Hey, I'm Cramer. Welcome to a special Mad Money from One Market in San Francisco. Welcome to Cramer America. Other people, my friends, I'm just trying to make you some money. My job is not just to entertain, but to educate you. So call me at 1-800-743-CBC. Tweet me at Jim Cramer.
Time to pardon Jay Powell. The poor guy is not a criminal. He doesn't belong in prison. I know you laugh, but today we learned that the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation of Powell for something he said in Congress about the renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters, which is coming in over budget. Of course, Powell says that the president's doing this because the Fed isn't cutting interest rates fast enough. The Justice Department will never admit that, but I think Powell's got a point.
While I'm not a fan of politically motivated prosecutions, at least Trump takes monetary policy seriously. If you're going to play games with the Justice Department, I can think of worse reasons than getting interest rates lower for the American people. If this is such a big deal though, how come the stock market barely seemed to react? Dow gaining 86 points. S&P advanced 0.16%. NASDAQ climbed 0.26%. Oh, it's simple.
This is Wall Street betting that it's not going to happen. Even some Republican senators are pushing back against a Powell prosecution. Besides, what's the point of going after this guy whose term ends in four months? And how often do you go after the customer when it's the contractor that runs over budget? Again, I'm a Powell fan here, but I got to say this about President Trump.
Usually, when he does something that could terrify the markets, he changes his mind. Wall Street freaked out last April when the initial Liberation Day tariff rates were announced. But then most of those tariffs ended up coming in at much, much lower levels. This time money managers are betting that Trump won't follow through because they think following through would be nuts and very bad for stocks, which we know from post-Liberation Day Trump doesn't want to happen. However, I still want a presidential pardon for Jay Powell because, as any lawyer will tell you, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.
You don't want to end up with a situation where the Fed chief actually gets prosecuted because that would end the very idea of Fed independence or Justice Department independence for that matter. Still, nobody believes that Justice Department will actually go that far. This isn't the only news about presidential intervention in the economy that the market seems to be ignoring.
President Trump has also decided that credit card companies will have to cap rates at 10% for a year. Okay, of course, Congress would need to pass actual legislation to make that happen, but I'm sure the president will be happy to call in the heads of the banks and try to browbeat them into following his orders. This is another where Wall Street just doesn't seem to care because it's too over the top, because the bank stocks actually opened down and spent the rest of the day rallying.
If we actually cap credit card interest rates at 10%, the real victims would probably be the millions of Americans who would no longer be able to borrow money. Some people are bad credit risks and these companies simply won't lend to any of them unless they can get subprime interest rates. I don't want to be the bull who cried bear, but you'd just be mandating a crash if these companies stop lending. Better simply print a lot of money.
Here's the bottom line. The market's a harsh taskmaster. If it thinks you can be outflanked and outsmarted, it's not going to do your bidding. And that's what happened today. The market just doesn't believe Powell will be prosecuted or the credit card companies will get hit with an interest rate cap. I'm betting the market's right. Let's take some calls. Let's go to Andy in New York. Andy, hi Jim. Andy, what's up? Thank you for taking my call. Okay, thank you for taking my call. I would like your opinion on ticker symbol SHOP, Shopify.
All right. Now, Shopify lately under a little pressure. Look, I think it's wrong to me. Shopify is a buy and today's actual rally is the right way to go. I go with that rally. Shopify goes higher. Today we saw the market being a harsh taskmaster. If it thinks you can be outsmarted, it's not going to do your bidding. Tonight I'm kicking off our coverage of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference with conversations with some of the biggest names in the space, including sources with Novo Nordisk, Medtronic, Pfizer, and Bausch + Lomb. You're not going to want to miss any of it. So stay with Cramer.
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Novo Nordisk, the company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, just launched a pill version of the revolutionary weight loss and diabetes drug. So, while we're out here in San Francisco for the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, we took the chance to check in with Mike Doustdar. He's the new president and CEO of Novo Nordisk itself. Take a look.
