# Lilly Strikes $3.8 Billion Deal for Psychedelic Drugmaker

An episode of [Bloomberg Intelligence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/326301337), 16 Jul 2026, 17 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7f534b8c-9e91-429a-b102-ae3c00090c6d/39d7b284-576e-4b8d-a0b3-b489011358b0/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=0ad812bf-fd15-4012-a18c-ae3c00090c76

Watch Paul and Scarlet LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF. Bloomberg Intelligence hosted by Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu -Sam Fazeli, Bloomberg Intelligence, Director of Research: Healthcare, Defence, Industrials & Auto, discusses the latest in the biotech sector. Eli Lilly & Co. agreed to buy AtaiBeckley Inc. for as much as $3.8 billion, underscoring growing interest from large drugmakers in psychedelic medicine. Separately, Merck & Co. won US regulatory approval of a pill called Lipfendra to reduce LDL cholesterol. -Matt Henriksson, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Equity Analyst, discusses earnings from Abbott Laboratories. Abbott Laboratories raised its 2026 profit guidance after a stronger-than-expected second quarter driven by improved performance across most of its business lines. The company now expects adjusted earnings to fall between $5.45 to $5.60 a share this year, and shares rose 14% after the announcement. -Mandeep Singh, Global Head of Tech Research for Bloomberg Intelligence, discusses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. raising its spending and revenue projections for the year, reflecting confidence that growth in demand for chips and data centers will extend into 2027 and beyond. Separately, Uber Technologies Inc. has agreed to buy Delivery Hero SE in a deal that values the German food-delivery company at $14.8 billion and expands the US firm’s global operations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
[0:10] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
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[0:17] Speaker 1: Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts,
[0:21] Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.
[0:24] Speaker 2: Let's talk about what's going on in the healthcare space
[0:26] Speaker 2: and pharmaceuticals in particular.
[0:28] Speaker 3: A big deal here by Eli Lilly.
[0:30] Speaker 2: It's made a lot of acquisitions, Paul, I feel like
[0:32] Speaker 2: we're always talking about Eli Lilly making another purchase. Sam
[0:36] Speaker 2: Fazzelli is our Bloomberg Intelligence director of research covering healthcare, defense, industrials,
[0:41] Speaker 2: and autos. He is our drug boss, That's what we
[0:43] Speaker 2: like to call him, and he actually has a jacket.
[0:44] Speaker 3: That says that.
[0:45] Speaker 2: And Sam joins us right now from London. Sam, I
[0:48] Speaker 2: don't know if you're sharing for England, but if so,
[0:51] Speaker 2: our condolences to you. I wanted to start with this
[0:55] Speaker 2: Eli Lilly purchase, buying a tied Beckley for up to
[0:59] Speaker 2: three point eight billion dollars. That valuation strikes me as interesting.
[1:03] Speaker 2: Why for up to three point eight billion dollars are
[1:05] Speaker 2: there incentives along the way here?
[1:08] Speaker 4: Absolutely? Right? So I mean you look at the numbers.
[1:10] Speaker 5: We've got two point eight billion dollars up front cash
[1:12] Speaker 5: and a billion dollars in contingent value rights. So that's
[1:16] Speaker 5: CVRs tied to the lead assets, which are in two forms,
[1:21] Speaker 5: one in internasal the ones in under the tongue buckle
[1:25] Speaker 5: getting through phase three and also getting EA approval. Because
[1:30] Speaker 5: these are psychedelics, the drugs that are quite fashionable these
[1:35] Speaker 5: days in terms of development because of the profound effects
[1:38] Speaker 5: that we're seeing on treatment really resistant depression, on major
[1:43] Speaker 5: depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, that sort of thing. So
[1:48] Speaker 5: there's a resurgers of interest in these psychedelics which are synthetic.
[1:54] Speaker 5: So that's where these extra billion dollars and condision value
[1:56] Speaker 5: rights come from, which is why the stocks trading above
[1:59] Speaker 5: the six dollars seventy five cash offer.
[2:02] Speaker 6: So the psychedelics talk to us about kind of the
[2:06] Speaker 6: that just that part of the therapeutic space there, Sam,
[2:10] Speaker 6: is it a big part of it?
[2:13] Speaker 4: It is? It is.
[2:13] Speaker 5: There are quite a few companies there, wrote a few
[2:15] Speaker 5: names do gh Research, Mindmann, Compass, just naming a few Alto, Cybin.
