Semafor World Economy Summit: Views from policymakers and CEOs on health and the global economy

On tariffs: “We’re heartened by the fact that medicines are currently excluded from the tariffs,” Ubl said. He noted that tariffs on medications could lead to shortages, disruptions, and higher prices for consumers.

Ubl said he thinks the Trump administration is trying to solve a two-fold problem with tariffs, aiming to both repatriate manufacturing and reduce the US’ reliance on medications from China.

That reliance “raises serious national security concerns,” he said, asserting that the industry is “willing to sit down, roll up our sleeves, and really try to solve those issues.”

On tariffs increasing drug prices: Tariffs are “counter to what’s at the core of our mission” in the pharmaceutical industry, Guth said. “Make no mistake, tariffs will increase the prices of products,” he said. “They will limit access to medicines, and they will ultimately take resources away from research and development for the industry at large.” Guth said that he’s asking policymakers to find solutions other than tariffs.

On advances with AI: Hale said the Oura ring’s built-in AI application can provide advice or call out a trend. “It’s the beginning of what I would call algorithmic care, where, based on your metrics, this is what you should do. You didn’t need to consult a doctor for that, but we can tell you.”

On research with the military: Oura is providing rings for 50,000 US service members to help the military optimize performance under fatigue and stress. Hale said in some circumstances they are able to detect COVID symptoms and isolate service members on ships before they expose others. Also, he noted, it could feed sleep data anonymously to shipboard computers for “optimization of humans” — scheduling service members based on their restfulness and readiness.

“What you’re providing is physiological, objective data about the performance of the men and women, and that’s cognitive and physical,” he said.

On how tariffs and inflation are pushing up health care costs: Zutter referred to one survey that found 82% of health care executives expect costs to go up by 15% within the next six months, and 90% of them ultimately expect to pass that on to patients. “When you have dynamics like that,” he said, “that just drives a whole lot, in a negative sense.”

Tariffs could play a big part, he said. For example, “if you’re thinking about a total knee replacement, that might cost $45,000 in total; about $11,000 of that is just the implant.” The titanium and steel in the implant is “not normally domestically sourced,” he said. Plus “the little pill bottles are largely coming from China. The hospital gloves generally come from either New Zealand or Australia,” he said. “These things are all subject” to potential tariffs.

On the US’ health care payment model: “Risk transfer, increased deductibles, increased out-of-pocket, taxes, increased premiums” and more have made health care in the US so unaffordable, he said, that the “financial toxicity either leads people to go bankrupt or to delay care.”

On making more in the US: The government can juice US production of pharmaceuticals and medical devices through incentives and regulation, Daniels said, for the sake of “resetting the stage for what’s economically viable in the United States.”

He said the industry is finding it “actually quite cost-effective now” to make many items domestically “through AI, through automation, through the fact that a lot of these chemical compounds are readily available.”

“Labor arbitrage” through AI automation “used to be the difference-maker between us and emerging markets,” he said. “But everything’s automated in these factories now.”

On OpenAI becoming a for-profit entity: Hoffman criticized Elon Musk for suing OpenAI over the nonprofit’s plan to become a for-profit company. He said Musk’s push comes even as “he’s accelerating his own efforts” to build out his own rival company xAI as a for-profit entity. “It’s like a complete lack of credibility.”

Hoffman said he supports OpenAI becoming a for-profit company because he said the company is still pursuing its mission to benefit the public good and that is “unequivocally very positive.”

On the notion of ‘woke AI’ and safety: Hoffman also said Trump AI czar David Sacks’ concerns over “woke AI” were “foolish.”

Sacks and other right-wing tech figures have repeatedly railed against what they call “woke” AI models from US firms — for example, AI image generators that have depicted historical figures like the US Founding Fathers as people of color.

He said a focus on “woke AI” makes for “a very nice political headline, but that it’s “actually maybe detrimental to American success, American industry, American trade, and American jobs.”

Hoffman also said he thought President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI safety “was really good.” He added, “I hope they just relabel it and go, ‘Hey, this is now the Trump EO!’”

On soda: Means slammed previous government policy that permitted SNAP recipients to pay for soda with food stamps. Roughly a month ago, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced states could bar people from doing so; Means said the change was a “shockwave” through Washington that would have been “unthinkable a year ago.”

“Taking a $10 billion subsidy away from soda for kids is not a violation of conservative principles,” he said.

On Ozempic: Means questioned the rationale for higher Ozempic prices in the US than in some European countries. He also alleged that weight loss drugs are “being pushed on American children as the first-line defense,” ahead of nutritional changes.

On cuts to the federal government: Means defended cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, saying there was a need for “decisive and quick reform.”

“You can report every single hour of every single day, some program that sounds good that was cut,” he said, but argued that “there is a clear voter mandate for radical change.”

On the US health care system: Means called it an “absolutely broken institution that is profiting every day from Americans being sick.” For “60% of US senators, the largest employer in their state is a health care system,” he said, suggesting lawmakers face a conflict of interest.

On Harvard: Means, a Harvard Business School alum, criticized how the university was using federal money for health research. “I cannot find a single NIH-funded study out of Harvard that actually deals with preventing and reversal of chronic diseases,” he said. “Harvard does not have a birthright to future federal grants.”