illumina down 6.67% on this news the company saying it will defend the acquisition of grai because theyients guys, this is not the first time in history illumina has been challenged by the ftc. they abandoned an acquisition of pacific biosciences last year. they're thelargest maker of genome sequencing equipment and machines so it's a tough space. there are concerns about a stronger ftc challenging a lot of these acquisitions. guys, back over to you. >> meg, thank you. >>> paypal is now allowing customers to pay for purchases with cryptocurrency. >> sara, the digital payments company will allow u.s. customers who own bitcoin, ether, or bitcoin cash to use that to make purchases at millions of affiliated online merchants. it comes on the heels of visa launching a pilot program to settle transactions used a dollar backed stable coin. just days ago elon musk announcing customers can buy a tesla car with bitcoin it's becoming a bit more mainstream in steps to widen its appeal we're seeing about it coin trade higher by 2%, just around $59,000. guys. >> amazing seema, thank you >>> shannon, i

scott gottlieb now, cnbc contributor, former fda commissioner on the boards of pfizer and illumina. doctor, thank you. it's all a bit of a blur now, the whole lockdown thing how can those in charge learn from the mistakes made and use that to get back to something more normal as soon as possible? >> well, look, it's been a brutal year and asked a lot of the american people and for the most part got a lot of compliance with the public health measures. people did wear masks. a majority did wear masks. small businesses bore a tremendous burden from the shutdowns that were in place parents had to homeschool their kids, couldn't go to work. children were missing class, missing the socialization of being in school. i think now we see a rapidly improving picture. the overall vulnerability of the american public is declining through vaccinations cases are coming down. there is risk from the new variants, and it may not be a steady decline, may see a plateauing before we see a decline in cases, but the risk is going down, and i think we need to prescribe a pathway forward where people can st

. >> i can't wait to watch but i like illumina. >> amphenol.l me something i've got people asking me on twitter about that do you still own it? >> i still own a lot of it more than i own three weeks ago. they keep announcing these partnerships they have one with cooper yesterday. the contact lunch firm and their business is just growing 100% a year it's going to keep going it's the only solution out there. >> monster move. a quick name >> they did an offering. the stock will lift after they price it >> thanks, efb the exchange is now. >>> thank you, scott don't ghost me here is what's ahead speculation, not diversification. that's what bank of america says about owning bitcoin we'll ask the man behind the call plus more common words from fed chair powell not enough to give confidence as rates continue to rise this creates buying opportunity of the question we're asking and in a move that will be met with controversy, instagram consideration a version of

sits on the boards of pfizer and illumina and is a cnbc contributor.me back, doctor >> thanks. >> so, let's talk percentages. 16% of americans have now had at least one shot of the covid-19 vaccine. if you add that with the percentage of americans that have already been infected with covid-19, how close are we to herd immunity at this point. >> not necessarily close to herd immunity i don't know that we achieve that i think the statistic is that 21% of adults have received at least one those. 6% of those above the age of 65 and 70% of those above 75. 30% of adults by the end of this month will have this at least one dose of the vaccine. when you combine the number of people who have been vaccinated along with people with residual immunity we are at significant levels about one third of the country has been infected with coronavirus at this point. we are approaching about another third i have dults who have been vaccinated you are at high levels, where the virus itself is going to stop circulating i think people sense that the overall risk is starting t

scott gottlieb, he sits on the boards of pfizer and illumina and is a cnbc medical experts thank you us. >> thank you >> 100 million vaccines administered does that surprise you? did you think it would take longer >> it fits with what i was expecting and what we have talked about on this network i think by the end of this month we will be close to 100 million americans vaccinated at least one dose in 100 million americans. we might not quite get there, but we will get pretty close to it right now we are put being 20 million vaccines into the market each week. if you are figuring 80% of those are actually getting into arms and there is a 60/40 split on first doses and six second doses it means we are getting 10 million first doses in arms every week just a little bit less than that you extend this out over the course of the month and assuming a step up in the pace of vaccination you get close to 100 million americans who will have at least one shot. we are doing good. we are picking up the pace and more supply is coming on line in april and may. >> may 1st the deadline to open up vacc

