Credit Suisse analyst Martin Auster initiated Progenics with an Outperform rating and $6.50 price target. In a research note to investors, Auster says he believes Progenics’ royalties and future milestones from Relistor and revenue from Azedra support a core business with an NPV of about $5 per share, and says that as the commercial uptake of Azedra begins to unfold, investor focus is expected to turn to upside opportunities in prostate cancer PSMA-targeting diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. He adds that Novartis’ (NVS) recent $2.1B acquisition of Endocyte (ECYT) supports pharma interest and attractive valuations in the space.
Friday, December 7, 2018
BlackRock reports 11.5% passive stake in Addus HomeCare
https://thefly.com/landingPageNews.php?id=2834080
Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals R&D day highlights inarigivir, says Piper Jaffray
Piper Jaffray analyst Edward Tenthoff kept his Overweight rating and $25 price target on Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals after its R&D presentation yesterday. The analyst says the event highlighted the potency of inarigivir in Hepatitis B virus in patients as early as 12 weeks. Tenthoff further cites the final ACHIEVE data on the treatment likely coming at the EASL event in April of 2019, with additional studies taking place later next year.
Elliott wants Bayer to consider break-up, Bloomberg says
Paul Singer’s Elliot Management has taken a stake in Bayer and wants the conglomerate to weigh splitting in two, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The firm wants Bayer’s management and board to examine the possibility of breaking the company into separate pharmaceutical and agrochemical makers, the report says. No meetings between the two sides have yet taken place, the report notes.
Healthcare made the most U.S. hires in November
Healthcare took the lead over all other sectors in November hiring, having added 32,100 new jobs during the month.
Professional and business services was a close second, having added 32,000 new jobs. Total nonfarm employment grew by 155,000 jobs in November, compared with an average monthly gain of 209,000 over the prior 12 months. The U.S. unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ November jobs report released Friday.
The manufacturing sector added 27,000 jobs during the month, and transportation and warehousing added 25,000. Retail trade made 18,000 new hires.
As usual, ambulatory healthcare services dominated healthcare hiring last month, adding 19,200 jobs and comprising 60% of new healthcare hires. The ambulatory sector surpassed its October job creation by 35%.
Hospitals continued their healthy hiring streak in November, having added 12,700 jobs, down about 2% from October.
Outpatient care centers led the ambulatory sector hiring, adding 5,800 jobs in November, up 61% from the previous month. Physicians’ offices added 5,500 jobs, 49% more than in October. Hiring was down 91% in dentists’ offices, which added 300 jobs in November. Home healthcare added 4,000 jobs last month, while medical and diagnostic laboratories shed 900 jobs.
Nursing and residential care facility hiring was down significantly, having made only 200 hires in the month, compared with 8,400 in October. Within that sector, residential mental health facilities lost 900 jobs, while nursing care facilities made 900 new hires.
Uterine Cancer Incidence and Deaths on the Rise in US
The incidence of uterine cancer and deaths from the disease are on the increase, with black women disproportionately affected, warn researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They call for greater awareness of the symptoms to allow early detection and treatment.
Uterine cancer “is one of the few cancers with increasing incidence and mortality in the United States,” the CDC notes. This reflects, in part, increases in the prevalence of overweight and obesity since the 1980s.
It is the fourth most common cancer diagnosed in US women and is the seventh most common cause of death.
The findings were published online December 7 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
S. Jane Henley, MSPH, from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, and colleagues studied the official incidence and mortality rates for uterine cancer from 1999 to 2015/6.
They found that rates of the disease have been increasing by approximately 0.7% per year, with uterine cancer deaths rising by an average of slightly more than 1.0% per year.
Worryingly, in comparision with other groups, black women were more likely to be diagnosed with harder-to-treat forms of the disease and with later-stage disease, in particular in comparision with white women.
“Multifactorial efforts at individual, community, clinical, and systems levels to help women achieve and maintain a healthy weight and obtain sufficient physical activity might reduce the risk for developing uterine cancer,” the authors write.
“Promoting awareness among women and health care providers of the need for timely evaluation of abnormal vaginal bleeding can increase the chance that uterine cancer is detected early and treated appropriately,” they add.
Study Details
The team gathered incidence data from the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries and the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program.
In addition, they obtained mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System, which covered 98% of the overall US population for the period 1999 to 2015/2016.
Uterine cancers were classified by histologic site and stage at diagnosis. Individuals were classified as white, black, non-Hispanic American, Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander (API), or Hispanic.
The researchers found that in 2015, there were 53,911 new, confirmed cases of uterine cancer, which occurred at a rate of 27 cases per 100,000 women. The rates were highest among white and black women (27 per 100,000 each).
The most commonly reported form the disease was endometrioid carcinoma, which occurred in 68% of women. The proportion was much lower in black women, at 47%. Black women who were more likely to have other carcinomas, carcinosarcomas, and sarcomas.
In non-black women, uterine cancers were diagnosed at the localized stage in 66% to 69% of cases. In black women, that rate was 55%.
