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AstraZeneca PLC (AZN)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 31, 2013

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Transcript

James Ward-Lilley

Management

Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to AstraZeneca's Q4 and full-year 2012 results. Happy to take questions and support, whatever questions we have for today. Without further ado, I’ll hand over to Pascal Soriot. Pascal?

Pascal Soriot

Management

Thank you, James, and good afternoon, everyone. It’s my pleasure to see you all again. Welcome to our 2012 full-year results presentation. First, let me set the stage for today’s agenda. I will make some opening remarks, summarizing the key events for 2012, the headline numbers for the full year. I’d also review our commercial performance, looking at our revenue trends in our key regions and for our key brands. Then Briggs, Briggs Morrison who is our EVP for Global Medicines Development, will review our pipeline progress in 2012. Simon, you all know Simon very well, our CFO will present our 2012 financial performance and provide you with our thinking for guidance on 2013, and then I will conclude with some observations from my first 90 days at AstraZeneca, ahead of our capital market today that we’re planning for March. I'm also pleased today to say that we have in the room, Ruud Dobber. Rudd is our commercial head for the European region, and he is also an interim leader for the global products strategy function. So, we’ll all share your questions and Simon has committed, he will actually take all your very hard questions, and leave me with the easy ones. So, if I start with our performance in 2012, our results really reflect a period of significant patent expirations as you all know, and although, all challenging market conditions for the entire world. Our revenue was down by 15% in constant currency terms and reflects the loss of approximately $4.5 billion in revenue from the loss of exclusivity on several products, with Seroquel IR being the biggest driver. Core EPS was down 9% for the year to $6.41, that is about the latest guidance we provided. We have to say core EPS benefited from favorable impact of two…

Briggs Morrison

Management

Thank you very much Pascal. Hello everyone. My name is Briggs Morrison. I’m the Executive Vice President of Global Medicines Development. I have been with AZ about a year and held a similar position at Pfizer before that in multiple development positions at Merck before that. I am a medical oncologist by training. Today, I want to give a brief update on the priorities for R&D at AstraZeneca, on our portfolio including the pipeline movement, some highlights from 2012, and the late stage update, and the anticipated news flow 2013. So, we set some clear and focused priorities to achieve scientific leadership, progress the pipeline, and rebuild the phase III portfolio, enhance R&D productivity, strengthen our capabilities in translational science and personalized medicine, and foster a culture of high quality and innovative science. As you’ll see our phase I and phase II pipeline is shaping up in our investments in large molecules are particularly taking effect. We’ve felt good momentum in the portfolio, and it’s important that we now pull these through to patients. So, let’s look at our pipeline movements since 2011. Pipeline now includes 84 projects, of which 71 are in the clinical phase of development, and 13 are either launched, approved, or filed. There are 11 NME projects currently in late stage development, either in Phase III, are undergoing regulatory review. And during 2012, across the portfolio, 39 projects have progressed to the next phase, 12 molecules entered human testing and 19 projects were discontinued. This slide shows a detailed view across our Phase I, II, and III, both small and large molecules. There is a lot on it, it’s hard to read, but you should have a copy. You can see that, we now have a good balance of small and large molecules today with the…

Simon Jonathan Lowth

Management

Thank you, Briggs. I am going to cover six topics. I’ll recap the headline numbers for the full year and the fourth quarter. I’ll cover our core operating profit performance and I will emphasize the key drivers of operating profit and margins. I will update you on the progress of Phase III of our restructuring program. I will describe our cash performance and our decisions on shareholder distributions. I will make the bridge from our core P&L on the old basis to our new definition of core financial measures, and then using this new cores of baseline, I will close with our thoughts on guidance for 2013. And Pascal covered the overview of the full year performance in his opening remarks. To complete the picture, we bridge from core earnings per share of $6.41 to a reported earnings per share of $4.99 with the usual adjusting items for restructuring, amortization impairments and legal provisions. Our core earnings per share declined by 9%, reported earnings per share fell by 29%. The faster decline in reported EPS is due to higher restructuring and amortization costs in 2012, and of course $1.08 benefit in 2011 from the sale Astra Tech. Attention tends to go into any detail on the fourth quarter that accounts the revenue picture is similar to the full-year, core EPS however benefited from the favorable adjustment to differed tax balances related to the reduction in the Swedish Corporation tax rate. So, I'll now turn to the P&L for the full-year. And, I'll focus here on core margins and profits. The press release does, of course, contain the strategy numbers and a detailed reconciliation to the core measures. When I refer to growth rates, they will all be on a constant currency basis. Core gross margin was 81.2% of revenue. And,…

