‘Can we stop that work, can we de­lay that work?’ Bris­tol-My­ers’ top ex­ecs out­line their game plan for ab­sorb­ing Cel­gene

Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb took its cam­paign to gar­ner sup­port for its $74 bil­lion Cel­gene buy­out right to the peo­ple who mat­ter most: their em­ploy­ees. In a re­cent town hall meet­ing, the top team at Bris­tol-My­ers, lead by CEO Gio­van­ni Caforio, gath­ered staffers to­geth­er for a pre­sen­ta­tion and Q&A about the merg­er process, which they hope to com­plete by Q3.

In the meet­ing, Caforio ex­plains that BMS has de­cid­ed to freeze hir­ing for most open po­si­tions. He and the ex­ec­u­tive team al­so out­lined where Cel­gene’s top team has ad­mit­ted they’ve fall­en short, where Bris­tol-My­ers be­lieves they can add op­er­a­tional punch, what Cel­gene brings to the ta­ble — aside from the 6 late-stage as­sets they’re pumped about —and how they plan to re­or­ga­nize the com­pa­ny to free up “band­width” for the changes to come.

The ex­cerpts that fol­low were drawn from a re­cent SEC fil­ing that in­cludes the en­tire tran­script, which of­fers some in­sights in­to what drove the biggest buy­out in bio­phar­ma his­to­ry.

It start­ed with a boast from the top. 

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