US IPO market activity is picking back up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, with seven IPOs scheduled to raise $3.4 billion in the week ahead.
Biotech research product provider Maravai LifeSciences (MRVI) plans to raise $1.3 billion at a $6.6 billion market cap. Maravai provides critical products to enable development of drugs, diagnostics, novel vaccines, and support research on human diseases. The company’s more than 5,000 customers include the top 20 global biopharmas by R&D spend. Maravai has seen increased demand in recent months due to COVID-19.
Lab service provider Sotera Health (SHC) plans to raise $1.0 billion at a $6.0 billion market cap. Sotera Health provides sterilization, testing, and advisory services to research labs in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. Slow growing and profitable, the company serves more than 40 of the top 50 medical device companies and 8 of the top 10 global pharmaceuticals by revenue. ...
BioAtla, a Phase 2 biotech developing antibody therapies for solid tumor cancers, filed on Friday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering.
The company is developing a novel class of specific and selective antibody-based therapeutics. Its conditionally active biologics capitalize on its proprietary discoveries with respect to tumor biology, enabling it to target known and widely validated tumor antigens that have previously been difficult or impossible to target. BioAtla has initiated Phase 2 trials for its two latest stage antibody-drug conjugate candidates BA3011 and BA3021 in multiple cancer indications, with interim data expected in 2021.
The San Diego, CA-based company was founded in 2007 and booked $3 million in collaboration revenue for the 12 months ended September 30, 2020. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol BCAB. BioAtla filed confidentially on October 6, 2020. J.P. Morgan, Jefferies and Credit Suisse are the joint bookrunners on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.
Kinnate Biopharma, an oncology biotech developing small molecule kinase inhibitors, filed on Friday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering.
Kinnate is focused on the discovery and development of small molecule kinase inhibitors for difficult-to-treat, genomically defined cancers. Its lead candidate, KIN002787, is a Rapidly Accelerated Fibrosarcoma (RAF) inhibitor for the treatment of patients with lung cancer, melanoma, and other solid tumors. The company expects to file an IND for KIN002787 in the 1H21.
The San Diego, CA-based company was founded in 2018 and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol KNTE. Kinnate Biopharma filed confidentially on September 4, 2020. Goldman Sachs, SVB Leerink, Piper Sandler and Wedbush PacGrow are the joint bookrunners on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.
With thousands of scientists around the world racing to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, policy makers may need to decide who is at the front of the vaccination queue if initial supplies are limited.
Such decisions loom closer as drug giant Pfizer announces a vaccine that is 90 percent effective in people not previously infected with the virus, and researchers at Macquarie University, QUT and Australia's national agency CSIRO may have a solution once a vaccine is ready.
They've developed a theoretical model for a new vaccination strategy that would have the biggest impact—with the least amount of resources—on suppressing the spread of the coronavirus by identifying locations visited by people who are most likely to become so-called superspreaders and vaccinating them.
The research team used anonymised location data for the movements of 600,000 people in Shanghai and Beijing who were on a messaging app called Momo. The team analyzed a staggering 56 million location visits in just 71 days.
"Focusing on the locations where a potential superspreader visits and vaccinating all direct and indirect contacts in the cluster at those locations is the most effective method," says Professor Bernard Mans of Macquarie's Department of Computing.
"We found this approach would be as good as vaccinating identified superspreaders based on an accurate contact list, and significantly better than random vaccinations."
A superspreader is someone who transmits an infectious disease to an unexpectedly large number of other people.
The researchers then calculated all the other people they would have come in direct and indirect contact with and then extrapolated these trends to develop a model to test the theoretical effectiveness of a vaccine strategy.
Using the location data, they ranked people into six classes by the number of places they'd visited—the higher the number the more contacts. For example, Class 1 meant the person had only stayed at home or visited local shops and been in contact with up to five people. A person in Class 2 would have also gone to a coffee shop or a bus stop and been in direct and indirect contact with up to 15 people.
A Class 3 person would have gone to a local train station or the office, a small park or a swimming pool and been in close proximity to up to 25 people, whereas a Class 6 person had visited highly populated public places like universities, airports and stadiums and potentially been in direct and indirect contact with more than a hundred people. The Class 6 people are clearly more likely to become superspreaders.
"Our research shows that to be effective (and realistic), it's not about who exactly a superspreader has been in contact with 24x7 but where they've been that should be the focus of vaccination," Mans says. Past research has shown for privacy reasons, people often won't reveal all their contacts or they forget all the people who they've met—so it is unreliable.
Mans points out that until now, current theoretical vaccination strategies were not designed to capture indirect transmissions and potentially miss out on individuals' numerous indirect links, such as people who get into a lift after them. Focusing on location means you can easily discover indirect as well as direct contacts.
Initially, when the researchers began their analysis, they were creating predictive models to determine who should be vaccinated against influenza or any disease with potential indirect transmission. With the onset of the COVID-19, they expanded their scope to focus on vaccines for global pandemic.
The team have also assessed strategies for a preventative and a reactive approach. In the case of COVID-19, because the pandemic has already spread across the world, it is obviously too late to prevent it.