Pascal Soriot

Management

Thank you, Simon. I just wanted to close this session with a few thoughts on my first three months at AstraZeneca. And it’s too early for us to share any views as to what our strategy will look like we wanted to do this at the end of March as we had communicated to you earlier. We really want to do a thorough job of analyzing options, and looking at our business, and developing priorities and strategies in detail. And, also my priority for the first three months was really to get to know the people, understand the organization, understand the culture, understand how this company works, what it is we do very well, and what we could do better. And, as you can imagine an organization of that size is not something you get to know very quickly, and fundamentally the most critical piece is to understand the people, and then particularly the critical leaders that are making this company work. So, I have gone around the world, I’ve visited about 15 sites in many countries. I have visited every single research and development site. I have gone to many of our commercial organizations. I have had many [time], also I must have interacted with more than 8,000 people. I have met many, many of our leaders. I have had many round tables of eight to ten people; cross-functional round tables in various sites; most have around 35 or 40 of those which enabled me to hear from 350 to 400 people. And I think I have now a good sense for the organization, and what it is we do well, and what we need to improve. And as I have shared with some of you in the last few weeks, one of the things that really struck me…

Unidentified Analyst

Management

(Inaudible) from Lumera, thank you. Just a couple of questions on Crestor do you have any plans to have any dose discrimination on pricing when Simvastatin went against Lipitor they end up dropping the lower dose by about 30%, I believe. if you look at the prescriptions you can see the two lower dose of amount even the 20 milligram is going negative in U.S. the two lower dose is makes sense because they are similar to Lipitor so if you were to give some price way on the lower doses, and both of them keep the price higher on the higher doses which are quite unique. And secondly, in terms of pricing for Crestor overall for next year, you managed to go down in the U.S. keep pricing quite high and realize some of that despite lots of volume, will you were to keep pricing high for next year in Crestor in general, many thanks.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

I think the – I’m not sure I got the first question, if let me just try and if I don’t – if I didn’t get it, you can always ask again. In the United States in 2012, our price didn’t decline much. In fact, what happened is that we lost the Medicaid business, we lost volume out of the Medicaid business, our net price was more or less stable because of the effect of the Medicaid, losing the Medicaid business which is at the lower price. For 2013, the price will show some decline. The good thing is we know what it is going to be and we know that we have good coverage and good reimbursements for 2013 because we have completed our one-off negotiations with Managed Care, so there will be some pressure on price in the United States in 2013. I won’t tell you how much but there will be some price pressure, yeah.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hello, yeah. Thank you, that’s the answer to my second question, but the first question was around Crestor pricing by its different doses, the four different doses of Crestor. When one looks at the prescriptions you can see that the two lower doses the 5 milligram or the 10 milligram are the ones that are suffering the most, 20 milligram a little bit. Which is to be expected considering. As a physician myself, we tend to think that the 5 milligram and 10 milligram similar to the 20 milligram and 40 milligram Lipitor. When Pfizer faced the same issue with generic simvastatin we saw them drop the, the price of lower dose Lipitor down to be able to compete with the Generic to Simvastatin in my case but you have any plans on changing the price of Crestor by dose. So since you keep the higher dose is better higher priced but drop the pulse of a lower dose to try to maintain some share in the face of doing it (Inaudible) 2014 and beyond typically.