It's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much. All right, let's go for what everyone has wanted. No one likes to give themselves an injection. You've got a pill for GLP-1. What's it like? How's the business going?
It's going very well. First of all, I have to correct you and there are a lot of people that like injections, but you're probably right. Who likes... Well, we have, you know, around 10 to 15 million people right now on GLP-1 together with our competitor. So, that's going well. But I think you have a point that there are a good group of people that basically have been waiting for the pill. After all, injection does come with injection phobia, needle phobia. It comes with taboo, societal taboo. And also it comes with the burden of refrigeration, which our pill — when someone opens your refrigerator, they want to see a beer. They don't want to see a needle.
That's true. I think we are seeing actually that the pill is able to expand the market.
Yes, for a large group of people that have been waiting. Predominantly, I would say the major barrier has been the taboo. You know, if I take a pill today, you will not notice anything and then you just let it go by. If I pull up my shirt and inject myself in front of you, you'll start thinking about me. And then a lot of people have been, of course, waiting to get rid of this taboo. But the refrigeration is an issue and I would say it's an issue especially for many of the markets. Now in the US, of course, it's probably better, but in many markets where refrigeration simply doesn't exist — not necessarily in people's homes, but imagine the cold chains that you need to move the product from A to B.
And people don't know whether it's good or bad.
That's also true. So, we are super excited.
Well, you should be. One of the things that I know that a competitor has told me over and over again is there is a belief after 13, 14 months they didn't want to take the shot anymore. There wouldn't be any fatigue if it was a pill.
Well, we have to wait and see. I actually have come across a number of people that have started the injection and have said that once a week injection, let's say on a Saturday at home, is what they prefer compared to a daily pill. But I also have come across people in my own family that have said any day, every day, single pill is better than any type of an injection. But I think the truth about obesity is that we treat it as one group of people. Right now we say two billion people have obesity. The unfortunate fact is that this is multiple diseases with different needs, different types of people, and you have to have the product offering that caters for all, which is what my company is about to do.
Well, Mike, I am glad you're there because saying that — tell me, I'm going to mention some illnesses. You tell me whether it could work. Hypertension.
Absolutely. I think that, you know, one of the things that of course we take a look at many of our drugs is is it supporting and helping hypertension. I actually think it goes beyond hypertension. If you think about obesity as a disease, unfortunately you don't die from obesity. You die from issues related to obesity, hypertension being one, high lipids, cardiovascular benefit issues, kidney issues, liver, fatty liver.
Which, but for people should know, alcoholism can produce a fatty liver.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the things that we are really proud about this Wegovy pill is that as the name says, it's a Wegovy. So it's not only reducing your weight actually at the same level, 16.6%, as the injectable version of Wegovy, which is quite unusual and we can discuss that a little bit later, but it also comes with the label that shows you the CV benefits, the cardiovascular benefits, because it's the same molecule, semaglutide. So I'm very happy that today when you take one of these pills, you're not only supporting and helping your weight management, but you're also getting into some of the comorbidities that is associated with obesity.
And we knew when we first heard this that people said it'll always cost, say, $1,000 a month and therefore would break the bank of whatever country including ours supported it. That turned out to be totally untrue.
149. So which is a learning we have actually had that if you want to really make this accessible, right, then you have to put it at a price where everyone can afford. And it's something that the president and you both agree on.
We have actually. And I think that it has been a good learning that that negotiation with the MFN opened up everyone's side that we have to — I mentioned 15 million people or so are on GLP-1 in this market. There are 100 million people with obesity in the US. Very few people talk about what about the other 85 million. Everyone talks about is Novo winning versus Lilly, who's changed, and the compounders that have a million patients over here. I think the unmet need is actually about the people who are not having their products and a lot of those people are not getting their hands on these products not because they don't want to, because they couldn't afford it.
Okay. Well, let's talk about the compounders. We know their organizations. I see their ads. A fraction of the cost. Should I trust some compounder that really hasn't been approved by the FDA making a pill for me?
