Ann Hunter-Van Kirk

Welcome to another episode of Bloomberg Intelligence's Vanguards of Healthcare podcast, where we speak with leaders at the forefront of change in the healthcare sector.

I'm Anne Hunter-Van Kirk, Senior Biopharmaceuticals Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, the in-house equity research division of Bloomberg, and I'm very pleased to welcome today's guest, Richard Lowenthal, CEO of ARS Pharmaceuticals.

ARS Pharma is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to protecting patients from allergic reactions that could lead to anaphylaxis.

The company is commercializing Nephi, which was approved August of last year, an epinephrine nasal spray for emergency treatment, including anaphylaxis.

Rich, can we first start out with your background and what led you to co-found ARS?

Fantastic.

And NEFI is, of course, as you've explained, a differentiated administration, but it's entering a large and highly competitive, really genericized market now.

Can you break down what it takes to successfully break into a market like that?

Wonderful.

And so you mentioned this pediatric population, and that was actually an expanded label for you.

Can we dig into really the whole market landscape, particularly on the child side, and dig into that pricing and payers a bit more and how you navigate that?

Fantastic.

And so maybe we can switch over to think about, you know, PBM reform.

And this is an area that a lot of companies struggle with.

You know, what was your experience dealing with PBMs and do you have any overarching thoughts on the process?

And that's a big delta.

Yeah, so let's dig in more.

Tell us about how you think about pricing, also maybe kind of the future of pricing and inflation concerns, and also maybe in the backdrop of a market with tariffs.

How does all of that play into your pricing?

Absolutely.