scott gottlieb, and he's going to join us, former fda commissioner, and serves on the boards of illuminaty, we may have another offering soon. what did you think about the novavax results, scott >> the data looks good consistent with what we saw from the u.k. trial i think the question is going to be whether or not fda wants to look at a data set from the united states or willing to give an authorization from the u.k. data set the data looked good against both b.1.1.7 and the old wuhan variant. we need to see more data on 1351, and it's differentiated, as you know, probably the first protein based vaccine that could potentially reach the market. >> the future of analysis and testing, we have been talking about challenge trials, andrew is talking about to see, you know, it sounds crazy, but you give something a small amount, small dose of the virus, and see differently how the different vaccines work. i could imagine doing that, i could imagine start with one vaccine, do a different one for a booster, i could imagine you would want to look at t cell versus b cell, how long you get immunit

this pandemic i want to say winds down i know we've got work to do here he serves on the boards of illuminaing a lot of time in as well over the past year i'm headed there this weekend, scott. tell me what you think of this decision by the governor >> well, look, i think it's a middle path. the governor isn't fully reopening the state in the way texas did. masks are still required this begins in two weeks they'll continue to monitor the data they're still going to keep the curfew in place on restaurants restaurants can't turn into bars it's not quite the full reopening that texas did i think the governor is carving a prudent path massachusetts went a little bit further. i think they've opened up their bars there this is what states need to be contemplating. what can you do that allows business activity to return, allows people to get back to some semblance wave of normal. by leaving the mask mandate in place, that's going to offer added protection >> the only thing that i guess in all of this is, a, hopefully we're 8 to 12 weeks away from really a lot more vaccines being available and large

scott gottlieb, former fda commissioner, who sits on the board of pfizer and illumina and he is a cnbcetty excited about this because they say they'll be filing in the next few weeks with the fda to extend that coverage all the way down to 12-year-olds that would be much sooner than i would have anticipated how long would something like this take to work its way through the fda? >> well, we probably have it in time for the fall school year, which is what people are focused on this will probably take about a month. the last applications took about a month for the fda to review. i would expect this data to take the same amount of time that the fda is going to go through it very carefully, bring it before a public advisory committee. they'll go through the same careful process that they've gone through with the datasets for the adult population it puts you in a position of having this available, if everything goes well and the fda review holds up, in position to having it available for the fall there's data coming out of israel, real-world evidence about the vaccines efficacy in that popu

he sits on the boards of pfizer and illumina good to see you. but this is great 70%. 75%. keeps you out of the hospital. keeps you from dying so i don't think you worry necessarily about the difference in the efficacy numbers also, it's one dose. it's stable because it's dna this is great news i want to ask you whether there might be advantages -- do we know with the adeno towards better immunity in terms of t cells? do we know that the messenger rnas now match up dollar for dollar, if you will, with the adeno-based vaccines >> yeah, this is great news. and alex and his team should be very proud i remember the phone call that we got when pfizer was announced the results and how proud people felt in that phone call. it was an emotional call, learning how effective that vaccine was. i think that there is emerging evidence that the mrna vaccines illicit t cell response. it seems to be eliciting strong t cell response. they did a good job trying to ascertain the t cell response and in patients. we believe now the mrna vaccines are eliciting a t cell

he also serves on the board of illumina and pfizer.n the right direction here what is it, 37 cases out of 13 million? nobody likes the 37 cases but i tried to do the math on how many people -- if 13 million were not going to get covid, how many lives do you save versus the 37 that died from the blood clots how many would be expected to die from covid out of 13 million? you can make a case it could be a pretty large number compared to 37, right >> well, backing up to your earlier discussion i think you might be back in the studio sooner than you think this summer so we'll see look, astrazeneca's -- >> well, because of the vaccines and because of a decline case count although again new york city, if there was two parts of the country that look a little bit concerning, it would be new york city and the upper midwest. astrazeneca has been very particular how they've wanted their data presented and their ceo has as well. i'm going to reserve commenting on their data and just say i think the europeans needed a better approach how they judge