They're knockoff products. So this should be completely illegal. And I'm very surprised that in this country this is still legal. It shouldn't happen. This is something that happens typically — I wouldn't want to say banana republic — but it should really happen in emerging markets sometimes where you close your eyes and let it go by. But in the US to have products that come into the market with API from China that has not gone through rigorous testing of FDA is just a safety issue. Forget about the business side of it. I would not want to give this to anyone I love. And unfortunately, this is still continuing and we will continue to actually talk about it and fight it.
Okay. Now, there are some people who say, 'Wait a second, this pill isn't as effective as an injection.'
That's absolutely wrong. If they're talking about Wegovy pill, I think there is an element that pills are usually chemical entities. They're small molecules and when you actually take a pill, it comes with the compromise that it's counter-injectable part then is more efficacious at the burden of injections. Wegovy pill is a biologic. This is a protein and peptide and I think when we actually decided to encapsulate this protein with a special mechanism that it can bypass your gut enzymes and get to your bloodstream, most people thought this is just scientifically not possible. But we went through it and we did it and I'm so happy that we succeeded because as a result now you have a pill or a pen, right? Both of which reduce your weight by 16.6%. So you don't need to compromise anymore.
Okay. So tell me, Mike, what happened? You had a firm lead in this. And then Lilly passed you. What occurred?
Yeah. I think what typically happened is the world started to think that we came to this business 30 years ago, right? When people felt diet and exercise was the key. Absolutely. And when we went there, Jim, most of our peers, if not all of our peers, made fun of us. They actually — I remember many of our peers telling us, 'Why are you guys going there? There is no money in it.' And our company — and I'm of course a little bit subjective here — our company went there because we saw the patients. Obesity is a very visible disease. We saw the patients and we also noticed that these patients are typically those who are later on suffering from type 2 diabetes. And as we were in that business, we had to go there. But as we went, of course, we had to learn that obesity in some ways from a patient point of view is very different than diabetes.
When a follower comes after you, they learn about your mistakes and they adapt some of those and then they benefit. And I think, you know, I have to give it to Lilly. They've done well but they also had the pleasure of seeing some of our mistakes and fixing those as they go along.
Okay. They've been fixed and you've been instrumental in doing that. Tell us once again, if someone wants to get the cheapest version, what do they pay and where do they get it?
Well, if you have a co-pay and your insurance company agrees to your prescription being dispensed, then it's $25.
$25 for something that was $1,300 bucks two years ago. $1,300 a month.
That's true. $25 if you have insurance. Now if because of pre-authorizations or any obstacle that the insurance company puts upon you, you cannot go that route and you want to go through the e-health providers, right? It could be through Novo Pharmacy, our own pharmacy, or through some of our partners, Weight Watchers, Ro, LifeMD, Costco. Then the price for the initial dose is at 149, right? And then it basically goes to 199 and eventually to 249.
Still incredible. Now I do not want to just — it's wrong to slight your rare disease efforts. You've got some really good things but also sickle cell which has proven to be impossible. It may not be correct. What have we got?
I think most people of course forget about our efforts in rare diseases because we're so predominantly known for diabetes and obesity. But we have some fantastic new launches coming up. We have of course the sickle cell drug that you mentioned, Atavus. We also have something called MIM8 which is stopping the bleeding for hemophilia better than anything else. 98% of the bleedings that were tested in the clinical trials were stopped. So this is fantastic and we're looking very much forward towards the end of this year to introduce some of these drugs.
Excellent. I want to thank Mike Doustdar. He's the president and CEO of Novo Nordisk. Once again, $25.
Incredible. Thank you very much.
Coming up, can Medtronic continue to build on its productive 2025 gains? Cramer's asking the CEO how the medical tech giant will keep advancing in 2026. Next.
The stock of Medtronic, the medical device maker, finished 2025 up more than 20% in part because it plans to spin off its diabetes unit as an independent company. Today, they just got FDA approval for their new smart glucose pen system. At the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, I got a chance to catch up with Jeff Martha. He is the chairman and CEO of Medtronic. Take a look.