[2:23] Speaker 4: Realmada, etc. Who are in this.
[2:25] Speaker 5: Space, which is a significant issue for society in terms
[2:30] Speaker 5: of depression.
[2:32] Speaker 4: But also it's the fact that there's psychedelics I think takes.
[2:35] Speaker 5: Away or adds a little bit of I wonder what
[2:38] Speaker 5: they're like, you know, magic mushroom, that sort of stuff.
[2:40] Speaker 4: It's conjured up.
[2:41] Speaker 5: In fact, this particular drug originates from a specific desert toad,
[2:47] Speaker 5: which is one of the major sources of it. But
[2:50] Speaker 5: this is synthetic. The fact is they work on something
[2:53] Speaker 5: specific in the brain, and it's been shown that they
[2:56] Speaker 5: can help you to a degree rewire. Your brain is
[3:00] Speaker 5: a very plastic organ in terms of how it's learning, right,
[3:04] Speaker 5: there's plasticity. We learn new stuff all the time. So
[3:07] Speaker 5: unfortunately in the depressive state or a PTSD state, that's
[3:11] Speaker 5: a learned behavior to a degree. To put it very simply,
[3:15] Speaker 5: So that's where I think there's a lot of interest
[3:17] Speaker 5: to try and treat patients and help patients here.
[3:20] Speaker 7: Sam.
[3:21] Speaker 2: I also want to turn to MRK getting FDA approval
[3:24] Speaker 2: for a new cholesterol pill. It's going to cost thirty
[3:26] Speaker 2: eight hundred dollars a year, which sounds pretty expensive if
[3:29] Speaker 2: it's not covered by insurance. How is this different? This
[3:32] Speaker 2: new medication lipvehendra different from the world's most popular cholesterol
[3:36] Speaker 2: lawing drug, which is libtor.
[3:39] Speaker 4: Yeah. So these are drugs that work via a different mechanism.
[3:43] Speaker 5: It's an inhibitor of something in the in the within
[3:47] Speaker 5: the system called PCSK and nine that are involved in
[3:50] Speaker 5: the in the metabolism uptake production of cholesterol. And there
[3:57] Speaker 5: are other drugs that are under market that do that
[4:00] Speaker 5: work the same way, which would.
[4:02] Speaker 8: Be injectables or ones that interfere with RNA, et cetera.
[4:11] Speaker 8: You know, in terms of trying to here's the first
[4:14] Speaker 8: oral druck that we've got, and that's where I actually
[4:17] Speaker 8: don't think three hundred three thousand, eight hundred dollars.
[4:19] Speaker 4: Is a lot. You know, we're living in a world where.
[4:21] Speaker 5: Rocks come to market at ten twenty thirty fifty thousand
[4:24] Speaker 5: dollars here and here you're having a very profound effect
[4:27] Speaker 5: on LDL.
[4:29] Speaker 6: Hey, switching gears a little bit. Abbot reported some good
[4:32] Speaker 6: number stocks up the most in I don't know a
[4:35] Speaker 6: million years here. What's going on on, Abbot?
[4:39] Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, so, Paul, that's not a space
[4:41] Speaker 5: that I'm particularly familiar with. But I'll tell you something.
[4:44] Speaker 5: What was interesting is yesterday we had Jonathan and Johnson report,
[4:46] Speaker 5: and you know, they have a medical devices business that
[4:50] Speaker 5: they're still ongoing with and that didn't do so well.
[4:53] Speaker 5: That was a bit of a dragon if you remember
[4:54] Speaker 5: where the share price was behaving yesterday. Abbots, of course
[4:58] Speaker 5: in more of a diagno a stake and a different
[5:02] Speaker 5: area of focus. So it's quite nice to see that working.
[5:06] Speaker 5: And there's a lot of interest in diagnostics and the
[5:08] Speaker 5: quality diagnostics, especially when they're married with therapeutics.
[5:13] Speaker 3: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
[5:20] Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
[5:24] Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
[5:27] Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
[5:30] Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
[5:35] Speaker 6: Abbott Laboratories stock is soaring today, the most since two
[5:39] Speaker 6: thousand and two. I guess the street liked their earnings
[5:43] Speaker 6: for the second quarter and probably more importantly, their guidance
[5:45] Speaker 6: going forward. Let's check in with the analyst that covers ABT,
[5:49] Speaker 6: Matt Hendrickson, Senior equity analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence. Matt talk
[5:53] Speaker 6: to us about it. Abbot Laboratories and what they disclose
[5:56] Speaker 6: here when their earnings released.
