing in China so that flexibilizes our our supply chain.

We're also working to flexibilize our R&D clinical trial ability so we can obviously adapt.

So I think you have to create much more adaptable systems in your company and much more ability to react to how how the policies uh change.

When it comes to China, you have you've called the Chinese innovation ecosystem a wakeup call for the industry and you also talk about staggering pace of clinical trial recruitment in China. Just um tell us what um why are they getting it right there?

Well, you know, China the story is interesting. And when you go back to 2014, uh, China was not a power player in in biioharmaceuticals.

First, they made some important uh changes in their policy and regulatory framework. They modernized their drug regulator and increased the quality standards for all manufacturers which kind of eliminated a lot of the local players who were below uh appropriate standards.

They created a national reimbursement system called the NRDL list for new medicines.

But then they also decided to create a process called valuebased pricing VBP that when drugs are at the end of their life cycle they become extremely cheap.

They put all of this together into a package and then step by step they began to speed up their regulator speed up their clinical trials.

Now there was a big boom five six years ago uh and then ultimately uh it didn't pan out and of course there was then retrenchment and then as often is the case as you know uh now the sectors come back very strong.

And what we see the biggest shifts are one u we're no longer seeing fast follower alone we're actually seeing novel innovation novel drug targets novel technologies.

Two the pace of clinical trial uh start and recruitment in China is now the fastest in the world it's outpacing eur Europe certainly outpacing um the US.

Three, the drug regulator has sped up. So you can get approvals now in China almost at the same speed as you get um in the US.

And I think there's capital as well flowing into the Shanghai biotech uh se uh sector and that's creating you know a lot of company formation.

So this has led I think now to the for the first time multiple new drugs in recent years novel drugs originating from China getting approved in the US and the pace of that is only continuing.

So I think all big bioarma now is looking to Shanghai um alongside Boston and San Diego and some of the other hubs.

Is there a risk that US and China will stop accepting each other's clinical data?

There's a risk. I think it would be very damaging. I mean the whole ecosystem at the moment is built around the fact that we run global clinical trials.

I mean the US is usually about 30% of most clinical trial recruitment. Uh clearly China now makes up an increasing proportion.

If you were to bulcanize the world of clinical clinical trials, this would be hugely damaging for bio biioharmaceutical innovation.

I mean, you will set back drug timelines significantly simply because you just can't fully recruit in the US. Europe is also slowed down.

So, we need Asia to kind of complete our trial recruitment at the appropriate pace. And also, if you think about it from an efficiency standpoint, we can get approvals in both markets around the same time.

So, that of course increases our return profile. Otherwise, you know, you're going to have big discrepancies in timelines between the geography.

We we touched on on on pricing here, but um Novartis is ranked number one in in the access to medicines index. Um tell us about your your commitment to global health generally.

Yeah. I mean, look, I started as a as a global health uh physician deeply passionate about, you know, that personally. I've worked on as you mentioned malaria, TB, HIV, AIDS. So, that's a passion project of mine.

Now the reason you know we're really I think viewed as a leader in access is we not only provide access to our efforts in tropical diseases where malaria leprosy and related conditions we made it a priority uh you know seven eight years ago to say we want to provide access to our latest innovations as fast as possible in low-income countries to when we provide access in high-income countries.

We do that through a variety of different mechanisms, emerging market brands, uh other approaches that that hopefully get these medicines to more and more patients and that allows us to have much more reach perhaps than many of our of our peers and I take great pride in that.

So you can get a Novartist uh hematology medicine or heart failure medicine or immunology medicine uh anywhere in the world and we we figure out access programs so that no patient gets left behind in many of these diseases.

Moving on to leadership. Um, what's the most fun part of your job?

I think interacting with people around the world. I mean, I think about this year, I've already been, you know, I've been in Japan, I've been in China, um, I've been all across Europe, in the in the US, and interacting with our people.

And that's an evolution. I mean, I would have said, I think earlier on in my time, I love the science and the most fun part of my job is that IMB meeting and being involved in all the scientific decisions.

But, you know, now that I'm in year eight, I realize so much of this role is providing energy to the people.

You have to I mean, you're the chief energy officer and you have to give energy. You have to build belief. Um, and that comes through human interaction in the end.

Uh, and that's what really powers a company to navigate all of the challenges that that we have. Uh, so that that's definitely what gives me the most energy.

Have you always been the energy officer?

No, I don't think so. I've learned I've learned so much.

You know, how do you learn how do you learn to How do you learn to be an energy officer?

You know, I've I've I've had great coaches. I've had to I think um really reflect on what does the role mean?

I mean, so much of giving energy is having energy. So, I you know, whole approach around mindset, movement, nutrition, recovery for myself to make sure I can show up every day um with energy.

But I also think the unlock is when you realize that leadership is really about the possibilities you create for your teams and the people around you.

Leadership is not about the org chart. It's not about the hierarchies. It's about the possibilities that you create.