Black women are also more likely to be diagnosed with disease of distant stage than other groups, at 16% vs 8% to 10%. This was particularly the case for sarcoma.
Sarcomas were more likely to be diagnosed at the distant stage (36%) than carcinosarcomas (22%), other carcinomas (18%), and endometrioid carcinomas (3%).
The incidence rate of uterine cancers increased between 1999 and 2015 by 12%, or an average of 0.7% per year.
The increase was far higher among AI/AN (53%), black (46%), API (38%), and Hispanic (32%) women than among white women (9%).
In 2016, there were 10,733 deaths due to uterine cancer, at five deaths per 100,000 women. The rate was highest among black women, at nine per 100,000 women.
The rate of uterine cancer deaths increased between 1999 and 2016 by 21%, or 1.1% per year on average.
The increases were higher in API (52%), Hispanic (33%) and black (29%) women than white women (18%). Rates of uterine cancer deaths remained stable in AI/AN women.
Obesity a Contributing Factor
The researchers say that one contributing factor in the increase in incidence could be “excess body weight,” inasmuch as overweight or obese women are two to four times more likely to develop endometrial cancer than women of healthy weight.
“During 2013-2016, approximately 40% of women in the United States had obesity, including 56% of black women and 49% of Hispanic women,” they add.
The team points out that, “as with other cancers, the odds of surviving uterine cancer are much higher when it is detected at an early stage, when treatment is more effective.” The rate of survival is 90% for patients with localized cancers, vs <30% for patients with distant cancers.
“This report found that black women were more likely to receive a diagnosis at distant stage and with more aggressive histologic types than were other women, which might in part account for the higher death rate among black women,” the investigators write.
The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2018;67:1333-1138. Full text
Targeted cognitive training benefits patients with severe schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is among the most difficult mental illnesses to treat, in part because it is characterized by a wide range of dysfunction, from hallucinations and mood disorders to cognitive impairment, especially verbal and working memory, which can be explained in part by abnormalities in early auditory information processing.
In recent years, targeted cognitive training (TCT) has emerged as a promising therapeutic intervention. TCT uses computerized training, such as sophisticated brain games, to target specific neural pathways, such as memory, learning and auditory-based senses, to beneficially alter the way they process information.
But while TCT has proven effective for mild to moderate forms of schizophrenia under carefully controlled conditions, it remains unclear whether the approach might benefit patients with chronic, refractory schizophrenia treated in non-academic settings, such as those cared for in locked residential rehabilitation centers.
In a study published in the December print issue of Schizophrenia Research, senior author Gregory A. Light, PhD, professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of the Mental Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center at Veterans Affaris San Diego Healthcare System, and colleagues investigated whether TCT improved auditory and verbal outcomes among the most difficult of schizophrenia patients.
“Chronic, treatment-refractory patients mandated to locked residential care facilities make up just a small subgroup of persons with schizophrenia, but they consume a disproportionately large share of mental health care resources,” said Light. “Finding an effective therapy for them is critical.”
Light’s team studied 46 patients with schizophrenia psychosis recruited from a community-based residential treatment program, each following acute hospitalization. All were deemed “gravely disabled,” unable to care for themselves, and under the guardianship of a private party or government agency. Participants were randomized to either standard treatment-as-usual (TAU) or TAU plus TCT, in which they used laptop computers to perform various learning and memory game exercises, often involving auditory cues.
The researchers found that among participants who completed the roughly three months of TAU-TCT treatment, verbal learning and auditory perception scores improved; and severity of auditory hallucinations lessened. Of note: The benefits were not negatively impacted by age, clinical symptoms, medication or illness duration. “Our results suggest that chronically ill, highly disabled patients can benefit from TCT,” said Light. “That contradicts current assumptions.”
Light cited some caveats. “We’re somewhere between the Wild West and golden age of cognitive training for schizophrenia patients. There is much still to be learned and done,” he said. Patients in this study represented some of the most difficult patients to treat, with therapy regimens that are highly complex. “We need to do a lot more research.”
Light and others are doing so. In a recent paper published in Neuropsychopharmacology, for example, he and colleagues described the underlying mechanism involved in TCT to improve auditory function. And in past work, schizophrenia-and-auditory-cues.aspx Light and others have shown that deficiencies in the neural processing of simple auditory tones can evolve into a cascade of dysfunctional information processing in the brains of patients with schizophrenia.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of California – San Diego. Original written by Scott LaFee. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Michael L. Thomas, Andrew W. Bismark, Yash B. Joshi, Melissa Tarasenko, Emily B.H. Treichler, William C. Hochberger, Wen Zhang, John Nungaray, Joyce Sprock, Lauren Cardoso, Kristine Tiernan, Mouna Attarha, David L. Braff, Sophia Vinogradov, Neal Swerdlow, Gregory A. Light. Targeted cognitive training improves auditory and verbal outcomes among treatment refractory schizophrenia patients mandated to residential care. Schizophrenia Research, 2018; 202: 378 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2018.07.025
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