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.
Anxiety is not fear. Fear has an object — a wolf, a threat. Anxiety is the vertigo of standing at the edge of infinite possibility and knowing that choosing any one thing closes off all the others. Kierkegaard argued that the depth of your anxiety is proportional to the depth of your potential.
AI nailed Andrew Huberman's vertigo-vs-low-blood-pressure diagnosis because that pattern has been reported millions of times. But every patient's liver is different and data on liver surgeries is scarce worldwide — making solo robot surgery dangerous. The rule is simple: data abundance means AI can help; data scarcity means keep the human in the loop.
Fei-Fei Li's father had liver surgery performed by a da Vinci robot guided by a surgeon. The result: 10 times less blood loss than a typical procedure. This isn't replacement — it's the gold standard of human-machine collaboration, where the human's judgment and the robot's precision combine.
US drug overdose deaths fell from 110,000 to roughly 70,000 — the biggest CDC-recorded single-year drop ever. Men's rates fell 27% in one year, and the steepest decline of all was among 15–24-year-olds, down 37%. The crisis narrative around young men needs to make room for signs of genuine progress.
Kessler thought his grief expertise would protect him. It didn't. When his son David died unexpectedly, he found himself on the floor — and eventually realized that acceptance alone wasn't enough. That unmet need became the sixth stage: finding meaning.
Grief isn't just death — it's any unwanted change. Kessler lectured at Coca-Cola and General Mills not because they had lots of funerals, but because change management is grief management. People who grieve well live well.
Witnessing someone's grief isn't just emotional support — it's an essential act of healing. Kessler argues grief is a severance and connection heals it. But real witnessing has two steps: seeing the pain AND affirming the person's capacity to recover.
Avoiding grief isn't free — it's exhausting. Kessler's beach ball metaphor nails it: pushing a small balloon down is easy, but holding a massive beach ball underwater takes constant, draining energy. Unattended feelings don't disappear; they just consume you.
Most people try to control their environment to avoid triggers. Kessler flips this entirely: triggers aren't problems to manage around — they're a detailed map to your pain and your healing. Every trigger points directly to what needs attention.
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