Transcription
[Music]
Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. It's me and Dana joining you on a Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. I know it's been a long week, but it's over. And those of you who are lucky would have a long weekend because Monday is a holiday. Markets are closed, so it's a holiday for people who are in the market. For the rest of us who are grinding along, maybe have worked too. But anyway, what do we have done before they get into their day and enjoy their evening? What what can we send them off with today?
I'm coming with the Pharma company, sir. Many drugs on a morning is because N likes doing drugs in the morning. Reason sir, many of them are not now also not having a clear understanding on the Pharma companies, how they are operating like that. So for that, I have a case taken in from the NCO recently. One case was done in the Delhi High Court. That was this is Natco and then Roche. So there are two companies; they are uh, they're fighting against for the patents for one drug. So the drug was SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. So it was like when was weaken their muscle, he will not able to run or walk quickly like that; they will be have breathing issues like that; they they lose muscle control. Muscle control, the nerves and muscles does not cooperate with them. So for that, for the operation, for the treatment, they having one drug that called spinal muscular atrophy. Already Roche company, that was a Switzerland company, that company having the drug. So in India, they were selling the drug; the treatment price it was around 22 lakhs to 72 lakhs per annum. So Natco was filing the patent against them to create the API, so that uh, that case was won by the Natco. Reason behind that was he was giving that; he was giving that treatment in a cheapest price, that was like 3,000 rupees per annum from the 72 lakh rupees drug to 3,000 rupees. Was the NCO Target price, and then Delhi High Court also appealed, give the judgment to the Natco. So you can do the drug because you are giving because you give permission; give the permission; the judges like you going to do the drugs because he was giving like 72 lakhs and 22 lakhs, but you are giving 3,000. It will be helpful for the Indians. Yeah, sometimes you know taking care of people is more important than making money, so I agree with the judgment. Correct. And then Roche company was appealed, sir. Again, we will give the drug in your lower cost like 10,000; we will give 3,000; we will give it in 10,000 rupees. So kindly don't give their patent to them; we will continue that patent. No, no, Natco have the patent; they will do the drug. So this was the Delhi High Court case happens in this week. So from that, I have taken one like understanding, sir. So Natco we already discussed and drug also we already discussed, but many of them are not know, but aren't you proud to own a company which does this kind of work? Aren't you proud to own a company like Natco where it fights for the little man?
Yes, sir. Not only is he making medicine, but he's making the medicine affordable; affordable and cheaper. Many of them are like if I'm a middle class or poor middle class, if I'm doing that SMA operations for the for the disease treatment, if I take 72 lakhs, means no one will take the treatment. After that, we need to consume one year for a medicine; it will be cost around 22 lakh to 72 lakh. If Natco are there, and then it will be correct under the 3,000; it will be helpful. So this was the understanding, sir, by me. So this was the companies in India; mainly they are doing like that or differently they are doing. So I want to understand from that; you want understand only Indian companies doing this. Only Indian companies are doing like the API; there is no, no; this is being done by a lot of companies even in China. There are companies which feel in pharmaceutical sector; there is price gouging happening. Price gouging is when, like you rightly said, they've spent the money discovering the drug; fair enough; they spent a lot of money discovering the medicine, and they have been doing selling it at a very high price for some time. They recovered their money; they made profit also somewhere along the line. You have to say okay, now for the sake of humanity and for everyone having access to that, you should look at lowering it. So it is a fine balance. This happens in roads also; big problem in India is toll roads. So whenever you hit Bangalore, Chennai, or you know wherever you go, Kanyakumari, the roads are there; tolls, and you have to pay tolls. You'll see bikes usually no toll, then yeah, cars one small toll, then many will everything toll toll; finally the big trucks are paying 10,000 rupees or something to go through. So heavy tolls. So there is a ruling which came saying if you're collecting toll, two things: one, you invested the money; the lay the roads; they say we understand, so you're collecting toll to for the money you invested making the road, but then after that, if you're collecting after you have recovered your money and you've collected your profit, then you should either remove the toll or any toll you collect after that should be on maintaining and improving the. Same way these Pharma companies are arguing saying like Roche saying that you are preventing us from future; see, we are making this money here, right? I agree this is too much money, but this money we're not putting it in our pockets; we are not buying new jet planes; we are not you know buying new villas; we are using that money to discover other medicines which are going to help more people; more people. So there lies the balance. So the argument lies are you telling the truths; are you playing to the crowd? These things are very hard to do unless you know the owner of the company or the if not a owner like Roche is a huge company; you know the management of the company how they think, and you know how they you can see them in the investor calls and all that; you see them interacting like what we get with Natco.