Pascal Soriot

Management

Our focus is really to, our focus is on the patients who need high dose because that’s really where you can see the best clinical benefit. So our focus for Crestor is the processed ACS patients and value to line those patients who need higher dose we are clearly with the (Inaudible) better benefit than atorvastatin and in that state being we’ve been able to defend the use of Crestor quite really without having to adjust our price to dramatically or we suddenly adjusting the price of the small dose I can’t tell you precisely whether we have specific plans for the low dose we can get back to you on this one and there is Simon you know the answer.

Simon Lowth

Management

No.

Pascal Soriot

Management

One thing I can tell you is that the absolute commercial focus is the higher dose where really the benefit is. Sachin Jain – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Sachin Jain, Bank of America. Three questions please and firstly on cost growth you’ve alluded to some growth in 2013 I wonder if you can give us any color 2014 and 2015 is it fair to assume continued growth and I guess that comment in the context of the savings program as you got roughly $1.3 billion left and in that phase 13, 14 and is a potential for greater cost growth once a saving program begins to slow or even come to an end and second question just within your sales guidance you can give us some color on just to what imagine market growth is achieved and given that your growth rate for the fourth quarter is still running around 6% I think and then the third question in R&D just real top down question on the slides you put up on phase II to III progression decision this year and next year as soon as give us any color on your average time those compounds are been in phase II I guess an external perceptions a lot of those compounds been sitting there for a while, is that perception correct or not, thank you.

Pascal Soriot

Management

Thanks Sachin so maybe, Simon you could take the first two and Briggs will take the part of the (Inaudible) question.

Simon Lowth

Management

Certainly, so if we start with probably a second one first, which was on emerging markets so the – I think Pascal had described some of the pressures actually faced in 2012, in the emerging markets, we’ve had good underlying growth in markets like China and Russia, but some specific issues as you described in Turkey, India, Brazil, and Mexico. In addition of course we have to train in the first half really from the supply chain issues which impacted emerging markets. As we move into 2013, we do expect the growth to recover in some of those drains on 2012, sort of annualizing out, so we’d expect to see some stronger growth going into 2013. And continuing good fundamentals in a number of those core markets and we are investing behind those, so some acceleration the first to your questions on the costs, we do see costs as you said productivity improving programs restructuring continue to deliver benefits. The phase III program the remaining benefits when we described the benefits we are already familiar with this, we described it as the annual rate at the end of that year. I would expect sort of a – the remaining benefits those to be reasonably easily faced between sort of 2013 and 2014. Most of the costs coming in 2013, but the benefits blowing out in 2014 if you then come and look at the cost run rates, I mean 2013 that’s a combination of the restructuring productivity delivering, but as you saw actually from my headcount but that bridge, we’re reinvesting, where we can see growth potential, you saw that in the movement headcount and that’s certainly a feature as we go into 2013, we are investing behind our growth platforms in sales and marketing in emerging markets, but elsewhere. We are investing across the pipeline and that certainly is leading to the guidance we’ve provided for 2013, which is to hold the increase to a slight increase. 2014 and 2015 we’ll update you when we get to those years; it’s going to be shaped by the nature of the investment opportunities that we face in fact that helps you on that.

Pascal Soriot

Management

I remember just as on the as far as the emerging markets Sachin, if you look at China we grew by 17% last year, I think we can grow faster than that in China. We have many products that really have pretty good potential there, I mean Crestor is only a $100 million in China is growing faster, but it’s only starting, the potential is still enormous. Nexium is growing it can do very well; (inaudible) tremendous potential in China, Seroquel is growing we can’t suddenly do better than 17%. So the growth in those countries should overall accelerate as Simon was saying.

Simon Lowth

Management

Briggs, do you want to?

Briggs Morrison

Management

Yeah, so the pipeline tells you when you get those molecules start of the phase they are in, so you can go down and take a look and I think it is fair to say that some of the ones that are in the potential may have been there longer than one would have liked. I think the sense of urgency that we as a leadership team are bringing to the portfolio is exactly that, to look at that what we have and ask what are those molecules as Pascal said, that we need to accelerate get them into phase III and get them out the patients. So what happened in the past as what happened in the past, what we are focused on as what do we have for substrate today and why can we move it quickly forward. Sachin Jain – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Sorry, just I have a follow-on for those ones that are been sitting there for a while, do you have additional data or just greater conviction is driving the decision just to clarify that.

