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Monday, January 27, 2020

U.S. health officials are currently monitoring 110 people across 26 states for the coronavirus, including the five patients who contracted the deadly infection in China and brought it back to America.
The disease isn’t spreading within the community in the U.S. and the risk to the public right now is still considered low, the CDC says.

U.S. health officials are currently monitoring 110 people across 26 states for the coronavirus, including the five patients who contracted the deadly infection in China and brought it back to America.
The disease, which has killed at least 81 people in China and sickened more than 2,800 worldwide, isn’t spreading within the community in the U.S. and the risk to the public right now is still considered low, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a conference call Monday.

“We understand that many people in the United States are worried about this virus and how it will affect Americans,” Messonnier said. “Every day we learn more, every day we assess to see if our guidance or our response can be improved.”
The number of “patients under investigation” in the U.S. has almost doubled from the 63 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said were under surveillance on Thursday. The CDC says 32 people have tested negative for the virus.
“While that number is 110, we are certainly prioritizing based on [patients under investigation] that might be at higher risk,” Messonnier said.
The CDC confirmed Sunday a fifth U.S. case of the virus — a patient in Maricopa County, Arizona, who recently traveled to Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the disease’s outbreak and where the majority of cases have been reported.
Messonnier said the CDC has screened roughly 2,400 people flying from Wuhan to five major U.S. airports and is considering expanding its screening. The agency increased its travel warning for all of China, asking people traveling to practice “enhanced precautions.”

“This outbreak is unfolding rapidly and we are rapidly looking at how that impacts our posture at the border. We’re certainly considering broadening of that screening,” she said.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually infect animals but can sometimes evolve and spread to humans. Symptoms in humans include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, which can progress to pneumonia. Physicians have compared it to the 2003 outbreak of SARS, which had a short incubation period of two to seven days.
China’s National Health Commission minister, Ma Xiaowei, said on Sunday that the incubation period could range from one to 14 days, and the virus was infectious during incubation, unlike the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, Reuters reported.
On Monday, the CDC said it hasn’t seen “any evidence of patients being” infected “before onset.”
Messonnier said the incubation period for the new virus is somewhere between two and 14 days. There’s been some debate over how contagious the disease is and she said it may not be known for a while.
“This outbreak is really unrolling in front of our eyes,” she said.
The so-called R naught, a mathematical equation that shows how many people will get an illness from each infected person, is somewhere around 1.5 to 3, she said. Measles, which is one of the most contagious infections in the world, has an R naught of around 12 to 18, by comparison, she said.
The CDC is trying to speed up testing and to get the tests in the hands of state health officials. It currently takes the CDC about four to six hours to make a diagnosis once a sample makes it to its lab.
U.S. health officials have warned that the flu or other respiratory illnesses could complicate identifying more cases. They recommend that people call a health-care provider before seeking treatment so the appropriate measures can be put in place.
In China, some 50 million people are now under travel restrictions. Shanghai Disney is closing until further notice at a time when the theme park would normally be packed with tourists during the Lunar New Year holiday. Starbucks and McDonald’s also closed stores in Hubei province where Wuhan is located.
The WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is traveling to Beijing to meet with government and health officials. According to the organization, more data needs to be collected before the virus, which can spread through human-to-human contact, is declared a global health emergency. The WHO declined at two emergency meetings last week to say it was a worldwide emergency.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/27/cdc-is-monitoring-110-possible-coronavirus-cases-across-26-states-in-us.html?recirc=taboolainternal

Biogen’s Alzheimer’s Drug Has ‘Decent Shot’ At FDA Approval, Analyst Says

Despite the controversy surrounding Biogen Inc’s BIIB 0.81% Alzheimer’s drug trial results and skepticism concerning its approvability, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity sounds upbeat.

The Analyst

Sumant Kulkarni upgraded Biogen from Hold to Buy and increased the price target from $305 to $360.

The Thesis

Even the aducanumab skeptics agree for a variety of reasons it has a decent shot at FDA approval, and this likelihood is not reflected in shares at current levels, Kulkarni said in a note. The analyst likes the opportunity Biogen presents heading into the regulatory saga on aducanumab.
Kulkarni clarified that the update isn’t based on the merits or lack of thereof of the data or the longer-term implications of the eventual regulatory outcome on aducanumab.
“We cannot, however, underestimate investors’ fear of missing out on the potential to get ahead of what might be an approval for the first ever disease-altering therapy for Alzheimer’s, which simultaneously presents high unmet need and a large addressable market,” the analyst wrote in the note.
Kulkarni believes investors don’t appreciate Biogen’s excluding-aducanumab pipeline much. The firm pointed out that there are several readouts coming through 2021.
The firm also said it likes the growth Biogen’s biosimilars can drive over the longer term.
Kulkarni expects a fairly decent quarter when Biogen reports results on Thursday. Apart from the risk posed by aducanumab, the analyst sees other risks such as a ruling on Mylan NV’s MYL 2.49% inter partes review on the Tecfidera patent in early February and competitive pressure for spinal muscular dystrophy drug Spinraza.
https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/20/01/15189591/biogens-alzheimers-drug-has-decent-shot-at-fda-approval-analyst-says

Coronavirus fears wipe billions from European stocks

Potential damage to business from China’s fast-spreading coronavirus knocked more than 2% off European stocks on Monday, after the world’s second biggest economy ramped up travel bans and extended the Lunar New Year holidays.

