stick around for that. >> meg, thanks meg tirrell in san francisco for us >>> despite a strong startostocks getting hit today, plunging 4% so what do you make of this rough start, guy >> well, the science till works behind these things. the stock went from basically you saw the move, from 130 or so down to, what, 95 or so? celgene i think has messed up a lot of people. i do think the science works in this space, and i think we can own names like am again and gilead here. what do you they with the board? power pitch? >> what show are you on for the past 11 years? >> happy anniversary, by the way. >> happy anniversary if you like the science, you have to buy the people who service biotech. >> how about acquisitions? what happened to acquisitions last year? >> and there's still all that cash on the balance sheets i think on some of the big farm oohs does pfizer decide to make a move somewhere in the space? >> like a big move >> and will they make a move or who is going to make the move if you're looking just for the stock itself to prime minister, you're looking at a biogene, a look at

meg tirrell will be there.he gets ahead of the trade on jp morgan's health care conference next right here on "halftime. >>> all right. welcome back to "halftime. jp morgan health care conference kicking off monday me meg tirrell wilt be there, she joins us been she his to the airport. >> this is a huge conference, really setting the stage, taking the temperature of investors in health care for the year ahead this is a huge conference for deals, off over the weekend, or monday morning, if the companies can keep the deals under wraps that long. you see a lot of big deal announcements. in previous years we've seen shire make two big acquisitions, $5 billion acquisition in 2015 of course, last year, takeda bought ariad for $5 billion. people wonder if the tax overhaul has had time to be digested by the big companies in order to pull the trigger next week on a big deal we'll be watching that company also do a lot of guidance and early reporting of q4 results, there we'll be watching celgreen, always the first compa

here's what frazier told meg tirrell in response to that. >> we continue to work with congress and theion to try to do what's good for patients there are real issues out there for patients there are real issues for our economy, jobs, innovation. we continue to work effectively with the administration as well as with congress on those issues >> were you surprised or insulted when the president got personal >> no, i can't say i was surprised. you know, i made my statement and the president made his statement in response. >> checking on merck stock, it's down more than 6% since president trump was elected. it's slightly in the green in the premarket. >> thank you >>> cnbc's coverage of the jpmorgan morgan healthcare conference continues today special guests are the ceos of johnson & johnson, allergan and on march 28th, cnbc will host healthy returns, investing in healthcare innovation. it will feature top government officials, ceos, investors go to cnbc/.com healthy returns for tickets. >>> still ahead, the must-reads and a dramatic finish. alabama clinching the national title with an ove

cnbc's meg tirrell with all the latest hey, meg >> reporter: hey, scott. >> happy new year. >> happyr to you. >> you guys kick off this conference, a tradition, celgene monday morning and you gave us the only deal news we saw over the weekend. $1.1 billion acquisition of this private biotech company that not many people knew tell us why this makes sense. >> first of all, it's a hematology play. >> second, it's a highly unmedical need-mile fibrosis is a rare cancer and at the same time up until now there's been one fda-approved drug ever for the disease. the product that we acquired through the impact biomedicine deal actually works for patients who have progressed where they have no other therapeutic options for the disease, and it also rescues patients who get the standard of care so we think we've got a very nice market to come into. highly underserved it's a hematology play and, of course, that's celgene >> the deal is poe tonksly up to $6 billion more including sale goals. there were some concerns earlier with this. is there a risk it doesn't get through the fda? >> there's alway

let's move on biotech is breaking out this week as it gears up for a slew of big earnings reports meg tirrell has more hi, meg. >> biotech closed out its best week since september and it's on pace for its beth month since july 2016. a couple of things are at work this is in play. investors are wondering if every monday is going to be merger monday in the sector that will be key to watch this the coming weeks's earnings reports, pfizer, and gilead among them the second thing they're buying today is abbvie. saying its effective tax rate this year basketball 9%. analysts had been expecting 20 they're telling me investors are keeping a close eye on reports next week, amgen's in particular for similar commentary on tax benefits abbvi abbvie's quarter is boosting gilead because of hepatitis c drugs, a 32% market share. abrams calling it a positive market share all this leading biotech to get seriously close to its 2015 high here's where the warnings start to come in industry publications pointing out some of the activity in the space is causing investors to, quote, worry the sector is taking a turn

