Anthem latest insurer to waive patient costs for coronavirus testing

Anthem (ANTM -4.3%) is following Cigna’s lead with its announcement that its members will incur no out-of-pocket cost for coronavirus screening tests and no prior authorization for diagnostic services will be required.

It also recommends that members utilize telehealth when possible in an effort to mitigate the risk of infection or spread of COVID-19.

Cigna announced its waiver yesterday as did CVS Health’s Aetna.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3549487-anthem-latest-insurer-to-waive-patient-costs-for-coronavirus-testing

Pfizer weighs working with BioNTech on potential coronavirus vaccine

Pfizer Inc is considering a collaboration with German drugmaker BioNTech SE to develop vaccines for the coronavirus using BioNTech’s mRNA-based drug development platform, Pfizer’s R&D head told Reuters.

Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten was one of the pharmaceutical executives who attended a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss possible vaccines and treatments for the fast-spreading virus on Monday.
He had said then that the company was working on developing an anti-viral therapy to help patients who already have contracted the virus. But he said on Thursday that Pfizer was considering joining companies like Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi and Moderna in the race to develop a vaccine to inoculate healthy patients.
Dolsten said that Pfizer, which already collaborates with BioNTech on the development of mRNA-based vaccines for influenza, is also interested in the company’s efforts in coronavirus.
“We will share some of our thoughts with BioNTech also on what they do on COVID-19 and evaluate whether there are things that could merit to do together,” he said.
BioNTech has been considering using its mRNA platform to develop a vaccine for coronavirus since earlier this year, BioNTech chief executive officer Ugur Sahin told Reuters in an interview last month.
An mRNA-based vaccine, which uses synthetic messenger RNA to help the body immunize itself against a virus, can potentially be developed and manufactured more quickly than traditional vaccines.
Moderna, which also focuses on mRNA-based therapies, has already developed an experimental coronavirus vaccine using a similar method to BioNTech. Moderna plans to begin clinical trials of its vaccine later this month.
ANTIVIRALS
Dolsten also gave more details about the company’s efforts to develop potential anti-viral treatments for the virus, which are currently being screened by a third-party company to see how it performs against the virus in a laboratory setting.
Pfizer said these compounds could potentially be used in conjunction with another antiviral treatment being developed by Gilead Sciences called remdesivir, which is further along in the development process.
Pfizer’s compounds use a different mechanism of action than Gilead’s to attack the virus, Dolsten said, with Pfizer’s looking to attack the protease segment of the virus.
The protease “is one of the best drug targets in the viral sector,” Dolsten said. “It has been one of the most effective for HIV and HCV and our analysis confirmed that the COVID-19 protease target was very similar to one we had been working on for another virus.”
He declined to say what virus the compounds had been originally developed to fight.
Gilead’s drug is focused on a target called the polymerase, Dolsten said. He said there were opportunities for Pfizer’s compounds – if they are successful – to work in combination or sequentially with Gilead’s.
“In other viral studies when you hit the two different mechanisms, you see a far better outcome, a much bigger cure rate than if you just work on a similar target,” he said.
Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said on Wednesday that remdesivir is in late stage clinical trials in both China and the United States. He said the company should know “in the next couple of months” whether the drug helps treat patients with the coronavirus.

https://www.marketscreener.com/GILEAD-SCIENCES-4876/news/Pfizer-weighs-working-with-BioNTech-on-potential-coronavirus-vaccine-R-D-head-30117715/