More than 97% of stocks in the STOXX 600 were trading in the red with many toppling from record highs, wiping out around 180 billion euros of market capitalisation from the European share index.
The biggest jolt was felt by luxury, airlines and hotel issues, which see big demand from Chinese consumers. Europe’s major luxury players have lost more than $50 billion in market value since the outbreak last week.
Most major country indices in Europe fell more than 2%, while regional sectors lost at least 1% each.
Germany’s DAX slumped almost 3%, while France’s CAC posted its worst day in almost four months as LVMH, Christian Dior, Hermes and Gucci owner Kering fell more than 3.6%.
Other companies in the luxury space such as Burberry Group Plc, Moncler SpA, Swiss watchmakers Swatch and Richemont declined between 2.5% and 4.8%.
Comparing the new coronavirus with the SARS outbreak in 2002-03, Bernstein analysts highlighted that Chinese nationals accounted for just 2% of the global luxury goods market in 2003 versus a whopping 35% in 2019.
“Equities are finally beginning to contemplate the possibility that the virus 2019-nCoV (coronavirus) in China will have significant economic impact as the lockdown is now affecting 56 million people,” said Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank.
Meanwhile, safe-haven investment options such as gold and government bonds rose as the death toll from the outbreak in China increased to 81 and the number of cases of infection jumped by about 30% in a day.
The Euro Stoxx 50 volatility index <.V2TX>, European investors’ “fear gauge”, has jumped to its highest level since Dec. 3.
“With a market looking to take some profit, what you’ll probably see until everything clears is a move from risk-on type of holdings to more value-focused holdings and going back to companies that pay decent dividends and are more domestically focused,” said Stephan Lueck, senior vice president, European equity sales at Auerbach Grayson.
“For the short-term, we should have a clearer picture in a week to two weeks. So give the market a few weeks to sell-off and if there aren’t too many deaths we should see some stability within a month and some normalcy going forward.”
With rising travel curbs, flight operators Air France, Lufthansa, cruise line operator Carnival Corp, hotel group Accor and IHG took a hit, with IHG clocking its worst day in more than three years. Europe’s travel & leisure index ended at its lowest in to nearly seven weeks.
The basic resources index eyed its worst day in nearly six months hit by growth fears in China, the world’s top metals consumer.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/Coronavirus-fears-wipe-billions-from-European-stocks–29894481/?countview=0

Akari Therapeutics up 6% on encouraging nomacopan data

Thinly traded nano cap Akari Therapeutics (AKTX +5.9%) is up on average volume in reaction to preclinical data on a long-acting version of lead drug nomacopan (PAS-nomacopan) that, it says, supports its use for back-of-the-eye diseases with less-frequent injections.

In a mouse model, PAS-nomacopan lowered intraocular levels of VEGF as effectively as an anti-VEGF antibody (74% and 68%, respectively) compared to saline control. It also significantly reduced retinal inflammation versus control.

A Phase 2 study in atopic keratoconjunctivitis is ongoing. Additional preclinical work will include models of AMD.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3534784-akari-therapeutics-up-6-on-encouraging-nomacopan-data

Numbers of those who can’t afford healthcare still rising

Passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and its enactment six years ago helped cut the nation’s uninsured by nearly half, from 49.9 million in 2010 to 25.6 million in 2017. Nevertheless, a huge unmet need remains for many to access medical services, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Between 1998 and 2017, the share of the U.S. population unable to see a doctor due to the associated costs of doing so rose from 11.4% to 15.7%, although the differences were even starker when divided among those with insurance coverage and those without. There were also increases in inability to see a physician among those with chronic conditions, and the proportion of women receiving mammograms dropped.
The study, authored by physicians and researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Cambridge Health Alliance and Hunter College, suggests that narrowing provider networks as well as increasing co-payments and out-of-pocket costs may be driving the trend.

More people have obtained insurance in recent years, but more are also being saddled with costs that not only burden their pocketbooks but also threaten their health.
The study’s authors analyzed 20 years of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, starting from January 1998 to the end of 2017. The data focused specifically on any adults ages 18 to 64, about 360,000 in all.
During that time period, the proportion of the economy devoted to expenditures on healthcare rose from 13.3% to 17.9%. Meanwhile, the proportion of uninsured in the survey shrunk from 16.9% in 1998 to 14.8% in 2017. Among African-Americans, it dropped from 22.1% to 16.6%.
Although the proportion of the population who could not afford to see a doctor rose 4.3 percentage points, the differences between those who have coverage and those who do not was striking.
Among those who lacked insurance, those who could not afford to see a doctor rose from 32.9% to 39.6% during the study’s time period. That’s an overall increase of 20.3%. But among those who had insurance, those who could not afford a doctor rose from 7.1% to 11.5% — an increase of nearly 62%.
The study was accompanied by a commentary penned by John Ayanian, director of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation at the University of Michigan. He noted that although the ACA significantly increased the number of insured, those middle-class and upper middle-class Americans with incomes about 400% of the federal poverty level (about $103,000 for a family of four) are feeling a squeeze. That group “saw no reduction in out-of-pocket spending and a significant 23% increase in health insurance premiums from 2012 to 2015,” he wrote.
The study raised concerns about this rising gap of those unable to see a doctor, particularly those with chronic conditions. “Financial barriers to care have been associated with increased hospitalizations and worse health outcomes in patients with cardiovascular disease and hypertension and increased morbidity among patients with diabetes,” the authors observed.
The study also noted the financial barriers to seeing doctors was far more formidable in the U.S. than in other countries. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development concluded only 9.1% of people worldwide skipped seeing doctors due to cost — in the U.S., the rate was 72.5% higher. In neighboring Canada, only 1% of citizens couldn’t afford to see a doctor.
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/aca-slashed-uninsured-rate-but-number-who-cant-afford-care-still-rising/571105/

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