If this vaccine strategy is to be put into practice once a COVID-19 vaccine is ready, Mans emphasizes the importance for public locations such as restaurants, cafes, clubs, shops, sporting and entertainment facilities to generate an accurate list of patrons so that they could be traced and vaccinated.
More information:
Md Shahzamal et al. Vaccination strategies on dynamic networks with indirect transmission links and limited contact information, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241612
Proper ventilation in indoor living spaces helps prevent all sorts of illnesses and reduces the transmission of viruses. This is common knowledge, not rocket science. The fresher and cleaner the air we breathe the better for our health.
The use of portable air purifiers at home and in the office, as well as the novel wearable air purifiers that we can carry along with us, can reduce airborne viruses and germs in the living and working space.
Wearable air purifiers can help clean the air in your personal space --this is about one square meter around us, or the area around you when you extend your both arms-- in other indoor and crowded spaces such as elevators, airports, airplanes, and public transport among others.
Coronavirus particles fall within the particle-size range that HEPA filters capture. HEPA filters are those filters found in some air purifiers which capture particles of 0.01 micron and larger. A portable air cleaner --also called an air purifier-- with a HEPA filter can definitely help reduce the risk of airborne transmission of Covid-19.
Dr. Gregory Poland, a Mayo Clinic infectious diseases expert, says that indeed, air purifiers generally can help. "The more air exchanges and the cleaner the air, the lower the risk," says Dr. Poland. "By itself, it's not satisfactory, so what we're doing, as we've talked about over the months [during the pandemic], is layering protections. Let's be sure the air in our home, if we are having people over, is as safe as it can be. That means a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter."
According to Dr. Poland, it is not necessary to spend a great deal of money in order to purchase a quality high-efficiency particulate air filter. Portable air filters are designed to filter the air in a single room only. However, they cannot remove all air contaminants.
"The virus is not expelled on its own. The virus has to attach to something. A microscopic piece of mucus, a piece of dust in the environment --that's how it travels. A HEPA filter catches those and holds them there. It does mean that you have to change your filter at appropriate intervals," Dr. Poland says. The filter does not kill the virus, but rather it exchanges clean air more rapidly to get rid of the virus.
"With a HEPA filter, it's being attached electrostatically to the filter itself so that it cannot then circulate in the air, which is why changing the filters and changing them properly is so important," says Dr. Poland.
Indeed. Dr. Poland reminds us that using air purifiers and filters may be one more tool to reduce the risk of contracting Covid-19, along with continued face-masking when with others or when in public places, social distancing, and using hand sanitizers. Every single layer of protection adds to keeping us safe.
Here are some tips on how to use a portable air filter:
Place the air purifier in the room that you spend the most time in, or where vulnerable people spend the most time
To reduce risks of airborne transmission, direct the airflow of the air cleaner so that it does not blow directly from one person to another
Dr. Poland also recommends getting a flu vaccination this season, something especially important as part of the Covid-19 plan of protection. "Influenza vaccines are very safe, and are moderately effective," he says. "It will decrease your own anxiety about what these respiratory symptoms may mean. It will prevent you from going into quarantine. And it will prevent a surge in demand on the medical system, which is important for somebody who may actually have Covid-19 rather than influenza."
How air purifiers work
How air purifiers work or how effective they are when they are operating is not obvious, simply because it is not visible. Both portable and wearable air purifiers work by emitting electrically charged molecules or atoms, called ions.
These ions transfer the charge to particles such as the ones carrying a flu virus. These particles, which are invisible to the naked eye, are in a person's breathing zone. Charged particles repel each other and infected particles are finally pushed out of the breathing zone.
Let's have a closer look at ion formation and the physics behind the invisible health benefits of air purifiers.
Positive ions vs negative ions: The physics behind air purifiers
To understand how air purifiers work first we need to understand the effect of positive and negative ions on humans' health. The most important benefit of negative ions is that they clear the air of airborne allergens such as pollen, mold spores, bacteria, and viruses. Besides, they also clear the air of dust, pet dander, and cigarette smoke.
The harmful effects of positive ions on human health is called ion poisoning. Atmospheric ions can negatively affect human beings' health, well-being, efficiency, emotions, and mental attitude.
On the other hand, the positive effects of elevated negative ion levels in the air on human health include enhanced feelings of relaxation, reduced stress levels, reduced tiredness, reduced irritability and depression, and enhanced immune system. An enhanced immune system helps fight Covid-19.
It is quite easy to make negative ions in your house. Burning beeswax candles help clean the air, produce negative ions, and can assist with allergy and asthma reduction. Running an indoor water fountain creates a force or energy and the falling water causes the neutral particles in the air to split, which frees electrons to attach to other air molecules resulting in negative ions. Both candles and water fountains are pretty, very calming, and relaxing as well.
This air purifier is great for the desktop. It comes with a HEPA Filter and a micro USB cable. According to the manufacturer, it filters 99.97 percent of dust, pollen, cigarette smoke, odors, mold spores, and pet dander.
It filters particles as small as 0.3 microns and larger, and filters air pollution of PM 2.5 (pollution rate) to help improve overall health and improve air quality in small rooms.