And if you make that mental jump, then you realize it's all about the energy you give, possibilities you can create.

Um, and then it becomes of course a, you know, self self-fulfilling cycle. You feel the energy, you give the energy. Um, and I think that was a certainly a big jump for me over my leadership journey.

Did you have a particular moment where it became clearer to you?

Yeah, I mean I think I don't know if there was a particular moment, but there were definitely moments where I think my old leadership model was not working.

I mean, I started out as a very technical, very intelligent kind of know-it-all leader. There was a point you hit a wall, especially when you're in front of sales forces and you have to inspire and motivate a team that has to walk into a doctor's office and get, you know, basically told no 10 times uh and then hopefully get the one yes.

Different leadership, different approach. and I led R&D organizations where you have to get people to motivate through failure.

Only one out of six, seven, eight projects succeed and uh you got to motivate people through that. So I think with each one of these experiences I've adapted and tried to learn how to lead lead better.

I think of myself as a always as being a student of leadership. I mean how do you keep working on it getting better? There's no destination on that leadership journey, but you have to keep asking yourself how can you adjust and get better at at this.

But I mean, did you transform from like a nerdy introvert to to the extrovert you are today or

I think I'm still probably a nerdy introvert at heart. I would probably

Well, you hiding it well, read books.

Yeah, exactly. I think I've learned to be more more adaptable uh and and sort of uh you know, see see how best to bring I think the best out of every situation.

Um I don't know if there was a moment, but certainly the CEO job pushes you, right? it pushes you in directions because you're immediately, you know, thrust in front of so many different stakeholders u and learning the language of those different stakeholders, learning how to navigate all those different stakeholders.

Um you have to fail at it as you go and hopefully you learn and get better and better and I think that's that's how the process obviously unfolds.

You mentioned um the importance of uh being energized yourself. Where do you get your energy from?

Yeah, I think I think our a few things. I think our people gives me a tremendous uh energy. So interacting interacting with them, you know, I I believe so deeply in the work that we do.

I I always still I still when I see a clinical trial result, which I'm very fortunate to be with the one of the first ones to see and it ultimately a medicine that worked in a phase three clinical trials, I cry because it is so hard to do what we do.

This is the collective work of thousands of people around the globe likely for over a decade and then we get a result where we actually move the needle for patients with a disease and then it you know you say let's keep going right in the face of whatever setbacks that you have that gives you energy.

Uh letters from patients I'm very fortunate to get letters from patients who are are medicines uh whose lives they've transformed. I mean all of these things give you that little jolt, that little push to fight through some of the more trying moments of being a CEO.

But you mentioned also your own you you mentioned also your own physical health and so on just uh and nutrition and what are the kind of things you are particularly Oh yeah.

Yeah. So look I I I got taught very early on from my uh a coach that I work with today named Scott Pelton this this this approach mindset, movement, nutrition and recovery and I stick with it.

Um so mindset you know clearly mindfulness meditation observing yourself observing why you think the things you think why you feel the things you do uh and then setting yourself up in the right mindset each day and for each interaction or each moment uh even when I have to show up on the in good company podcast.

Um you know nutrition you know I think you have to think why do you eat the things you eat and how you eat will affect your performance even in small ways.

So something I always think about obviously movement I mean exercise has a lot of impact on the nervous system.

Over the years I've learned that exercise can reset your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.

By the way so much of leadership comes down to managing your nervous system. You're likely not going to make a good decision when you're on high sympathetic drive.

And then recovery. I've learned over the years the power of sleep. I mean, I'm obsessed with trying to optimize my sleep.

I've got, you know, technology, sleep technology, sleep supplements, all kinds of things to really say, how can I get seven plus hours of very high quality sleep and and recover.

And all of those things compound over time and then give you the energy you need.

Well, you're very thoughtful about these things. When do you wake up in the morning?

I wake up 5:30 every day.

What's the magic ingredient uh that you eat? What is your most kind of strange thing that you eat? Strange thing that I eat?

Um, if there's anything strange, I'm a lifelong vegetarian, so I've never had meat in my life.

So, you know, that may be strange, maybe not so strange. Obviously, there's many.

Well, I mean, I mean, a lot of people in Well, I mean, India has a lot of vegetar, you know, I mean, it's very common, right? And your parent.

Yeah, it is. It is. It is. Yeah. Absolutely.

You know, nothing nothing really strange. I mean, I I I eat whey protein every morning. Two scoops of whey protein every day. It's kind of a a way I start my day.

Um, nothing else magical I can think of. I mean, I do I do I do try some of the uh the various supplements like ashwagandha and some of this stuff I have.

It's probably all a placebo effect, but nonetheless, I I definitely I definitely test these things out.

How would you define the corporate culture at Novartis?

you know we we we call it inspired curious and unboss and that that was something that we put together in 2017 when I first started and we stuck with it.

