Healthcare services platform Signify Health sets terms for $423 million IPO

 Signify Health, which provides a value-based billing platform for in-home and bundled health services, announced terms for its IPO on Wednesday.

The Norwalk, CT-based company plans to raise $423 million by offering 23.5 million shares at a price range of $17 to $19. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Signify Health would command a fully diluted market value of $4.1 billion.

Signify Health is a leading healthcare platform that leverages analytics, technology, and nationwide healthcare provider networks to create and power value-based payment programs. Its customers include health plans, governments, employers, health systems, and physician groups. Its episode payment platform managed $6.1 billion of spend under the Medicare Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI-A) program in 2019, and the BPCI-A episodes it managed initiated in the 4Q19 resulted in approximately 15% greater discharges home from acute-care facilities and approximately 10% lower readmissions. Its mobile network of providers entered over 1 million unique homes to evaluate individuals in Medicare Advantage and other managed care plans in 2019.

Signify Health was founded in 2017 and booked $550 million in revenue for the 12 months ended September 30, 2020. It plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol SGFY. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, BofA Securities, UBS Investment Bank, Baird, Piper Sandler and William Blair are the joint bookrunners on the deal. It is expected to price during the week of February 8, 2021.

Relevant Profile: SGFY

https://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPO-Center/News/76042/Healthcare-services-platform-Signify-Health-sets-terms-for-$423-million-IPO#:~:text=Signify%20Health%2C%20which%20provides%20a,range%20of%20%2417%20to%20%2419.

Voyager cut to Neutral by BTIG

 From Buy.

https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=VYGR

TYME Granted U.S. Patent Claims Covering Use of TYME-19 to Treat COVID-19

 Tyme Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: TYME), an emerging biotechnology company developing cancer metabolism-based therapies (CMBTs™), announced that it has received notification that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted additional patent claims related to the Company’s metabolomic technology platform. The patent, U.S. Patent No. 10,905,698, is directed to methods for treating COVID-19.

Unlike immune therapies that depend upon the structure of the external virus coat of COVID-19 where the therapy directs its attack, we believe TYME-19 is agnostic to this structure and any mutations to the viral coat. Like other TYME agents, TYME-19 affects cellular metabolism. It constrains viral replication after a virus has inserted its genetic blueprint into an infected cell by inhibiting the ability of the virus to use the cells synthetic apparatus to make viral proteins and lipids. As a result, we believe that TYME-19 diminishes the ability of COVID-19 to hijack an infected cell. TYME intends to initiate the appropriate clinical trials to substantiate the safety and efficacy of TYME-19.

TYME-19 is an investigational compound that is not approved in the U.S. for any disease indication.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tyme-granted-u-patent-claims-130000101.html

Britain 'confident that Oxford vaccine works for all ages'

 Britain’s health secretary said that new research meant that there was a high degree of confidence that the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine works for all ages, after some countries said they would not give it to older age groups.

“We have a high degree of confidence that this vaccine works for all ages,” Matt Hancock told the BBC on Wednesday.

Britain is working on tightening controls at its borders to stop new variants of COVID-19 entering the country, he said, with details of a plan to make some arrivals quarantine in hotels due to be set out shortly, he added.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-hancock-va/britain-says-confident-that-oxford-vaccine-works-for-all-ages-hancock-idUSKBN2A312A

Dutch to roll out rapid breath tests for COVID-19

 The Netherlands is to introduce rapid COVID-19 breath tests to sites across the country to speed up the testing process and make it less intrusive.

Testing facilities in Amsterdam were this week the first to start using the SpiroNose, a machine which requires a person to breathe into it to indicate a possible coronavirus infection within a minute.

After months of trials, Dutch health authorities found the SpiroNose to be reliable in the case of negative test results, infectious disease expert Mariken van der Lubben of Amsterdam’s municipal health services told Reuters.

“If you are negatively tested, then it’s a very reliable outcome and you can go,” Van der Lubben said.

A positive test needed to be followed by a regular polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to establish whether the detected infection was caused by a coronavirus.

The Dutch health service has ordered around 1,800 machines with plans to introduce them in test facilities across the country in coming months.

“It’s a promising technology, especially because of the speed, you can get a result within a minute,” Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst said.

“That’s a game changer, if you can make a rapid diagnosis or rule out an infection within a minute.” But he added: “We don’t have enough results yet to unequivocally say this is the future, this is the way to go.”

Van Ranst said lengthy test periods comparing the breath test with the PCR test would be necessary to see whether the test could also make the distinction between different types of viruses.

Dutch health tech company Breathomix, which originally developed the machine to detect asthma and lung cancer, said it had collected enough data to reliably spot a possible coronavirus infection.

“In the past couple of months we have measured thousands of patients with corona and people who don’t have corona, so we know what is the average breath profile of corona and people without corona,” Breathomix executive Rianne de Vries said.

Breathomix is investigating options to use the SpiroNose in companies or schools, De Vries said, to help them create a safe environment.

But the machine will not offer a direct solution for reopening venues to large audiences, she said, as every test takes 2-3 minutes from start to finish. The machine is also sensitive to alcohol, smoke and other distracting factors in a person’s breath.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-netherlands-tests/dutch-to-roll-out-rapid-breath-tests-for-covid-19-idUSKBN2A31PF

AstraZeneca, Oxford expect 'next generation' COVID vax to tackle variants by autumn

 AstraZeneca and Oxford University aim to produce the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines that will protect against variants as soon as the autumn, a senior executive at the British drugmaker said on Wednesday.

Asked when AstraZeneca could produce a next generation vaccine to tackle new variants, AstraZeneca research chief Mene Pangalos said “as rapidly as possible”.

“We’re working very hard and we’re already talking about not just the variants that we have to make in laboratories, but also the clinical studies that we need to run,” he said in a briefing with media.

“We’re very much aiming to try and have something ready by the autumn, so this year.”

The partners are getting close to having data on the efficacy of their COVID-19 vaccine on older adults, Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec/astrazeneca-oxford-expect-next-generation-covid-19-vaccine-to-tackle-variants-by-autumn-executive-idUSKBN2A31ME

WallStreetBets targets Sellas for short squeeze

The stock price of Sellas Life Sciences Group Inc (NASDAQ: SLS) — a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development of novel cancer immunotherapies for various cancer indications in the United States — is trading at over 50% pre-market today as of 4:37 AM ET. This follows continued momentum from this week as the stock price of the company had increased 34.10% on Tuesday, February 2. 

One of the biggest reasons for the stock price increase has to do with due diligence about the company conducted by users on Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Facebook, StockTwits, etc. Users on Reddit forum “WallStreetBets” noted that Sellas is considered undervalued and highly shorted despite the company recently highlighting the development of novel cancer immunotherapies.

In the forums I have been seeing, a number of users on the aforementioned platforms said that it is frustrating that a company focused on developing cancer cures is being heavily shorted by hedge funds so they decided to counter those actions with a short squeeze.

A short squeeze happens when a stock price increases higher and forces traders who bet the price would fall to buy it in order to prevent further losses – which adds to upward pressure on the stock price. The short-sellers borrow the shares that they believe will fall in price in order to buy them after it falls. If they are wrong about the price falling, then the short-sellers are forced to buy it at a higher price and pay the difference between the price that was set and the sales price.

https://pulse2.com/sls-stock-price-nasdaq-sellas-life-sciences-group-increases-over-50-pre-market-why-it-happened/