Simon Lowth

Management

Yeah, so I can give you an example so olaparib was one that has we do have additional data, we've done additional studies, and we had longer term follow up on patients that were in trials that we've done and from that data which you’ll I think most of it we presented at ASCO in May for June you'll see that there is new information that gives us greater confidence about the molecules.

Pascal Soriot

Management

This is typically an example where I think one of the thing so that company will need to do better is identified by market and have a better personals that can approach because so that probably would developed in all commerce, and in fact we find now that like imitation saw really the population is the most likely to respond to this drug, but sort of we're like two years behind the borders of it, and so we have new data as Briggs was saying that is very encouraging study so now what we need to do is move forward in investors development. Sachin Jain – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Okay. Alexandra Hauber – JPMorgan: Alexandra Hauber from JPMorgan, four questions please. Firstly on the top line you gave quite a range can you just let me tell us where the key uncertainties or in your forecast. Secondly on the gross margin I think you said that maybe kind of little bit year-on-year never surprised about that given that you’re going to have a full year benefit of the option two accounting that’s also a large proportion of alliance revenue which I think come to you at a 100% gross margin. Can you just explain where the negative mix effect is coming from and why so strong? Third question Symbicort obviously being great success story in the U.S. in these markets that’s have been going up in a straight-line, but at a $1 billion and 23% market share you no longer the little guy is trying to catch up so what is driving how certain are you let it in continue to drive further market share gains it is simple as that as long that new patient market share is staying significantly about the overall market share are you confident that you can get additional 4% share in (inaudible) and the last question is on moxetumomab, which you said you have, I am not actually can’t remember and which – where the decisions have to be taken I think whether it’s need to be taken forward. Let's assume it is going to be taken forward, this is anti-CD22, so how why we applicable is that in hematological toxicity and how aggressively would you bring this forward, or would it be vary step by step going into various active populations first.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Simon, do you want to take the first couple of questions, et cetera, [androgen] and maybe Roth you would take this [Inaudible].

Simon Lowth

Management

So, I answered on the gross margin and I dictated that the first – we see some time with pressure on gross margin in 2013. That’s comparing on a new Core versus new Core, so we're looking through the most effect so isn't to drive for all this. You have raises the alliance growth particularly from (Inaudible) a bit of a benefit. But its being offset, but is the proportion of ourselves in emerging markets growth, I tends to put (Inaudible) pressure on the relative mix and the geographic mix and we'll (Inaudible) for full year effect from so (Inaudible) following through. So its really a function of geographic and product mix, nothing very significant I would also say, is I'm really we're continue to work very hard from the supply chain efficiency standard point to mitigate that mix effect and the course this would wide pricing environment we face. And service of the revenue and you ask to think what some on the uncertainties are and I think that (Inaudible) is all of us there is government pricing [Indiscernible] and we have said this to you before up until really the last 12 to 18 months, we been able to forecast pretty very accurately as it turned out the annual price effect particularly in Europe in some of our key markets. What we found in the last 12, 18 months is we are getting, less predicted price interventions of various forms and in some markets coming back several times the different types of programs. So I would say first uncertainty is price interventions, particularly in Europe, but in some other markets. The second is that what has characterized our revenues in the last 12, 18 months have seen some loss effects considering some well-followed, well-appreciated markets where the patent has expired. We do also have a number of patents, particularly formulation patents, where we continue to defend our intellectual property, but we had generic companies launching at risk. You may have followed for example Seroquel XR in Germany would be a good example of that. And if you also look at the notes to the accounts today, you will see where we tabled out in the various patent proceeding matters we are involved in. And clearly, some of those have some binary outcomes around them. So I would say government price intervention, loss of exclusivity, but actually in some of the markets that may not be attracted closely as in the past in the European markets, Australia. And those are two main uncertainties and in providing you with a range in terms of our revenue decline that builds in the range of outcomes that we could insist. I hope that helps.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

If I get your question right about the Symbicort’s performance in the U.S. Let me first echo some of the words Pascal was using that we are very pleased that the growth is there. We believe we have a very strong team in place locally in order to further boost the performance moving forward. We are very strong in asthma historically. We feel that we are gaining market share in the COPD segment. So that all in all together gives us the confidence moving forward that to the Symbicort can gain substantial market share moving forward in the U.S. marketplace.

