JPM25: GSK, Sanofi CEOs welcome 'transparency' in response to anti-vaccine movement in US

The anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. has gained momentum with President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

How do Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson and GSK CEO Emma Walmsley—who lead two of the top vaccine companies in the world—feel about the movement and how it could affect their businesses?

Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, both said they welcome the chance to engage in transparent discussions about the performance of their vaccines.

“We have to be sensitive to the social media and what may lie ahead of us,” Hudson said. “We think there may be increasing calls for transparency around vaccines. I’d like that to begin with understanding how transparent we are already, with people having the facts and then making informed interventions.”

Meanwhile, Walmsley said the value of vaccines lies in their ability to stop disease before it starts and to keep people out of the hospital.

“Any debate or questions around the efficacy of vaccination, the quality of vaccination, is one we completely welcome,” Walmsley said. “We need to run toward these conversations with transparency and trust.”

Walmsley reminded the JPM audience that the stakes are huge for GSK, as more than half its business comes from the U.S. She added that the British company employs 15,000 people in the U.S. and that it recently invested $800 million in a manufacturing complex in Pennsylvania.

“It’s an exciting time for GSK in this country. Make no mistake, it’s the No. 1 priority for us,” Walmsley said. “We’re all-in on the U.S.”

As for Sanofi, the company commercializes a range of vaccines against influenza, polio, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b-related illness, meningitis and other ailments. The company's vaccine portfolio generated more than $3 billion in the U.S. during the first nine months of 2024.

As for the future of the Inflation Reduction Act and whether its status impacts Sanofi, Hudson said the company faces little exposure to its price-setting implications.

“We don’t expect things to be incrementally negative in the change of the U.S. administrations, but it may be chaotic for a time, at least [surrounding] what happens with RFK and whether he’s confirmed and what that means,” Hudson added.