It is portable and weighs 550 grams. It can easily cover an area of about 10 square meters. It will automatically power off after 8 hours of use. It has blue LED night light. The negative ions bring efficient air filtration.
Wearable air purifier necklaces
By using pulse tip technology, wearable purifiers release a large amount of oxygen anion. Negative ions kill harmful bacteria, viruses, mold, decompose cigarette smoke, odor and formaldehyde, benzene, and other harmful gases released by car parts. Negative ions promote metabolism, activate cells, refresh, and relieve motion sickness.
Unlike portable air purifiers, wearable mini air purifiers have been conveniently designed in the form of a necklace and they do not need a filter. They come with a USB cable and can easily be changed anywhere.
They are stylish, convenient to carry, and easy to operate with just one on/off button. Wearable air purifiers are designed to clean the air in your personal space by emitting millions of negative ions.
The likelihood that a coronavirus infection will prove fatal has dropped by nearly a third since April due to improved treatment, researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) said on Thursday.
In the United States, COVID-19 now kills about 0.6% of people infected with the virus, compared with around 0.9% early in the pandemic, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray told Reuters.
He said statistics reflect that doctors have figured out better ways to care for patients, including the use of blood thinners and oxygen support. Effective treatments, such as the generic steroid dexamethasone, have also been identified.
Experts have struggled to accurately measure a crucial metric in the pandemic: the fatality rate, or percentage of people infected with the pathogen who are likely to die. The difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that many people who become infected do not experience symptoms and are never identified.
IHME said it had been using an infection-fatality rate (IFR) derived from surveys after accounting for age. Older people are at much higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than younger people.
“We know the risk is profoundly age-related. For every one year of age, the risk of death increases by 9%,” Murray said.
The Seattle institute, an influential source of COVID-19 forecasts, said it has also determined that the fatality rate for COVID-19 is worse in communities with high levels of obesity.
The group said it has now switched to an IFR that varies over time - declining since the first pandemic wave in March and April by around 0.19% per day until the beginning of September.
It also varies across locations as a function of obesity prevalence, and continues to vary based on population distribution by age.
IHME said its analysis of age-standardized fatality rates from more than 300 surveys suggests a 30% decline since March/April.
Despite that positive trend, infections and hospitalizations have spiked across the country in recent weeks. The group said its modeling suggests 439,000 cumulative U.S. deaths by March 1, and a peak of daily deaths in mid-January at 2,200.
Over two-fifths of adults went without adequate insurance coverage in the first half of this year, according to new research from the Commonwealth Fund. That includes more than 40 million who are "underinsured."
Those headline numbers are scary. They're also misleading. Far too many Americans lack access to affordable health insurance. But that's largely a function of government over-regulation.
Let's start by unpacking what it means to be "underinsured." One of the ways the Commonwealth Fund considers someone underinsured is if his or her deductible accounts for 5 percent or more of annual household income.
That's not much. It's less than the average American family spends on entertainment and eating out each year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Are we really facing an underinsured crisis when that "crisis" hinges on less than what we spend on the likes of dinner and a movie?
The definition of underinsured also ignores the role that individual choice may play in purchasing coverage. This year, the average monthly premium for a mid-level silver individual plan for a 27-year-old was $374, according to research from eHealth. The average monthly premium for a less generous bronze plan was $278.
That lower premium typically carries a much higher deductible. The median bronze plan deductible was more than $6,700 this year, compared to just over $4,600 for the median silver deductible.
Our hypothetical 27-year-old may be better off financially with a higher deductible and lower premiums. But that decision could render him "underinsured" under the Commonwealth Fund's rubric, even if he chooses to be so.
Short-term, limited-duration health insurance might be another option for our hypothetical young adult to explore. These plans are exempt from Obamacare's many cost-inflating rules and mandates, including its requirement that policies cover ten "essential" health benefits.
As a result, these plans are far cheaper than most of those available on the Obamacare exchanges. In some cases, short-term plans provide the same level of coverage for half the premium of an equivalent exchange plan, according to research from the Manhattan Institute.
A 2018 rule issued by the Trump administration allows short-term plans to last for up to one year -- and for insurers to renew them for up to three consecutive years.
The Commonwealth Fund, and the leaders of the Democratic Party, dismiss short-term plans as "junk" insurance. Unfortunately, more than half of states agree with them to some extent. In 11 states, such plans are not available at all. Another 21 states have more restrictions on short-term plans than the Trump administration rule envisions.
This is folly. Not everyone wants, or needs, comprehensive coverage. They're simply looking for affordable financial protection in the event they suffer a healthcare catastrophe.
That kind of affordable protection is increasingly unavailable on Obamacare's exchanges. Average premiums for benchmark plans have increased nearly 70 percent since the exchanges opened. The median deductible for a silver plan surged 33 percent between 2016 and 2020.
Without subsidies, most of these plans are out of reach for the average person. It's therefore unsurprising that unsubsidized enrollment in Obamacare plans declined by 2.8 million people between 2016 and 2019 -- a 45 percent drop.
Americans could certainly use some more affordable health insurance options. But government regulations are keeping many of those affordable options off the market. The supposed "underinsured" crisis is one of the government's own making.