Briggs Morrison

Management

So in answer to your question about marketing, I think was your last one, yeah. So I think what you’ll see as you know quite well in oncology, it’s not uncommon that a molecule can work for multiple indications. You'll see that with olaparib; you'll see that with selumetinib; you'll see with [MOXI]. So it’s the lead indication, it’s actually a small orphan indication hairy cell leukaemia, the data is quite compelling and quite impressive and so we feel compelled obviously to get that done, to get that out. But as you correctly note, there is a broader envelope of opportunities there that we will continue to explore.

Pascal Soriot

Management

Does that answer your question, Alexandra? Alexandra Hauber – JPMorgan: Well, basically it seems that you have seen the hairy cell data already. So the question is does that make you confident enough that you can go for a really broad rollout, or will this more stay in – is there anything why the molecule view more over than in an ET application of hematology?.

Briggs Morrison

Management

So I think if you’re asking about the larger sort of lymphoma indications, I don’t think we have enough hard data yet theoretically it makes sense. But I think getting the dose as scheduled right and some of those other indications we are still working on.

Pascal Soriot

Management

Sorry. And then maybe after that question, we’ll ask Tim or Jo who on the phone to ask their question. Alexandra Hauber – JPMorgan: Of the spend that you can and I realize we’ll get a greater update on March just give us some sense of how you are thinking between kind of mid-term and the long-term whether how you are thinking about returning aspect of growth kind of between those two different timeframes. Secondly Simon kind of from a dividend cover perspective, you mentioned you’re looking at kind of a two extra core EPS over an investment cycle. If you can just gives us a sense for how long that investment cycle is. Is it three years to the five years kind of how long should we think about that? And thirdly, just for housekeeping purposes, what are you assuming for the outstanding patent litigation for Crestor in Australia in your guidance for 2013?

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

In term of the first question, yeah, I mean sort of we’ll have to wait until March I guess the – I see our story in sort of three phases really; the short-term, mid-term, and the long-term. And the long-term is clearly about rebuilding R&D and improving productivity in R&D and we certainly have started working on developing plans and metrics for this. The short-term is clearly accelerating the walls of the growth, the platform I talked about earlier, because we have to unlock and the potential of products like Brilinta like diabetes et cetera, so it’s clearly a short-term price. And the mid-term is navigating through this patent expiry phase and returning to growth. And I know you’d like to know where we will bottom out and when we will start growing again. And we removed our 2014 guidance and the intent is not to introduce a new one. That’s very clear, so I don’t have a specific number I’d give you, but the only thing I can tell you is that we’re certainly working as hard as we can to return to growth as early as possible. I hope it is very helpful, but also I can say this sorry, Simon?

Simon Lowth

Management

Yes, so two questions okay, the first was about our assumptions I think on the proceedings on Crestor in Australia. You asked what we’d assumed in our outlook. And the answer for that is that we provide a range, as you are familiar with in terms of in this case the revenue decline and range is there to cover a variety of outcomes on that matter, success, or not and to meet the range of other matters, so it’s within that range. That was your question on Crestor. In terms of the dividend cover yesterday, we are targeting two times on our core earnings for share basis. We said that we look at that sort of over an investment cycle. I mean, our industry has a long investment cycle, so we are looking at five, 10 years, because it’s driven by pipeline renewal. We've obviously been running higher than that for recent years, but that’s the target we have through that sort of time period, I hope that helps you.

