meg tirrell no doubt practicing the last name joins us. ve ever done, meg. >> that was amazing, brian. michelle vonanza joins us now. thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. thank you for having me. >> we realize you're joining us minutes after the news of your new appointment. we thank you so much for that. we have to ask you, as biogen is in an uncertain time right now with the rest of the drug industry for biogen specifically, questions about the future of your multiple sclerosis franchise and the highest risk, highest reward pipeline assets. what is job number one for you as new ceo? >> allow me first to say, i am so honored to be the successor of the helm of biogen at this point in time. such a great company. and coming back to your question, you know, we have a very strong ms franchise. we have a strong leadership position. we have supeepering sue pittsburgh assets. a lot of focus on the potential takeover target. whether that has been taking place or not. how do you look at biogen's future as a stand-alone biotech company?

i'm meg tirrell in washington. >>> coming up, cutting the cord? ditching your cable box may not save you as much money as you think. >>> amazon has conducted its first commercial drone delivery. the panel was delivered to a shopper in england, and took off from a nearby warehouse. the journey lasted 13 minutes. covered about two miles. amazon plans to test drone deliveries with two more customers near cambridge. >>> what do you think about cutting the cord every time you pay your cable bill? if the answer is yes, you probably are not alone. a new study shows the alternatives may not be cheaper by much, if at all. julia boorstin has the details. >> reporter: consumers have more options for watching video than ever. an explosion of alternatives to the traditional television bundle. but a new pwc study finds cord-cutting isn't happening as quickly as expected. and the number of consumers who plan to stick with their cable and satellite tv packages is actually on the rise. >> what we found this year in the research is that many consumers are really co

meg tirrell, cnbc business news. >>> joining us is john round tree from nova sector. good morning.secret that the pharma sector has been hit by pricing pleasures, now with the political agenda, not just in the u.s. but in the uk as well. how does this play out for investors in 2017? >> i think investors have to readjust their forecasts for what prices might be, particularly in the united states. in the last few years people have looked bullish on prices in the u.s. i don't see it cratering, but i see it flattening out. there's not really going to be scope for massive price rises at all. >> do you think this will continue to be a driver for further consolidation? we have already seen m&a activity hit quite a high note. >> i think it will be more consolidation. there is more cost cutting. consolidation is more likely driven by people wanting access to innovation, rather than particularly cost cutting. certainly there's going to be more m&a next year. >> the one company that interests me the most is actelion. johnson & johnson first circled, sanofi came into the mix, johnson & johnson

meg tirrell will have more next. toin, every millisecondr 200 matters.. e track and thousands of miles away. with the hp of at&t, red bull racing c sreril informatioabout every inakes are gettingarm.tually nfme daniel you edo ol youbrak. understood, brake bias back y clks >>> as 2016 draws to a close, cnbc is breaking out the 2017 play book looking at ways you can make money in the coming year. this hour meg tirrell has a closer look at what to expect from biotech and pharma companieses in 2017. ♪ >> reporter: if investors expected smooth sailing for drug company stocks after republicans swept the u.s. election, they were in for a surprise. uncertainty in the drug industry is as high as ever and prices, . here's what to expect. first, pricing pressure. donald trump says he's going to bring drug prices down. he could look to legislation to do it but it could be pressure on drug companies. expect also increasing scrutiny of the rest of the health care system. with mounting pressure on the middle men like drug distributors and pharmacy managers. next, an eye

our thanks to our own meg tirrell. >> all right. governors start to trump each other just to lure business away from other states. the battle for business is just heating up. that is next. by the way, the dow industrial average is now up 200 points as new record highs are made seemingly every single day. if you're wondering, american express, home depot and nike are the key players. the report from rick santelli. >> thanks, sully. 24 hour chart of 10s, we lost about five basis points today. could be the lowest close tins a week ago tuesday. a little over a week. let's look at some basic year to date charts. and know that tomorrow is the ecb meeting. rates are down here. look what is going on the big picture. we're basically coming off rather extreme high yields since july of 15. bunds never made it as high, but right at the top of the range. let's look at what is going on between the italian and sovereign bund. you see it was close to 200 basis points and widened post referendum before the ecb, hard to tell why it is coming back in.