it's a big one cnbc's meg tirrell is there. she's been covering the event all week she joins us now with an exclusive interview with john milligan, the ceo of gilead. meg? >> reporter: bill, thanks so much john, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me, meg. >> reporter: gilead's stock is moving big in the green direction after your presentation yesterday one of the things you said for 2018 is a key focus is m&a and building the pipeline. does tax reform change the size and the nature of what you're looking at there >> well, first of all, i think tax reform is very good for us i think it's very good for the economy and for companies like gilead, which allows us to flpln long term. as you know, our businesses are a very long-term cycle of approvals of our drugs in terms of order, it real i will doesn't change anything i talked to you last year, talked about how m&a was important to replenish the pipeline and still intend to invest in m&a, tend to invest in our pipeline and compounds going forward to broaden our pipeline for

meg tirrell back at headquarters. >>> there's been plenty of talk about deals to come, so we thoughtd ask our players to play matchmaker here. who do they think would make the perfect match? grasso >> the market tells you more often than not where the target will be. bluebird has been out there a as a potential takeoff target i think i'm going to say pfizer blue democrat bird is the next one, and i think it's gilead that takes them out. look at gilead, and 12 sometimes multiple >> is celgene a partner? would they be an obstacle? >> i don't think so. >> guy >> me or dan at t tesaro has had a -- what's the point? better to buy these stocks when they're down than to try to pay up for them. i think pfizerless the comes in, they have a ovarian cancer that works. >>> let's get to mike in austin to break this next one down? >> not necessarily some kind of a match, but allergan, two times the average daily call volume, the most active. over 2,000 of those traded for an average so these folks are making a bet that allergan will recovered. >> what's going on >> on the "fid hdler on the roo. >>

meg tirrell is out there and joins us along with the ceo of merck, ken frazier, in a first on cnbc interview meg? >> kelly, thank you so much. ken, thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> i want to start off with a big topic people are talking about which is the tax overhaul, something you've been advocating for for some time. are you going to bring jobs, hire more, invest more, what will this enable you to do the most important thing about this, it will allow us to compete on an even basis with our competitors. as it relates to our capital allocation, i don't think it's going to change a lot in the immediate future we're going to continue to spend money on the science as we've always done and we're going to build plants where we have an opportunity to do that and we're going to hire people with our business expands >> so having access to that overseas cash isn't going to influence your decision to do m&a? >> well, actually, before this new tax plan, we had enough power in our balance sheet and enough financial flexibility in terms of our ability to access capital so that we could do the k

there are reports of crowded emergency rooms and treatment shortages all over the country meg tirrellre with a look at how much worse this flu season could get, meg. >> reporter: hey, kelly, it is shaping up to be potentially be a worst one than we've seen in several years. we spoke to an e.r. doctor at stanford yesterday who said they're getting clobbered. he says this feels like the worst flu season since the 2009 swine flu. if there there's a couple reasons why it's appearing so bad this year. first, the strain of the flu a more severe one, h3n2. the flu vaccine isn't looking as effect ive as in recent years we talked to a doctor from the nih said it's looking 30% effective. in better years it's 60% effective at protecting people from the flu public health officials recommend everybody who can get a flu shot, right now adults about 43% last year of american adults got their flu shot. 59% of kids. and so that is pretty big business for the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the flu shot of those, sanafee is the largest maker of the flu shot delivering 70 million doses to the