Jeff, welcome back to Mad Money.
Thanks, Jim. It's good to be here.
So, I remember what you said at this conference last year. You promised a couple of things. Some people might say, 'Well, please, they can't get it done.' Renal denervation. Who would actually pay for that? You talked about — well, you mentioned that you were going to fix the diabetes business. Well, you're going to spin it off. That's obviously the right thing to do. I read all these things and I think maybe you're going to have better than expected earnings.
Well, look, first of all, Jim, thanks for having me. It's good to be back at the conference this year. We're super excited because a lot of the things we talked about last year are all coming into place now and very tangible and we're really excited to be talking about these generational growth drivers for the company.
I want to go first to colonoscopy just because how many people are concerned about it. You talked about AI and how it might be able to catch much more than what is done now. The standard of care is rapidly going toward you, right?
Yeah. Becoming an AI-assisted colonoscopy is rapidly becoming the standard of care. We did a clinical trial on this a few years ago and we found that the GI docs were missing roughly 26% of the polyps in the trial. But now that we've launched it out in the real world and it's gone, you know, much more scaled, we're finding that they're missing up to 50%. You know, they just — they're doing 10 colonoscopies a day, their eyes get tired, you know, and plus these polyps are hard to pick up. So the AI has been a home run for this diagnostic.
People are adopting that and it's done quickly. I know that many hospitalists in New York immediately switched to you. Hugo, another thing you promised — there's a more entrenched system, Intuitive Surgical. Talk about, please, why hospitals should go with Hugo over ISRG.
So first of all, Hugo has been something we've been working on for quite a while. Just got FDA approval in December. So it's new and what this does, it's the first real competitive offering to Intuitive. Right. There's a number of features about our robot, our system that physicians are excited about. The modularity, so it allows you to move it, you don't need a dedicated room, allows you to move it around. The display allows for more situational awareness in the OR for the physician. There's a number of other — cost per procedure, so there's a number of technology features but also the partnership approach we can take. Now that's the second thing is hospitals traditionally have purchased their soft tissue surgery technology by picking a vendor that cuts across their diverse needs: open procedures and laparoscopic and now robotic-assisted surgery. Medtronic is the only one that can serve all those needs and contract across all three in the US.
Once again, save the system money, which is something you told me is very important, one of your goals.
Right. The other thing about our system is, like I said, we don't need that dedicated room but also the tower that powers the system can be used for both the robot as well as laparoscopic surgery and there's still — the majority of surgery is still laparoscopic.
It looks like cardiac ablation, the pulse field ablation that you said would be there and be good, I think it's taking share.
It is. We grew 70% last quarter and we're now the fastest growing technology in that fast growing space and, you know, we believe we're marching towards market leadership.
Well, I should stop there and say that that would mean a lot for earnings per share. That is the most important area in terms of getting accelerated revenue growth.
Yes, it's like I said, a huge market, fast growing and for us it's immediately been accretive to our operating margins. And over time as we switch to selling less capital equipment and more catheters, it's that razor-razor blade model. And as we get more of those systems out there and we're selling more catheters, you're going to see it impact positively our gross margins.
What's the resistance of doctors? I mean, some of these people have just been using the same systems over and over again. Why would they switch to you?
Well, there actually hasn't been a lot of resistance. Honestly, this move from the radio frequency technology that has been the standard to pulse field ablation has been as rapid as we've seen in medtech ever. It's been a huge — people are talking about when you go back to going from bare metal stents to, you know, drug-coated stents. It's been a fast movement to us and our main competitor. And because it's faster, right, it's safer and it's highly effective and you've got a huge patient pool.
Now, Elliott Partners took a stake. Sometimes they're tough in the sense that they want real things right now. I don't know whether they couldn't agree pretty much with your whole game plan once they got in.