And it's very much grounded actually in work by uh many psychologists who really understood for for knowledge workers three things really motivate knowledge workers a sense of purpose so that's inspired a sense of growth and learning and a sense of they're improving theself that's curiosity and a sense of autonomy so can you create kind of an unbossed environment with the appropriate, you know, uh, guide rails and objectives.

So, that's what we set up to out to do. It was very bumpy. We came from a very top- down, you know, much more hierarchical culture.

Um, I think we've made a lot of progress, but we still debate it. And I always tell my people, it's great that we debate it.

And as long as we're debating the culture, the culture is probably getting better and we're probably thinking about how we want to interact with one another. But those are the three key elements and we stick with it.

But I mean unbossed that doesn't sound very Swiss.

No, actually I think it's Scandinavian. So actually you guys probably should take the take the take the credit for it.

The idea is but the idea is um you know can you it's more of a servant leader empowered culture.

So can you actually create ownership at every level of the organization uh where the leader is creating the environment removing obstacles creating clarity and you and that's some of the things I learned.

I mean UNBOS initially was really misinterpreted. It was kind of interpreted as anarchy or and people can do whatever they want.

Actually, what we want to say is we have clear objectives, clear goals, but we want to create this high support, high challenge environment. You're supported. You got to make your own calls, but we challenge.

We hold accountability and we expect results. And if you can get that right, it really really drives performance.

and snap and I look at the last you know three three four years we've been at the top of the league tables on TSR and growth um so it's paid off but it's been a long journey for sure.

India has produced some of the most impressive leaders we have in the world today uh has your your Indian background you think informed your leadership style in any way

I do I think I think yes I mean I was I was raised uh kind of very phil in a very philosophical environment um my grandparents and my parents uh all all deeply Hindu but also always trying to uh expose us to philosophical um thinking.

And so even to this day I would say some of the best leadership books are books like the Bhagavat Gita or the Dao Ching which really talk about servant leadership or finding a sense of purpose and and and direction.

So I think it certainly had a very strong guide. I think also when you observe immigrant parents who have to come up and and fight for everything from where they come from very little and living that experience I think certainly you know builds resilience and determination as as a child for sure.

Well in India even the gods have to be humble. Are you um are you humble?

Am I humble? That's like a trick question. I sometimes feel like I think I try to be I try to be humble. I try to, let's say, keep my feet rooted in the ground.

I think one of the hardest things as as a CEO is it's easy to get lost in all of it, right? It's easy to think um not separate who you are as a person with the role.

It's a role, right? It's a role we have the honor to play for a period of time in our lives, but it's not not who you are.

So, you have to keep staying grounded. I think family is super important. I have an incredible wife, great kids, great parents that keep me grounded.

Uh but you have to stay grounded otherwise these roles can you know build up an ego um and and you get really lost.

There's a great book about this actually called the power paradox um from yeah Dr. Kelner and he talks about how unchecked you know power will you will lose your empathy considerations you'll lose your understanding of humility um and you'll lose the very things that actually afforded you the opportunity to be a leader ironically.

yeah it's a I agree it's a very very um it's a very good book um now um what do you read?

I'm I'm a big non-fiction reader um you know right now I'm I'm working my way through Nexus uh from Uvil Noah Harari.

Um you know I think uh very interesting author and often you know great great insights from from those books.

Um, some I mean probably my my favorite uh one of my favorite books is uh Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker which is grounded in the data that we live despite all of the challenges we read about in the newsfeed we live in the greatest moment in human history.

And if we can remind ourselves of that and keep building on that on a science-based way not easy in today's world um yeah that's that's where progress lies.

and and talking of which um last question what advice would you to young people.

Yeah, I I think I wish not one piece of advice but a few pieces of advice. One, build range, build breath and experience early on.

I mean, try to get diverse experiences. It's so tempting and I fell into the trap of wanting to race up the ladder.

And actually it's such a and Novartis actually ended ended up pushing me into all kinds of lateral directions in in R&D in marketing in manufacturing and all of those experiences actually now enable me to do the job that I have right now though I didn't realize it at the time.

So I think building range and getting different experiences, functions, geographies, uh even things you may not expect. You'll always learn something if you go in with an open, curious mindset.

Um I think too, you know, there's not it's not a race. I mean, it feels like it's a race. It's not a race in the end.

You you got to enjoy the whole process of whatever direction. And there's no plan. I never expected to be a CEO. Most of my career moves were not the plan that I actually had, frankly. they ended up going in a different direction.

Um, so there's no plan. It's not a race. You got to you've got It sounds cliche, but you've got to find a way to be in the moment of the journey while still obviously pushing pushing yourself uh forward.

And then find great sponsors. You got I mean, I would not be where I am today if some people did not take huge bets on me. And you need to find those sponsors.

Well, uh, Vas, I can easily understand why people have taken uh, huge uh, bets on you. uh you you clearly have the range, you enjoy what you do and and you are in the moment and uh a very very impressive CEO.

So big thanks for for being with us today and all the best going forward.

Thank you so much, Sinclair. It's an honor to be here. Thank you.