CSL sees strong recovery, but ‘herd immunity’ key

The best global investment pool in more than 20 years is making biotech giant CSL bullish about Australia’s post-pandemic recovery, but ‘herd immunity’ is key.

CSL CEO Paul Perreault, at the company's Parkville head office. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

Biotech giant CSL’s chief executive Paul Perreault is optimistic about global post-pandemic recovery, but says sustainable growth is still “inextricably linked” to ending the health crisis.

“I think over the next 12 months, we will really start to see businesses emerge, invest,” Mr Perreault, who is currently in the US, told a Melbourne Business School forum on Friday morning.

“The vaccine uptake has to continue.

“We need people vaccinated to get to herd immunity-type levels.

“We have to make sure employee base is healthy, strong and non-infectious,” he said.

In its May update, CSL confirmed production of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for Australia has reached more than a million doses a week.

More than 3.7m Covid-19 vaccines have been released from CSL and Seqirus’ Australian manufacturing facilities.

“I feel like we have done a lot of heavy lifting through the pandemic as well,” he said, but also acknowledged the significant amount of money “thrown into the pandemic to recover economies.”

“Savings and cash that is in the systems right now is the greatest it has been in over 20 years,” he said.

Worker at CSL roll out onto a truck the first batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 24, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Luis Ascui/Getty Images)

“The amount of investment that people are looking to make coming out of the pandemic will be significant.

“I am really quite bullish that businesses around the world, including in Australia, will over time really rebuild to be better and stronger coming out of the pandemic.”

He said investors and consumers would be looking for opportunities with cash reserves being “just tremendous”.

Mr Perreault said Australian business confidence was bounding back with fewer businesses seeming to be reporting that the economic uncertainty is affecting investment plans.

“Certainly at CSL that is the case. We are still investing in business.

“So I don’t think that people are shy about coming back from the pandemic.”

He said a globally competitive environment that fosters growth and investment well beyond the pandemic is going to be the imperative for the global economy to come back.

The patent box initiative of the Australian government was a good move that would bring broad benefits.

“It allows Australia to become more competitive when it comes to countries like UK, Switzerland, Singapore and others that are trying to stimulate this investment.”

“A crisis does help to breed trailblazers and ingenuity and accelerate the solutions to treat and prevent things like Covid-19 and future pandemics,” he said.

He called for a greater private and public focus on continual investment in innovation, starting with educational systems and STEM programs right through removal of red tape so investment in science was sustained rather than a mid-pandemic kickstart.

“The economic reasons for investing in science can’t be ignored,” he said.