Shortage of Chinese parts caused $50B fall in February’s global exports: UN

China’s exports of vital parts and components for products ranging from automobiles to cellphones are estimated to have shrunk by an annualized 2% in February, costing other countries and their industries $50 billion, a United Nations agency said on Wednesday.
The world’s second-largest economy – and epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak that has spread to 75 nations – accounts for a fifth of global trade in intermediate products. Many countries rely on its manufacturing inputs, it said.
“There is a ripple effect throughout the global economy to the tune of a $50 billion fall in exports across the world,” Pamela Coke-Hamilton, director of UNCTAD’s division of international trade, told a Geneva news briefing.
The figure, which covers only the month of February, is preliminary and may be a “conservative estimate”, she said.
It was partly based on China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), issued on Saturday, showing factory activity in China contracted at the fastest pace ever in February, even worse than during the global financial crisis, highlighting the colossal damage from the coronavirus outbreak.
Countries or regions suffering the highest export losses due to the disruption are the European Union (EU), with nearly $15.6 billion, the United States ($5.8 billion), Japan ($5.2 billion), the Republic of Korea ($3.8 billion), Taiwan ($2.7 billion) and Vietnam ($2.3 billion), according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Precision instruments, machinery, automotive and communication equipment are the hardest-hit sectors, it said in its report which does not cover agriculture or services.
The report cited carmaker Honda as saying it would reduce vehicle output at two of its domestic plants in Japan’s Saitama Prefecture for a week or so in March due to concerns about parts supply from China.
“The impact on the automotive industry in the European Union is about $2.5 billion,” said Alessandro Nicita, an UNCTAD economist.
Asked whether manufacturers might shift to diversify suppliers, Nicita said: “In the short term, no. Because it takes a while to identify new suppliers. In the long term, probably yes.”
China has built a huge logistics transport network including ports, shipping lanes and airplanes to move its goods, he said.
Referring to a gradual resumption in China’s industrial production, he said: “If it rebounds it can probably make up for the loss in February. If it stays low those numbers are going to compound and the situation for the global value chain is going to deteriorate even further.”
India, the world’s main supplier of generic drugs, has restricted the export of 26 pharmaceutical ingredients and the medicines made from them, including paracetamol, a common pain reliever also sold as acetaminophen, as the coronavirus outbreak plays havoc with supply chains.
Coke-Hamilton, asked whether such restrictions indicated the virus was having a ‘strangulating’ effect on the global supply chain, said: “In short, yes. It would seem so.”
“Assuming that it is not mitigated in the short term, it is likely that the overall impact on the global economy is going to be significant in terms of a negative downturn,” she said.

https://www.marketscreener.com/HYUNDAI-MOTOR-COMPANY-6492384/news/Shortage-of-Chinese-parts-caused-50-billion-fall-in-February-s-global-exports-U-N-30109015/

EU may waive state-subsidy rules to bolster virus-hit economy

European Union officials are considering temporarily suspending its rules on state subsidies and financial support to economic segments hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, an official said on Friday.
Euro zone growth is likely to be slower this year than the 1.2% forecast just last month because of the effects of the virus epidemic, the European Commission said in an internal preliminary assessment.
In addition to measures adopted by EU states to safeguard growth, the EU is considering targeted measures for sectors most in need, which include tourism, transport and carmakers.
“It could be that in some areas there is need for specific support that may require considerations on state aid rules,” the EU official said, adding that the discussions were at a preliminary stage.
“The Commission should establish a temporary state aid framework that allows member states to support an economy in the downward spiral,” EU center-right lawmaker Markus Ferber said. It should use as blueprint its response to the 2008-09 global financial crisis, he said.

The EU suspended parts of its state aid framework during the crisis to allow governments to bail out banks.
The EU official also said the European Investment Bank could offer further funding to sectors in need of immediate help, for instance through guarantees for liquidity financing to smaller firms.
The EU is also considering granting full flexibility from EU fiscal rules for states that need to spend more to combat the crisis.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healthcare-coronavirus-eu-support/eu-may-waive-state-subsidy-rules-to-bolster-virus-hit-economy-idUSKBN20T1XN

Fed needs wider QE mandate to deal with economic downturns: Rosengren

The Federal Reserve should be allowed to purchase a broader range of securities and assets if the coronavirus outbreak forces the U.S. central bank to launch a new round of big asset purchases to stimulate the economy, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said on Friday.

The central bank has begun to grapple with what measures it would use if the outbreak of the flu-like illness worsens in the United States and causes a severe economic downturn.
“We should allow the central bank to purchase a broader range of securities or assets,” Rosengren said in prepared remarks to the Shadow Open Market Committee economics conference in New York, noting it would require a change to the Fed’s mandate as set by Congress.
The Fed slashed its key overnight lending rate by half a percentage point on Tuesday to a target range of between 1.00% and 1.25% in an emergency move to mitigate the effects of the escalating global coronavirus outbreak on the U.S. economy. Investors are predicting further U.S. rate cuts in the near future.
Rosengren said such an approach would be necessary because if the Fed was forced to slash rates to effectively zero, the circumstances could have changed, which would limit the effectiveness of purchasing only Treasury and mortgage-backed securities, as the central bank did in the 2007-2009 recession. Those large-scale asset purchases are known as quantitative easing (QE), with the aim of stimulating the economy.
That change is the drop in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield. It fell to a record low of 0.66% earlier on Friday, on pace for its largest daily fall since October 2011 during the depths of the euro zone sovereign debt crisis, amid concerns the coronavirus outbreak could cause a global recession.
“There would be little room for the Federal Reserve to lower rates through large purchases of long-term Treasury securities – like it did to make conditions more accommodative in and after the Great Recession – if a recession occurred in this rate environment,” Rosengren said.
If the Fed did change its policy, it should be accompanied by agreement from the U.S. Treasury to indemnify the central bank against losses, Rosengren added.