. >> meg tirrell. that does it for us. "power" starts right now. >> oh, yes it does. thank you very much. welcome, everybody. i'm tyler mathisen. here is what's on the menu as the dow keeps slip sliding away from that 20,000 mark. will we get there by the new year? you know my bet. it is friday, the 30th. we'll show you what the charts are saying ahead. plus, why now could be the best time for you to cash in your chips if you own chip stocks. and zillow has just named this celebrity the absolute worst next door neighbor to have of anybody. we'll tell you who that

meg tirrell joins us with express scripts. good morning, again, meg. >> good morning, joe.u again. dr. steve miller, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> joe was just mentioning that spotlight that's been turned on the role of pharmacy managers. do you think there's been a war turned on pbms amid this talk? >> there's been turned up heat. the reality is the pharmaceutical companies set their prices, plans actually make their copays. we administer this. we can survive in higher low cost environment. our whole goal is to get lower net price. >> the argument that the drug -- from the middle men like pbms to drive up slicprices so your sli will be bigger. how do you explain that? >> we pass the rebates back to our plan spon source. where it falls apart is when a patient is in a high deductible plan and they're paying full freight for a drug. the member's paying the full cost. the thing is when you sign up for a high deductible plan, you should understand you're going to be responsible for that first amount. that's how they're keeping the premium low. >> there's no

fimp president-elect trump told "time" that he wants to bring down drug prices, and meg tirrell has ak at how they could perform. >> any hope that investors had that donald trump wouldn't focus on drug prices as much, this week heavy on the drug pricing news as ever. yesterday a group of 19 mostly democratic senators asked the president to work with congress to bring prices down. of course, thinking that trump will embrace this populist issue after he told "time" magazine -- i'm going to bring down drug prices. and today a bipartisan report from senators susan collins and claire mccaskill, those focused on companies like -- as very well as valiant, now in this more than 100-page report, they're pitting together a set of six policy actions, including enacting what will be the increasing competition, encouraging generic competition, considering targeted drug re-importation from other countries where they're cheaper, which is something that donald trump has talked about, preventing the misuse of co-pay that companies provide, and improving health care transparency. >>> meg, thank you. >>

our meg tirrell joins us this morning with more on that. good morning, meg. >> good morning, carl.uch expected mylan announced it planned to authorize its quote/unquote generic version of the epipen, up to more than $600 for a two-pack from less than $100 several years ago. an authorized generic is identical to the branded version except it doesn't have the brand epipen on it. they are going to be selling it for about half the list price of the branded epipen, or about $300 for a two-pack. this is expected to hit pharmacy shelves next week. now, this was all communicated by the company. folks wondering now of course with the impact to mylan is going to be. they're trying to parse that out in terms of numbers right now. in terms of mylan's perspective, hearing from ceo heather bresch in a statement today taking this as an opportunity to talk about the system. every day escalating out of pocket costs impact a new patient population, however this broader systemic issue will not be solved by our industry's one-off reactive responses. this is something we've been hearing a lot from myla

. >> meg tirrell with more on how much this treatment will cost. >> so mylan is planning to introduce what it calls an authorized generic version of the branded epipen next week to pharmacies. this is something it told us about several months ago over the price of its allergy treatment, the epipen, more than $600 for a two-pack up from about 100 several years ago. now an authorized generic is kind of confusing to people, actually identical to the branded product. but the price will be about half that of the branded price at least on the list level. $300 for the two-pack, hitting pharmacy shelves next week. a lot of people would ask, why introduce this identical product, but calling it an authorized generic, instead of lowering the price of the branded product? it all goes back into what mylan ceo has been talking about with the complicated nature of the health care system and the involvement of middlemen. she said here in a statement today, the quote, every day escalating out-of-pocket costs impacting new patient population. however, this broader systemic issue will not be solved in a

