How Are Healthcare CEOs Steering Through Uncertainty?

Healthcare CEOs in the US are “trying to set course in an otherwise unpredictable, highly uncertain world,” according to this episode’s guest, Marshall Smith, global head of Goldman Sachs’ healthcare investment banking. The uncertainty, stemming from global growth concerns, trade policy risk and drug pricing debates, is a consistent theme across the healthcare industry, but that doesn’t mean corporations are sitting back and waiting. Growth strategies are top priorities for executives, Smith explains, with pharmaceutical companies turning to M&A–both to acquire smaller biotech companies for their drug portfolios and to merge with other large pharma companies. Smith also discusses how being the son of a doctor spurred an early interest in healthcare. “My dad would come home from the hospital [and] we’d have dinner together, all seven of us sitting around the table,” Smith recalled. “And so, invariably, we ended up talking about medical cases at dinner pretty much every night.”