[5:57] Speaker 9: Yeah, this earnings was a huge cyber relief for investors.
[6:01] Speaker 9: They went into the call some headwinds were or some
[6:05] Speaker 9: headnt wind risks were in the nutrition segment and that
[6:09] Speaker 9: was going to be diluted to the overall growth. There
[6:12] Speaker 9: was also questions about the CGM market, which is their
[6:15] Speaker 9: core growth driver, continuous glucose monitors.
[6:18] Speaker 6: Oh, that's the I see on people's arms.
[6:20] Speaker 9: Yeah, exactly. So it's at a little like the size
[6:22] Speaker 9: of a quarter on the army. That's a ten billion
[6:25] Speaker 9: dollar revenue run rate for the company. There were some
[6:29] Speaker 9: concerns that it was decelerating growth from kind of the
[6:32] Speaker 9: mid teens high teens from last year to below high
[6:36] Speaker 9: single digits this year. Basically, their results kind of calmed
[6:40] Speaker 9: all those nerves. Nutrition is recovering nicely after they implemented
[6:45] Speaker 9: new pricing mechanics into their their business model. The CGM business, uh,
[6:52] Speaker 9: you know, growing at nine point five percent, kind of
[6:55] Speaker 9: slightly below the double digit expectations that management had, but overall,
[7:01] Speaker 9: you know, it wasn't worse than what was expected, so
[7:03] Speaker 9: we eliminated that worst case scenario.
[7:05] Speaker 3: Okay, why was there so much concern.
[7:07] Speaker 2: I think about healthcare, and I think about United Health
[7:11] Speaker 2: in particular and some of the issues it's had with
[7:13] Speaker 2: Medicare reimbursement and government changes to reimbursement plans overall. Is
[7:18] Speaker 2: that a concern for a company like Abbot.
[7:21] Speaker 7: It's always going to be an overhang, and we saw
[7:26] Speaker 7: that earlier this week when h HCA reported and they
[7:31] Speaker 7: highlighted some headwinds from ACA related insurance patients.
[7:37] Speaker 9: We have not seen that yet in the medtech side
[7:39] Speaker 9: so far. In the second quarter.
[7:41] Speaker 10: J and J.
[7:43] Speaker 9: Talked about stable procedure volumes. Abbot talked about the same
[7:47] Speaker 9: procedure volume stability. One of the reasons I think is
[7:50] Speaker 9: that your Abbot and j J they're focusing on those
[7:53] Speaker 9: more high acuity cases more. You know, these patients need
[7:58] Speaker 9: to be treated regardless of what their insurance coverage is,
[8:01] Speaker 9: and so the hospitals almost have an obligation to treat
[8:05] Speaker 9: those patients, where some of those low acuity cases will
[8:08] Speaker 9: be deferred the longer term.
[8:11] Speaker 6: I'm looking at the PGO function on the Bloomberg terminals
[8:14] Speaker 6: shows me kind of where they get their revenue. There's
[8:16] Speaker 6: a lot of places where they get their revenue it's
[8:18] Speaker 6: highly diversified. It is highly diversified medical device company. What
[8:22] Speaker 6: is the street focus on is are there two or
[8:24] Speaker 6: three business lines that Yeah, because even with the stock
[8:28] Speaker 6: up today eleven percent is still down twenty percent year
[8:31] Speaker 6: to date. So what's kind of the investment call on
[8:34] Speaker 6: this name.
[8:35] Speaker 9: Yeah, So the first one goes back to that to
[8:37] Speaker 9: the cgms. That being that you know, kind of ten
[8:39] Speaker 9: billion revenue run rate. If you're looking at it being
[8:43] Speaker 9: back to that double digit revenue growth, that's going to
[8:46] Speaker 9: be a promising growth driver for them. That nutrition recovery,
[8:52] Speaker 9: because that is still almost twenty five percent of their sales.
[8:55] Speaker 9: If they can get that back to growth, that's going
[8:57] Speaker 9: to be a good contributor for them. And the newest
[9:00] Speaker 9: growth driver actually is the Exact Science acquisition that they made.
[9:03] Speaker 9: So when you think about you see those TV commercials
[9:06] Speaker 9: for Coli Guard, that's Exact Sciences. So now Abbott has
[9:10] Speaker 9: entered that cancer diagnostic segment and that's a business that's
[9:15] Speaker 9: they were expecting it to be mid teens growth this
[9:17] Speaker 9: year for that cancer diagnostic segment, and so if they
[9:22] Speaker 9: are able to deliver that throughout the full year, they've
[9:24] Speaker 9: grown at thirteen percent so far in the first half.