. >>> let's go to meg tirrell. >> we're here at the opening of the new vaccine center.or joining us. >> my pleasure. >> gsk had a presence in vaccines in america. >> we had manufacturing presence for a long time. we're a pig suppl big supplier . marketplace. what we're opening here is the third of our three global research centers and we did it here because it is the epicenter of the best minds in america who work on vaccines. the nih, sca, all this area is the epicenter of great vaccine research thinking. >> around this area, you can collaborate with government agencies on some things you start focusing on, emerging global health crisis. involved in ebola, in zika. how do we get ahead of the next one before it comes upon us? >> we deployed first vaccine. what we're looking to do is really a twin track approach. commercial, vaccine research as we could do elsewhere. part of this facility will be dedicated to working on bio research. that should lead to a deeper relationship with nih and it would mean we can take great science, great ideas from that basic research arena

meg tirrell joins us now.ng given what eli lilly told us about their version of the drug. >> a lot going on. there is a conference going on in san diego, clinical trials. that's where we're getting all of this data. before thanksgiving, a lot of the wind came out of the sails because lilly's drug failed in a phase three study and the company wouldn't take it forward. that has a lot of implications for biogen's drug. it targets the same target, the proceed teen that builds up in the brain but in a different way. what people were-liking for is how did that lilly drug fail and what did that say about the implicati implications. it looked like the signals were going in the right direction for a drug that worked in this way. you see biogen and lilly trading back to before the data came which caused the big drop. there were more trials, more data presented. the key question is always, as it is for every drug, the balance of safety and efficacy, the side effect seen with biogen's drugs, seen with other drugs for alzh

. >> meg tirrell. that does it for us. "power" starts right now. >> oh, yes it does. thank you very much. welcome, everybody. i'm tyler mathisen. here is what's on the menu as the dow keeps slip sliding away from that 20,000 mark. will we get there by the new year? you know my bet. it is friday, the 30th. we'll show you what the charts are saying ahead. plus, why now could be the best time for you to cash in your chips if you own chip stocks. and zillow has just named this celebrity the absolute worst next door neighbor to have of anybody. we'll tell you who that individual is today on "power lunch," which starts right now. >> and welcome to "power lunch." i'm melissa lee. tyler mentioned, stocks are hitting session lows now as the dow moves further away from the 20,000 mark. right now, the dow is down 73 points, but the nasdaq and s&p 500 on our radar today, showing the steepest losses of the nasdaq down by .8%. we're watching shares of kate spade, rocketing higher on reports that the company could be exploring a sale. the company says it does not comment on rumors o

now to meg tirrell. >> 19 u.s. senators sent a letter to president-elect donald trump asking him to work with congress to bring down drug prices. they laid out five different measures they hope he'll focus on, the chief of which is allowing the secretary of the department of health and human services to negotiate on drug prices, something that medicare is currently banned from doing. that has been investor's greatest fear and having a democratic government, whether it would be something that donald trump would elect to do is unknown right now. they also ask that he work to increase transparency in drug pricing and stop abusive pricing, not just those 5,000% price increases from martin shkreli, but repetitive 10% to 20% increases every year. so 19 u.s. senators led by sherrod brown and al franken writing this letter. >> thank you for that. >>> when we return, we name names on the one stock that may hold a key to dow hitting 20,000 this year. speaking of, we are just about 25 points from crossing that historic 20,000

meg tirrell joins us from washington. good morning. >> reporter: good morning.e're here at the fda cms summit. one sector that has been taking a major breather in healthcare since the election is the drug industry. biotech had rallied after the election on the expectation there may be some alleviation of pressure on drug prices. donald trump in his "time" magazine person of the year interview saying "i don't like what's happening with drug prices. i'm going to bring drug prices down." everybody is trying to figure out what could donald trump do. the biggest thing is work with congress to give medicare the power to negotiate on drug price. this is a popular idea among the public but has not gained traction in the government. that is something that is constantly coming up. we talked with merck, they said no fda commissioner has certified those drugs as safe. the most likely is political and public pressure on drug companies, which we've more seen from people like hillary clinton and bernie sanders. which companies would be targets of donald trump? some folks say p