♪ >>> editas medicine falling today, meg tirrell is standing by with the company's creme o.it away >> mel, thanks so much joining us is katrine bosley this seems to be affecting your stock and sore stocks working in this exciting gene editing technology essentially whether people have an existing immunity to this technology how due look at that research? >> we actually don't see this as an issue in the field of genome editing, sometimes when they publications come out, you'll see a little reaction, we seen that bev at editas, we're focused on doing that translational worm to advance experimental medicines into studies with people we have done a lot of work on this specific topic, and we don't see this as an issue >> you announced today you have fife medicines in the next five years. this is a really new technology. we are excited morgan of our fi years goal to advance into studies of people over the next five years we have been building our capabilities in science the last four years and we feel well positioned to do this in a range of diseases. our first program treats inhe

preventive health provisions and some bits and bobs, but really this is the -- >> our colleague, meg tirrell note and isi argues that this section of the market should trade at a discount to the overall market the question is, how much. i mean, do you agree with that premise? and it's got to be about amazon getting in here to do all the things bill jordan is talking about. you brought up about disintermediation. should we discount these stocks until we know what the heck is going on here? >> i think it's too early. i really do. i think the response is over done i think the reality is is for the last few weeks and months, as you know, investors have been waiting, waiting for what's amazon going to do now we have an announcement that's probably a little bit less like what people expected and i think the expectation is, sure, you start with 1.1 million employees and then you expand on that over time i think with employee health care what do we see? high deductible health plans and consumers making more choices but with very little information. it would be nice to know that you can get a knee re

worst flu season since the swine flu pandemic of 2009 joining us now with impact on business is meg tirrellgood morning >> good morning. it is promising to be a pretty intense flu season it ramps up quickly since december the strain isn't well protected by the flu vaccine still public health experts say getting a flu shot is one of the most important things to do to protect ourselves and others and another report is staying at home when we're sick but a lot of us don't do that. urgent care providers conducted a survey about where americans go when sick almost 70% went to the drugstore or pharmacy. 33% went to the grocery store. almost 40% went to work sick health experts say that's a big problem. it's even got a maim for zenkyism, and can contribute to the further spread of the disease. while it can be costly for employers, the lost productivity from six days related to flu lost $9.4 billion this year. having employees show up in the office while contagious can be costly as well puck health experts recommend employers take a few steps to help reduce the spread and potential cost of flu incl

meg tirrell has more on that season's flu drama it's shaping up to be a tough time, right, meg >> that'sis widespread in 46 states and it's causing more hospitalizations in previous years the major reason is the strain of the virus circulating it's called h3n2 and it rapidly increased in december. dr. anthony fauci told us it's a more severe strain and the flu vaccine isn't providing as much protection this year. >> a really good year of protection would be about 60% efficacy we can't tell for sure right now but we're estimating it's going to be significantly less it will probably be around 30% for the predominant strain >> here in california, we talked with doctors at emergency rooms and clinics who said the flu is putting pressure on the health care system. >> so last year a busy day in our emergency department would have been 200, maybe up to 220 everyday this week we've been seeing 260, 270, and a major component is people with influen influenza-like symptoms. >> and it's not just the patients who are getting sick. >> especially this year when the flu vaccine doesn't work as well we

scott gottlieb also joining us is meg tirrell thank you for being with us today, doctor.ks for having me. >> let's talk about generic drugs first. you have made this a big issue, you want this to be a priority this year and you've released two sets of guidelines, one is for the industry to tell them what they need do better, the other is for the fda internally. what keeps generic drugs from getting to market quicker? >> so we released these yesterday. the goal is to try to cut down on what we call multiple cycles of review. the reason why generic drugs were delayed getting to the market is because many times the applications would undergo multiple cycles of review, up to four on average. it would take four years to get a generic drug approved. we want to see more of these drugs get approved in the first cycle. that means the applications need to come in in better quality, so we put out the guidelines to the industry on how to improve the quality applications we also need to make our own process more efficient so the other guidance we put out was to fda describing a more e