Pascal Soriot

Management

Yeah, and let me just to repeat something Simon said before, and it's really our commitment to our dividend policy. This, we wanted to reaffirm and make sure there is no question around this. Maybe what I could do is ask Tim, Tim Anderson who is on the phone to ask his question, because I know he and Jo have been waiting for questions time actually. So, Tim do you want to go ahead? Tim Anderson– Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Sure, thank you. Thank you very much. So a few generic questions if I can on Symbicort, in what future year should we realistically expect to see generics or quasi generics start to come to the market in Europe, in U.S. Are you confident that this will not happen for at least the next three years? And then, you have two products, whether it could be different fault formulations introduced in the U.S. by generic companies in the not so distant future. So with Crestor and Nexium, if those clear that necessary legal hurdles like we may, how do you view the potential share losses with those compounds in the U.S. then kind of extending that question further, is there any chance, seen different salt formulations against something like Crestor launch in Europe like we saw happen with PLA-Dex a number of years ago, where even though it was a salt that actually took quite a bit of share. And then last question is on your anti-PDO1 when we will receive data on that compound and is there any possibility of leap froging down from phase I to phase III?

Pascal Soriot

Management

So, thank you, so much Tim, whether I will ask you to cover Tim, because if you want let me just quickly, let me just make one comment on Crestor and there is I mean I can’t have so much comment, because we don’t really comment on IP related matters we will defend our pipelines, as you can imagine the only comment may be I would make is that just to remind you that a different salt is actually not substitutable so if it, if any of those was to reach the market, which we sell in the, as you can imagine with do our best we will to avoid and we believe we have a strong case but if it happened and those products are not substitutable and therefore the impact is not the same as you would imagine from a pure generic product. Tim Anderson– Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: A couple of comments certainly about the Symbicort situation let’s not forget that the device market is a very special market, we still have full side on protection of the device of the (Inaudible) of 220, 19 so even if generic analogues driving to the market instead of certainly not be in our device it can have pricing implications of course, if products are closer in one (inaudible) cluster. But so far we haven’t seen any less indication that generic analogs are entering the market. We are following it, and if they are entering, we will take the adequate action we can take from a commercial perspective if there is an infringement from a legal perspective. But so far, we feel relatively okay with that. Regarding the U.S. more or less the same situation, we have a patent protection of the device which is still for a long period of time. So I can’t say that we are fully protective as we feel that this device is clearly good enough in order to protect our business for a considerable period of time.

Pascal Soriot

Management

When I commented a bit earlier that we expected Symbicort to face more challenges in Europe and elsewhere, I had in mind, of course, the impact of analogs which, again, is not the impact you would expect from a pure generic, but certainly will distort the pricing, but that’s the European situation. In the U.S., we don't expect anything like this to happen in the near term. And in the Rest of the World, in Japan it’s not that full event in China, we are doing very well and we also believe we can sustain the growth of Symbicort, and see if the other one.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

So, within the side – I’ll describe that two biotech units in late development. So PD-L1 is still in our biotech, unit, Tim. It's in phase I now. I think Pascal has pushed all of us to particularly oncology. I think about ways we can go from phase I to phase III, so as that data reads out that’s certainly a candidate to get that kind of acceleration, but it’s a little further back than being able to do that immediately.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

One of the things maybe to touch our attention to is the fact that we have a PD-L1, we’ll also have a CTLA-4 and so we have the potential for combination of those two agents which – it’s got an intriguing sort of a possibility for us but of course we have to see more data before we can formulate any combination strategy. Tim Anderson– Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Thank you.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Thanks for taking my questions. (inaudible) just to press on a little bit on the respiratory portfolio on what Tim Anderson just asked is evident from your answer that you’re making the fairly reasonable assumption that Symbicort generic scene in the U.S. are unlikely nonetheless we will kind sort of exclude some of the pipeline assets which have been in Phase II since 2008 or certainly put more than three years than your pipeline in respiratory looks that as it lies and 16% of your revenues in 2012 came from respiratory growing as a proportion going forward. Quite a significant concentration of risk there and yet you have respiratories in one of your key sort of engines there. So what is the plan there, are you looking to grow then that pipeline is that something that, that is a focus area. So that’s one question on respiratory. This is a tough question but since you joined on the 1 of October Pascal you have often said in public forums that the launch of Brilinta/Brilique was not optimal and perhaps I haven’t sort of heard that from you in person and perhaps you can take this forum to just explain to us what the steps would remedial steps that you have taken to rectify that and what we can look forward to with regards because that was number one on your growth engine. So that’s obviously something that we need to understand and I don’t understand it properly through lack of understanding of that specific area. And third question, and that’s more strategic, I guess. You’ve come from an organization which had a sort of diagnostic, and platform, and obviously companion diagnostics is a significant part of drug development going forward, and that may impact R&D productivity going forward. And obviously this organization that you’ve joined has suffered in the past five to six years from lack of companion diagnostics; uric acid is an example of those. If a right market was available, I’m sure we’d have had higher revenues. Do you see that has a weakness and can you address that organically not having a diagnostics platform, specifically looking on Marcus and companion diagnostics?

