Healthcare spotlight: The road to recovery

Welcome remarks

Zach Buchwald: Welcome to the BlackRock Future Forum Healthcare Special. I'm Zach Buchwald, Head of BlackRock's Institutional Business for the U.S. and Canada, and it's my pleasure to welcome you here today. BlackRock created the Future Forum as a means for exploring the big topics that underpin investment decision-making and that impact all of our financial futures. We convene leaders who are in decision-making roles and we ask them to provide their expert viewpoints on the issues we face today as a society as well as the potential paths forward.

When we started the Future Forum in the spring of 2020, it was in the midst of extreme uncertainty, uncertainty in terms of public health and the future path of the disease, uncertainty in market performance, political uncertainty here in the United States. We were experiencing social unrest as well as a rapidly changing investment landscape. But with the start of 2021, we have genuinely reached an inflection point. We have a new administration here in the U.S., and there's hope for greater cooperation.

There continues to be strong economic support, and the markets have responded to that. And most importantly, we are in the early innings of the vaccine rollout, which is where a lot of our discussion will focus for the next hour. In the U.S., the Biden administration is on the record with a goal of vaccinating 300 million Americans by the end of the summer in order to reach herd immunity. We've got some big challenges ahead. First off, demand for the vaccine today dramatically outpaces supply. And unless other producers come online soon, it will be difficult to meet the summer timeline.

The retail rollout of the vaccine has been more successful in some states than others, and the prioritization of who gets access brings with it new ethical dilemmas. And we've all heard about patients traveling across the country for appointments. In fact, it's introduced a new term to the lexicon, vaccine tourism. Then there are reports that one in five adults do not plan to get the vaccine at all, or only if it's required by their employer.

Today we're going to speak with leaders that bring informed perspectives on all of these challenges. Our first segment is called The Road to Recovery, and it will focus on the rapid development of the vaccine, the ongoing rollout, and what to expect as we advance toward a widespread vaccination. Then in the second segment, we'll translate these insights into actionable investment ideas from several BlackRock investors.

Before we get started, I encourage you to get familiarize yourself with the tech interface that we're using. There's a place to ask questions, a place to chat with your fellow attendees. And periodically, you'll see a place to participate in real-time polls that provide insight into what your peers are thinking. I'll join you live in the chatroom to discuss the content and to analyze the polling results. Following the conference, we will package up the insights and share them with you. And you'll also be able to access replays of all of the sessions on this platform beginning one hour after the event.

Now without further ado, let me introduce Mark McCombe, BlackRock's Chief Client Officer, who will lead our first segment, The Road to Recovery. Welcome, everyone, to the BlackRock Future Forum. Over to you, Mark.