Well, look, their words, not mine. They came in with the thesis that we were at an inflection point in the company's history with all this innovation coming. And the relationship's been constructive, you know, productive, and they've been a good investor.
Well, did they agree with the idea that maybe diabetes, it's just a tough field? I know insulin's got a good business right there. MiniMed, good product, but maybe didn't fit in.
Yeah, it's more of a consumer business than the rest of Medtronic. We tend to sell to hospitals.
I know business-to-business is a lot more effective than business-to-consumer.
And so, that being said, our diabetes business, MiniMed, is a great business. And the reason we did it now — okay, the reason we did it was the consumer versus business-to-business. The reason now is because the innovation they have right now is the best in the company's history. It's a complete ecosystem of sensors, insulin delivery devices, and the best algorithm out there for insulin-dependent patients.
Do people ever say, you know what, the consumer, if they knew about Hugo, if they knew about your cardiac ablation, how well it's doing, they'll ask for it. Or is it just really about the hospital? And you're never going to get the consumer to say, I don't want Intuitive, I want Hugo.
So look, there are several segments in medtech and diabetes is more of a true consumer business, but in a business-to-business medtech where you're going to see medtech companies including Medtronic go drive consumer awareness. Hypertension is a big one, right? We can —
And we have to talk about that because your method is obviously superior to those who won't take the pills. Talk about adoption.
So look, it's a brand. So let's take a step back on hypertension. 18 million people in the US suffer from hypertension. 75% of those are uncontrolled — silent killer, right? 50% of these patients quit the meds in one year. So the current standard care of meds just doesn't work. So here you have this new-to-world therapy, right? No one really knows about it yet. And so doctors understand it. We've been studying it for 10 years. It's probably the most studied procedure at launch of anything in medtech and it's highly effective and it's safe. So now we got to get the word out to consumers and our brand is Simplicity. The Simplicity blood pressure procedure, right? Our intention is to make Simplicity synonymous with hypertension management going forward.
Now, how about payment? Because that was something I was worried about. The authorities, they're willing to pay.
Yep. We just got the national coverage decision by Medicare,
which you told me you could get and I was highly dubious if only just because it's such a radical procedure, right?
Well, radical in that it's new, but it's easy and safe. It's not radical that way.
Well, we have it. We have a medical establishment that frankly is entrenched and we have pills and I wish everyone took the pills, but they don't.
They don't. And kudos to CMS here that understood that. And FDA gave us a breakthrough designation. CMS came in with a broad national coverage decision for Medicare patients. And now you're seeing the commercial payers follow suit.
And you haven't had any interaction with the Health and Human Services of Robert Kennedy? You're not involved with any of the areas that seem to be strong to him personally?
No, not directly. We've worked collaboratively with Dr. Oz and his team at CMS and of course FDA we're working with constantly, but not directly with the secretary.
All right. Well, congratulations on fulfilling everything you said at this conference last year. Not everybody did that. Jeff Martha, the Medtronic chairman and CEO. Thank you, Jeff.
Coming up, will 2026 be the year Pfizer breaks out of its rut? CEO Albert Bourla is joining Cramer to break down what's coming down the company's pipeline next.
What's it going to take to get Pfizer moving higher again after years of underperformance? Is it too cheap to ignore now? At the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, I sat down with Dr. Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer, to examine the company, its pipeline, and its high yield. Take a look.
Albert, the most exciting thing — I'm going to get right to it — is weight loss, and you have decided you must be in there no matter what.
And not only to be there, but we decided that we should be a leading company to that. And I say that with not at all arrogance because I know that the leader right now is a wonderful company. They have wonderful pipeline and their CEO is fantastic, but we are Pfizer, so we are going all in. We are going to start 10 phase three studies this year. 10 phase three studies.
Well, tell me what it's done for you.
Oh, it is — we are expecting now data from the monthly dosing and that I hope in the first half of this year we will release and we hope to demonstrate how highly differentiated the ultra-long-acting GLP-1 is compared to the long-acting GLP-1s of the others.