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Yeah, thanks, so much. Three question right, let me start maybe with respiratory and then Briggs can also come back. I mean we’ve Symbicort talked about. The management of respiratory would be certainly business development initiatives, but also our portfolio. And I’m not sure what you’ve exactly in mind when you said when we have asset there that have been there for a long time. On a biological side, we have assets that haven’t been there for long time, I mean they have been there for a long time because they’re in research and then in early development, but products like tralokinumab, benralizumab I mean those are products that progressing nicely through the development pipeline. And they are new, and they will move into later stage development over the next couple of years. And maybe certainly Briggs can tell you more about this, but it is a priority for us, because I think we have strength they have boards in development and commercial and also in recession. We can live with this and build that on the back of our Symbicort presence. We didn’t – some of the things we are doing, are things that AstraZeneca had started doing, but certainly, we are expanding into a more often spinning up and some of the things we are doing are new, additional I would say. So, what we are doing is, making sure that we address the CAZ lab as a priority and in a specific way because the prescription start there, the physicians, they are different. The patient flow is different, so you have to have a sales force that is dedicated and understand that environment. We are working on hospital protocols from (Inaudible) because essentially physicians follow protocols in that setting and you have to be on a protocol…

Briggs Morrison

Management

The only thing I can say about the respiratory franchise is again I think if you think about respiratory there is asthma, there is COPD, there is interstitial lung disease, there’s a variety of things. Asthma if you think about it today, we as an industry and we as a company have done pretty well to address a lot of the medical need of asthma, but there is a unique population that I think biologically we understand better. And so the molecules that Pascal talked about that are coming through from the maybe biotech unit. They are focused on the mechanisms that matter for the unmet need and I think that’s the right way to go after that part of that population. COPD we are still using some of the same mechanisms that are been around for a while, and I think we are still looking for those key biologic insights that you can start to segment COPD the way we segment asthma. That’s really I think where the respiratory franchise is going ahead. Peter Verdult – Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: Yes, Pete Verdult from Morgan Stanley, just two high level questions Pascal, just firstly on the CNS division. You’ve made some comments about how you’re thinking about respiratory with the ongoing loss of Seroquel, how should we be thinking about this? Just a dismantling of the infrastructure as CNS declines, relying on your virtual R&D business model, or BD in partnerships to compliment the infrastructure you’ve got? And then just on the pipeline, I mean you are fresh pair of eyes at Astra. I’m sure you can tell us that you’re excited by the whole pipeline, but it is just the couple of assets that really excite you in the early stage, that I’ll be interested to hear what they are?