Natco, yeah. One nice thing about Natco is that you know yes, I understand people want to invest to make money; we all have a goal to reach; we want to become wealthy; I understand that; I'm not saying you know you have to do service if you don't want to do, but at the same time it is nice to know a company which you are thinking of investing which you find in value at the same time seems to be having the right morals; moral compass, at least as far as this is concerned, which I think is a good thing. And not only Indian companies do this; even in China recently company has discovered like this a Pharma company in China discovered a cancer treatment drug like this which is being sold in the US by a Pharma company was making billions of dollars profit; this Chinese Pharma company has discovered that same thing on their own way; they made it and they discovered around themselves, and that drug is going to enter the market for a few dollars. And if that happens, that big Pharma company in the US which has been milking this cow, cancer medicine for so long, but it will go, but they cannot fight this because they not copied their medicine; okay, he's discovered another way of curing the same disease at a cheaper cost; separate warranty and the fund come going to come once now AI kicks in. Forget all the fun you guys are having using AI to create Kamas and looking like MGR and okay, I understand having fun doing that, but the same AI will be able to process huge volumes of data in medicine; in DNA analysis; the biggest thing is number crunching; you have you do an experiment and you'll collect lots of data data, and that data needs to be analyzed and understood and sorted out. Like imagine having a million Excel sheets, right? So all those data needs to be combined and understood. So when you have AI systems which are robust and they can deal with these kinds of tasks, what have taken one year to sit and understand you can compress it down to a few months; finally get reached to few weeks. So we'll still need human beings; doesn't mean AI is going to get rid of you know you will not go to a science lab and just see computers working by themselves; it will be there, but you'll need still human beings to think. If you lot of young young people are wondering where's my future career, you will have lot of career in biology, you know in DNA analysis, like Bill Gates said in an recent conference, and you know this kind of climate action and all they have a lot of potential because you need creative thinking and different approach; out of the box thinking which AI will find very hard to do; emulate human kind of creative thinking; it will come out with you know solutions, but those solutions may not work in the real world in human context. So that is the future. If you can get into Pharma sector, great for you; if you can do that kind of biology and data analysis and get into that, there's a great future for you. If you're don't want to do you know the whatever we all everybody is doing which is computer and because their coding is a job which will disappear eventually; the need of doing coding will become a very small job; you know it'll be like a very high-end job; very specialized coding which is required for very sensitive things; you need human coding, but most like you know website and all the other small things you're doing like DTP work; no one you don't see those DTP centers anymore, right, sir? It's all gone; even Xerox printing itself is slowly dying. Same way this generic things which we used to do with a lot of effort will finally disappear.
The conclusion, I I covered one things that I have been like taking a lessons from that investing in Natco as a gen is okay, but as a geny how to approach an AI for a pharmaceutical; those who are in the 12th after college also if you're doing that in biotech, you have some confusion like if AI was coming in watches also, sir; like watches also telling something; what are the diseases in that and then what you realize is yes, watches do tell you, but they are not as reliable as a human being. See, a watch can tell you your heart rate is fast or your heart rate is slow, but it has to be correlating with other symptoms; you have to show a lot of people are getting anxiety because a watch is telling them that the V2 Max is not good; that means you're not healthy; physically healthy. Okay, this Apple watch has nonsense; then it'll tell you that your heart rate is right now resting heart rate sounds very looks very high; your body is not a perfect machine; it runs; sometimes it'll go you know like wind blowing; it can suddenly have a spurt of high heart rate and then slow down, but it should correlate with other things; you know you must have palpitation; you must be feeling weak or you you're having so there has to be other things that tie together to then you say okay, your heart rate is also high; okay, now we have worry about. So your watch cannot know if you're anxious; it'll ask you are you feeling anxious; your heart rate is high; are you feeling anxious? And anyone who sees that itself will immediately feel anxious because you'll think immediately I'm having a heart attack because you'll see some news story of some guy who died with a heart attack who was 20 years old who was in the gym; he was very fit and you don't read the whole story because you don't know the whole story; what was wrong with him; maybe his family had some disease and also so genetically.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying this generic AI; there's a problem in it. Okay, so yes, you're going to get lots of AI; no doubt about it, but how useful it will be for very specific special tasks; it's very hard to say. That's why I'm saying doctors cannot be replaced by AI. Certain things yes, immediately; I'm sure my computer friends will be there commenting saying what are you saying? You yet you know this latest AI from ABC D G who is doing EFG HI; you know obviously you do not know anything about this; why are you talking; they're not even a subject matter expert. I agree; so I'm not a subject matter expert but in AI, but people who are subject matter AI experts even your Sam Altman, they're saying AI can do a lot of things, but it cannot do certain things. And I think I'm knocking this around and Aaron will be getting irritated, so let me move that ring away.
Yeah, sir. We will discuss further in Tamil podcast, sir; Tamil podcast. Yes, we will deep dive into this in Tamil because Dana will really come to his own in that. A lot of you please understand Dana is not a native English speaker; you know he does a takes a lot of effort for him and courage to come in front of a camera and to speak to you guys in English, so be kind to him in your comments. I would like you to respect him a little bit because it is tough to sit with someone like me and have a complete conversation in English. And I have tremendous respect and deep admiration for him to put this out with you guys. Thank you. Thank you, D. Thank you, sir. Thanks for watching the podcast. Do go enjoy your evening. I'm sorry I ended it on a kind of a serious note; it's not meant to be serious; it was meant to be light. I'll see you in the evening; well, I'm talking about personal finance if you do happen to have an appetite for that; catch that video in the evening; I'm talking about personal finance and how to think about investing; that's my weekend videos nowadays where I try and talk about something of subject matter and sense of personal investing and how you should invest and investing mindset because there's no market happening. See you and have fun and be safe; me and Dana will be back tomorrow morning; morning where we'll try and talk about something more interesting. Thank you for watching the podcast today. Bye bye.