[9:28] Speaker 9: That will be a creative to kind of their six
[9:29] Speaker 9: and a half to seven and a half growth guidance.
[9:33] Speaker 2: Is there any talk about M and A when it
[9:35] Speaker 2: comes to Abbot, whether it's maybe going to divest some
[9:39] Speaker 2: businesses so that can get a higher share price, or
[9:43] Speaker 2: you know, maybe even add on because it has.
[9:46] Speaker 3: Done a pretty good job with diversification.
[9:47] Speaker 9: Yeah, let's let's I'll serve with the add ons first.
[9:49] Speaker 9: So that Exact Science deal closed early early in the
[9:53] Speaker 9: first quarter, and so that was a twenty three billion
[9:55] Speaker 9: dollar deal that they have to digest that deal. They
[9:59] Speaker 9: have they degraded, They raised twenty billion in debt, so
[10:02] Speaker 9: they have they had the free cash lit just pay
[10:04] Speaker 9: down that debt. That's the first step. Divestitures, I mean,
[10:07] Speaker 9: there's always because they're so diverse, there are some you know,
[10:11] Speaker 9: probably differentiated features like nutrition that could be able to
[10:15] Speaker 9: potentially divest in the future.
[10:17] Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
[10:24] Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
[10:28] Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
[10:31] Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
[10:34] Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
[10:38] Speaker 6: Right now, let's check out the man Deep saying he
[10:39] Speaker 6: joins us year in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. He
[10:43] Speaker 6: covers all the technology stuff there for us. I want
[10:45] Speaker 6: to start with TSMC, the chip maker. What did they
[10:48] Speaker 6: what did we learn with their earnings?
[10:50] Speaker 10: And Deep, I mean again very solid print raised their
[10:54] Speaker 10: guidance for about five percentage points for the folly year,
[10:59] Speaker 10: so and top line growth if you had to find faults.
[11:04] Speaker 10: The only thing that they didn't show, which you saw
[11:08] Speaker 10: with the memory names is pricing. So pricing growth for
[11:12] Speaker 10: memory was off the charts. We were talking about, you know,
[11:15] Speaker 10: forty percent quarter over quarter pricing growth. That doesn't seem
[11:19] Speaker 10: to be the case with TSMC, partly because of how
[11:23] Speaker 10: they run their business. And I feel all these companies
[11:27] Speaker 10: are still reluctant to expand their supply, even though TSMC
[11:32] Speaker 10: raised their capex but twelve percent for the full year,
[11:36] Speaker 10: but given the supply demand mismatch, to my mind, they're
[11:40] Speaker 10: leaving a lot of revenue at the table because they
[11:42] Speaker 10: don't want to expand supply.
[11:44] Speaker 3: Why do you think that is?
[11:45] Speaker 2: Is it just they've been burned in the past when
[11:47] Speaker 2: the cycle turned against them.
[11:48] Speaker 10: It's the management teams are very conservative. They don't want
[11:52] Speaker 10: to take a chance where they double their supply in
[11:55] Speaker 10: a year and guess what, something happens on glut and
[11:59] Speaker 10: they don't want to be in that situation. But to
[12:02] Speaker 10: my mind, the reason why Intel has a shot now
[12:06] Speaker 10: is because TSMC is conservative and expanding supply.
[12:11] Speaker 2: Just clarify for us CSMC makes chips for in video,
[12:14] Speaker 2: so we're talking the super high end AI chips.
[12:18] Speaker 3: Does it make memory chips?
[12:20] Speaker 10: No, So all the memory guys have their own fabs
[12:24] Speaker 10: and they make their own chips. So TSMC does have
[12:27] Speaker 10: a very broad set of clients it served, so not
[12:30] Speaker 10: just in Vidia, but also your AMDs, squall cooms, Apple,
[12:34] Speaker 10: Apple used to be their biggest customers, so they've pivoted
[12:37] Speaker 10: from smartphone chips to more data center chips. But at
[12:41] Speaker 10: the end of the day, they have the best process notes,
[12:45] Speaker 10: the best manufacturing capabilities. If they wanted to do the
[12:49] Speaker 10: memory chips, they could do potentially, but they've just been
[12:52] Speaker 10: conservative when it comes to expanding their supply. And we
[12:55] Speaker 10: know the concentration in Taiwan. They've talked about adding new
[12:59] Speaker 10: factor is here in the US. But when you are
[13:03] Speaker 10: a company with's literally a monopoly and the balance sheet
[13:07] Speaker 10: to expand at the pace you want, why would you
[13:11] Speaker 10: not be aggressive here? And I just don't get it,
[13:13] Speaker 10: all right.
