Podbit · Bloomberg Intelligence
Immunology is well-mapped. Obesity is crowded. The next great pharmaceutical frontier is neuroscience — the brain remains largely a black box, but new biology is unlocking it fast. That's where the next wave of breakthrough drugs will come from.
Where this was said
At 12:42 · chapter starts 9:08
Sam Fazeli discusses AbbVie's bid for eczema drug developer Apogee, its $50B+ immunology revenue base, pharma's cash generation strength, and emerging frontiers in neuroscience and women's health. [1] — Sam Fazeli "The entire pharma world is chasing obesity drugs worth $100 billion. But AbbVie's two immunology drugs — Skyrizi and Rinvoq — are already a…" 10:08
AbbVie agreed to acquire Apogee Therapeutics for $10.9 billion in cash to expand its anti-inflammatory drug portfolio.
AbbVie's offer for Apogee Therapeutics represents a roughly 49% premium to Apogee's closing price of $90.38.
AbbVie already has the biggest immunology franchise in pharma with Skyrizi and Rinvoq heading toward $50B+ in combined revenue. Buying Apogee for $10.9 billion gives it a foothold in atopic dermatitis — a massive and underserved eczema market.
The entire pharma world is chasing obesity drugs worth $100 billion. But AbbVie's two immunology drugs — Skyrizi and Rinvoq — are already approaching $50 billion combined. Inflammation is a pharma goldmine that doesn't get nearly enough attention.
AbbVie's two drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, are approaching well over $50 billion in combined revenue, rivaling the obesity drug market.
Big pharma runs at 30%+ operating margins across the board. Even Pfizer, whose stock has halved from pandemic peaks, generates enormous cash with low leverage. These are cash-rich companies, and large all-cash acquisitions are entirely within reach for almost all of them.
Predictions that AI would eliminate radiologists were spectacularly wrong. Since those predictions, Mayo Clinic's radiology staff grew 55% and the specialty became the second-highest paid in medicine. The reason: AI automated scan-reading, but only 36% of a radiologist's time was ever spent doing that.
Self-help fails because people are sold one universal cure by the hyper-responders who had a transformative result from it. The real problem is context: every method works for the right person at the right time, which is almost never you just because the author says so.
Spencer Greenberg was once so socially anxious his heart pounded just approaching a stranger. His therapist gave him homework: go to a bar alone, talk to 5 strangers. Starting with asking for the time, he worked up to asking men for hugs — and his anxiety fell dramatically in 6 months.
A person who flies regularly but obsessively checks weather forecasts before every flight is not doing exposure therapy — they're teaching their brain that flying is only safe with the ritual. Safety behaviors prevent the brain from ever learning that the feared thing is actually fine.
The worry-time technique assigns all worries to one scheduled slot (e.g. 5 PM). Every time a worry surfaces, you write it down and ban yourself from engaging with it until that time. When 5 PM arrives, most worries feel trivial and the act of batch-worrying exposes how little it actually accomplishes.
In a randomized study of 20 habit techniques, 'habit reflection' stood out: recall a past habit you successfully built, write down what helped you succeed, then apply those same strategies to your new habit. It works because it's self-adapting — it uses whatever worked for YOU.
The tiny habits technique — always having a minimal version of your habit you can do when life gets in the way — keeps the mental machinery of habit formation from breaking. Paradoxically, people given a tiny-habit fallback option were MORE successful at the full habit, not less.
Fears and worries act like playground bullies — they want to ambush you. But when you deliberately seek them out and choose the time of engagement, they lose their power. The volitional act of starting the fight on your own terms is one of CBT's most underappreciated insights.
Most downtime defaults are things you regret immediately after — phone scrolling, binge TV. 'Glad you did it' activities meet the same need for rest but leave you feeling like you spent your time well. The switch from a bad screen to a documentary, a book, or a walk costs almost no extra effort but compounds into identity over time.
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