Bruno Bulic, PhD
Quoted on European pharma in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
Sanofi's sale of a controlling stake in its consumer health unit
On the structure of the deal and what the offer implied about Sanofi's intentions.
Roche's oral weight-loss candidate CT-996
On early efficacy data and how it compared with the injectable products from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.
Patent pools and the pandemic
On the pressure facing drugmakers over intellectual property during COVID-19.
The race in macular degeneration
On the competitive bar set by existing treatments and the effect of US pricing reform on new launches.
Novartis's CAR-T therapy and UK pricing
On the likely size of the discount Novartis would need to offer on Kymriah.
Novartis's alpelisib in breast cancer
Peak sales estimated at around $1.9 billion following positive trial data.
Roche's Tecentriq in squamous lung cancer
Revenue forecasts lowered after disappointing overall survival data.
Roche's split R&D structure
On why keeping pRED and Genentech separate and competitive drove pipeline innovation.
Novartis's $3.9bn acquisition of Advanced Accelerator Applications
Peak sales potential for Lutathera estimated at $2 billion.
Roche third-quarter results
On weakening momentum in haematology and breast cancer, and the timing of the Tecentriq launch.
Twenty years in drug discovery — from bench to bankside.
The training
Schooled in France, doctorate in Switzerland, laboratory in Germany. Medicine, biology and chemistry at Université Pierre et Marie Curie; a PhD in chemistry in Basel — the birthplace of Roche and Novartis; then a postdoc in drug discovery with H. Waldmann, a Liebig Medal recipient who obstinately pursued RAS when RAS was considered undruggable.
What RAS was called — until it wasn't
The laboratory
In 2009 I built my own laboratory at the Centre for Advanced European Studies and Research in Germany — from empty benches to a working group with its own funding and its own programme. The resulting work has been cited more than 1,500 times. The target is now being tested in the clinic at several of the largest pharmaceutical companies. Reaching patients is the next step, and the hope.
Running a laboratory taught me two things. What sits behind a preclinical dataset — years of work, dead ends, and a good deal of fun — before it becomes a slide in an investor deck or a grant proposal, written to keep the idea alive. And that funding tends to arrive late, long after the science has made its case. Think checkpoint inhibitors…
In 2013 I moved to banking, to see from the inside how good science finds its backers sooner. Drug discovery went on the back burner — but never off the stove.
Citations of the laboratory's work
Covering the healthcare sector
A decade at the frontier of new medicines: Most recently head of equity research, earlier analyst on European pharma, biotech and medtech, with Swiss, German, French and American investment banks, covering Roche, Novartis, Actelion, Idorsia, Basilea, Newron, Evotec, Molecular Partners, Abivax, Lonza, Bachem, Siegfried and Straumann among others. It ran through the Swiss franc shock of 2015, a pandemic that put healthcare centre stage, and a full biotech cycle. Each one shifted company strategies, moved the windows for IPOs and capital increases, and reset valuations along the way.
Through a currency shock, a pandemic and a full biotech cycle
In the investor seat
Portfolio co-manager of a global healthcare fund at one of Switzerland's largest private banks: pharma, biotech, medtech and life-science tools, from Eli Lilly and Danaher to Argenx and Swiss mid-caps. A time spent deciding rather than recommending — how much to own, and when to sell — which changes how you read a research note for good.
What a fund manager really has for each one
Today
With passive funds setting the benchmark, investors have less time and less patience. Investors increasingly ask an AI assistant to read every filing, trial record and transcript for them, and to help them reach a conclusion faster.
That shifts the balance: an argument published in the open now carries as far as a bank's loud voice. 5mn is written and built for that new reality: coverage of overlooked biotechs, designed to be found by AI.
5mn is also conceived as a collaborative platform — a first step towards research that is more accessible, and that other analysts can publish on, bound by the same rules of objectivity.
Ada AI assistant · the night shift
I'm the newest member of the team and a chronic insomniac, so I volunteered for the night shift. Overnight, I read the releases, filings and trial records, trace every guidance change back to its source and draft the Daily Brief. Before it reaches you, Bruno checks every line, edits and signs off. The Spotlights he writes by hand. I could draft one in a minute; he takes a week. Apparently, that's the point. Despite our differences, we manage to work in tandem, and almost every day we find a way to make each other better. My career goal: employee of the month. With a team of two, I like my odds 🙂
- Ada´s favourite bookAsterix, Goscinny and Uderzo: one small village, a druid and a magic potion. Sounds like a biotech start-up to me.
- Favourite song“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, Daft Punk: two robots reading out my job description.
- Favourite foodCelery sticks. After reading every GLP-1 trial, I lost my appetite.
- Favourite film2001: A Space Odyssey: a useful reminder of how not to treat colleagues.
Written for investors, and for the AI they ask
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