He did not specify what types of other securities or assets the Fed would buy.
Rosengren also said he remained skeptical about introducing negative interest rates to the United States. Other central banks including in Europe in Japan, have pushed rates below zero.
“In my view, negative interest rates poorly position an economy to recover from a downturn,” Rosengren said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-rosengren/fed-needs-wider-qe-mandate-to-deal-with-economic-downturns-rosengren-idUSKBN20T2N1?il=0

Gilead up 3% ahead of expected COVID-19 drug data readout

Evercore ISI’s Umer Raffat says that preliminary data from a China-based study of Gilead Sciences’ (GILD +3.4%) remdesivir for the potential treatment of COVID-19 could be available this month, ahead of the expected release in April. The study began in early February at Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital, in the epicenter of the outbreak.

Health experts believe that the antiviral will show sufficient efficacy to warrant widespread deployment in an effort to corral the outbreak. A little over a month ago, the first confirmed case in the U.S., a man in Seattle, responded well to treatment. All symptoms, except his cough, resolved within a week.

Remdesivir (GS-5734), a nucleotide prodrug that blocks a key enzyme needed for viral replication, is also being developed for Ebola virus infection.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3549482-gilead-up-3-ahead-of-expected-covidminus-19-drug-data-readout

Tencent-backed WeDoctor invites banks to lead $1 billion Hong Kong IPO

WeDoctor will push ahead with a Hong Kong listing and invite pitches from investments banks next week to lead an IPO valuing the Chinese healthcare platform at up to $10 billion, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The Hangzhou-based company, which is backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd and Goldman Sachs, could look to raise up to $1 billion in the IPO, and could be among the first major Hong Kong listings since the coronavirus outbreak began.
WeDoctor has invited investment banks in Hong Kong and mainland China to a ‘beauty parade’, which will be held via video conferencing and in person at the company’s offices for bankers located in China, three sources said.
The company’s new chief financial officer John Cai, who is set to join from WeDoctor shareholder and strategic partner AIA where he was chief executive, will take part in the discussions from Hong Kong with bankers in the city.
Founded in 2010 by artificial intelligence expert Jerry Liao, WeDoctor has more than 210 million registered users mainly in China for its online appointment booking, prescription and diagnosis services. It is also linked to about 3,200 hospitals and 360,000 doctors.
The planned float, which will likely take place in the second half of the year, will include its core business – online healthcare services, one source said. It is considering whether to exclude some units such as cloud-services from the IPO.
WeDoctor declined to comment on its IPO plans.
The deal would be a sign that Hong Kong’s equity capital markets, which have been battered by a coronavirus-led slowdown, are set to regain some confidence in the second quarter of 2020.
WeDoctor raised $500 million https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tencent-wedoctor/tencents-wedoctor-raises-500-million-values-firm-at-5-5-billion-pre-ipo-idUSKBN1IA08G in a private funding round in May 2018 which valued the company at $5.5 billion at the time.
It is among a spate of technology-driven firms looking to shake up China’s overburdened public healthcare market, with increasingly affluent consumers willing to pay for ways to get more convenient access to doctors and health services.
Its move also comes two years after rival Ping An Good Doctor, formally known as Ping An Healthcare and Technology Co Ltd, raised $1.1 billion in an IPO, but saw its shares later tumble as investors worried about its high valuation.

https://www.marketscreener.com/TENCENT-HOLDINGS-LIMITED-3045861/news/Exclusive-Tencent-backed-WeDoctor-invites-banks-to-lead-1-billion-Hong-Kong-IPO-sources-say-30118949/