Pascal Soriot

Management

Yeah, maybe I’ll ask also Briggs, because he is another pair of fresh eyes. Briggs joined the company well, maybe a year ago now, that much okay. I thought it was only nine months ago, so you have pair of fresh eyes too. CNS, I think you have to see it as we are testing a new model, and essentially from a commercial view point our presence is shrinking, there's no question about it, and we'll have to rebuild it. So we have to start from the early pipeline and over time we build it. Our priority is clearly going to be cardio-metabolism, oncology and respiratory inflammation, and to a lesser degree anti-infectives. So CNS is clearly one franchise where we start. We’re going to have to start from the beginning again and rebuild over the next few years. Do you want to say which products you are the most impressed with, just to see whether we have the same okay. I mean I think we talked about tralokinumab for instance in asthma I think is a compound that we can move into late stage development, hopefully. We need more data, but that's a very intriguing one. I think olaparib, even though I know some of you will be a little bit skeptical, even cynical about it, we have a chance to reposition it for the right patient population across a variety of tumor types and move it forward. I think that I'm intrigued personally by the possibilities we have to combine immunotherapies, for instance, CTLA-4, PD-L1 are combine some of our large molecules with small molecule of immunotherapies. So, this probably would be some of the most intriguing products. Selumetinib, I have my doubts, I must say, but we have good data that are shaping up, in a portfolio like this, so it’s good to having some of the debates, so we have the internal debates. And, I am also open-minded, so certainly we will progress this product, and try because there is a good opportunity for this product. ,:

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

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Unidentified Company Representative

Management

And we have few tremendous people that I would trust personally who are really convinced over, give it a good shot. Maybe what I could do, I am sorry, I know that there are some more questions, I’ll give one last question, see if James he will answer to that. And I’ll hand the microphone to Jo who’s been on the phone waiting for a long time. You promise me you don’t ask a question about non-pro items Jo otherwise, I don’t give you the microphone, but go ahead. Peter Verdult – Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: Hello, can you hear me?

Pascal Soriot

Management

Answering your question Peter Verdult – Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: Hello, can you hear me?

Pascal Soriot

Management

Yes, go ahead. Peter Verdult – Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: I have two quick questions, firstly just looking at the marketing cost is about $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter, your SG&A on your new core basis and of course we haven’t seen your company in the same structure as it is, but that includes some spending on the Amylin product, and is that a reasonable guide of sort of quarterly run rate or is there a heavy seasonal bias there? And how much more in terms of marketing support can we expect that you will need as you take on both the European business, which I understand hasn’t yet transitioned to you? And secondly, on the price of assets Chief Executive of Roche Company you know well, said yesterday at the Analyst Meeting that it was very difficult to get assets in. The prices were just astronomically high for late stage assets. You had to do deals really early on to show, where you could add value otherwise it was just a basic bidding war. I wondered if you felt that there were any reasons why you might be able to show something other than just sheer money in bidding for late stage assets, because I think we will understand you’re going to do exciting things with your R&D, but they are really probably bite until 2015, 2016 and beyond and investors might want to see something a bit sooner.

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Thanks, Jo. Simon, do you want to address the first question? Yeah.

Simon Jonathan Lowth

Management

So I say, Jo, on the quarterly run rate, I mean, I think the guidance that we provided for our cost base, which is continued efforts on efficiency and the benefits of our restructuring programs providing headroom, that we’re going to redeploy that headroom and that holding our core cost to a slight increase as we go into 2013 and that applies really across the SG&A and R&D lines. So, I think you’ll see some increased investments sort of showing through in your quarterly run rates on SG&A albeit at a slight increase. And the quarterly patterns are the another piece of that, I’d encourage you to look at our quarterly patterns over the last couple of years, you generally do see a pattern of some high spend in the fourth quarter and not a typically sort of constant rate, but I would say that our ‘10 or ‘11, ‘12 quarterly rates probably are reasonably reflective of what we see going forward. Peter Verdult – Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: It’s because anything we haven’t seen for the European bit of the Bydureon/Byetta, is that insignificant?

Simon Jonathan Lowth

Management

Sorry Jo, I beg your pardon, I was include, beg your pardon, I was including that actually is one of the drivers of the investment that we’re putting back in. So, Ruud has been working extraordinarily hard in Europe over the past couple of years and has adjusted his cost base to reflect loss of that specifically in a number of markets. And actually done a done a great job in maintaining our margins for that period. Ruud, I think you will be putting investment behind our diabetes franchise, like reflective of the opportunity that we see.

Ruud Dobber

Management

.: Peter Verdult – Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: Thank you.