[13:14] Speaker 6: So the very little I know about the semiconductor business
[13:17] Speaker 6: I learned from honest Shreene Boston. He told me everything.
[13:20] Speaker 6: But the first thing you taught me is it's a
[13:22] Speaker 6: cyclical business.
[13:22] Speaker 4: Dude.
[13:23] Speaker 6: If you get it wrong, you're gonna get crushed. So
[13:25] Speaker 6: the question I've been asking you guys, is is it
[13:28] Speaker 6: less cyclical and maybe materially less cyclical now with this
[13:31] Speaker 6: whole AI transformation, and what I think the management team
[13:36] Speaker 6: of TSMC is saying, we're not convinced to that.
[13:39] Speaker 10: Yeah, no one is convinced, But you get you know,
[13:43] Speaker 10: technology shifts like this in maybe two or three decades,
[13:48] Speaker 10: and this is a very big technology shift, and it's
[13:51] Speaker 10: evidenced by the fact that you have a big supply
[13:54] Speaker 10: demand mismatch that continues to carry through. And the biggest
[13:59] Speaker 10: chip maker who's exposed to the trend, Nvidia, is telling
[14:02] Speaker 10: you they have visibility to a trillion dollars in revenue.
[14:05] Speaker 10: So why would you not believe in Nvidia? If you're
[14:08] Speaker 10: a big supplier to Nvidia, is TSMC.
[14:10] Speaker 2: Is, or you're in a really good position and you
[14:13] Speaker 2: want to stay in a really good position barring Intel
[14:16] Speaker 2: coming in into taking some of that business. You mentioned
[14:20] Speaker 2: that TSMC has been looking to build production capabilities in
[14:24] Speaker 2: the US.
[14:24] Speaker 3: We know, I believe, I think it's.
[14:26] Speaker 2: Arizona where they've done that. How's that going? How's that
[14:29] Speaker 2: effort going? Because for a while there was an issue
[14:32] Speaker 2: with talent shortage right.
[14:34] Speaker 10: There is and look, they've been actually adding to their
[14:38] Speaker 10: capex for expansion here. So a lot of these fabs
[14:43] Speaker 10: take up to two years just for that initial factory
[14:47] Speaker 10: to start producing chips, and they may not be at
[14:50] Speaker 10: the leading notes like your three nanometers, so it would
[14:53] Speaker 10: be more like five six nanometer chips before they can
[14:56] Speaker 10: get to three nanometers. Partly because of the talent shortage,
[15:00] Speaker 10: they need those kind of people who can do things
[15:04] Speaker 10: at the leading note. But all of this combines with
[15:07] Speaker 10: the fact that the lead times are very long to
[15:11] Speaker 10: set these up.
[15:11] Speaker 2: The reason I asked about the talent issue is because
[15:14] Speaker 2: we're not making it easy for companies to bring in
[15:17] Speaker 2: engineers and folks with the capabilities from overseas. If that
[15:22] Speaker 2: talent is not available in the US.
[15:24] Speaker 10: Absolutely, And look, I think even when it comes to
[15:27] Speaker 10: getting permits, getting the resources, water and you know, all
[15:32] Speaker 10: the kind of supplies you need to set up a
[15:35] Speaker 10: leading semiconductor fab, it takes a lot more time here
[15:38] Speaker 10: than if it probably takes anywhere.
[15:41] Speaker 6: Else thirty seconds. Uber bought delivery Hero for close to
[15:44] Speaker 6: fifteen billion. What is delivery Hero wants to do for Uber?
[15:48] Speaker 10: I mean the playbook with all marketplaces is consolidation. Uber
[15:53] Speaker 10: Ceo did that back in the day with Expedia. He's
[15:56] Speaker 10: doing the same. And the big thread for a company
[16:00] Speaker 10: Koober is autonomous rides. So this for them is a
[16:03] Speaker 10: way to diversify that I kind of expand to now
[16:07] Speaker 10: one hundred countries. Autonomous is not going to be there
[16:09] Speaker 10: in one hundred countries, So from that perspective, there's a
[16:12] Speaker 10: question here.
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