WHO inspector 'has conflict of interest in Wuhan COVID probe'

 A prominent molecular biologist at Rutgers University claims that a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan has a conflict of interest, due to his ties with the Wuhan lab at the center of the inquest.

British zoologist and the president of EcoHealth Alliance Peter Daszak is the only individual to be part of both the WHO and The Lancet teams investigating the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. However, he has long-term professional and financial ties with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which represents a conflict of interest.

Richard H. Ebright is the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University, and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. He told Taiwan News that Daszak is the contractor who funded the WIV's research on bat SARS-related coronaviruses, with subcontracts of $200 million in USAID funding and $7 million in NIH funding.

Ebright said that Daszak is a collaborator on the WIV research for bat SARS-related coronaviruses. He lamented that the WHO named Daszak as a member of its review team, and The Lancet named Daszak as the head of its review team. Ebright said this makes "it clear that WHO and Lancet reviews cannot be considered credible investigations."

In addition to the funding EcoHealth Alliance receives from USAID, NIH, and other agencies, which it funnels into the WIV, Ebright stated the firm received US$30 million from the US Department of Defense.

When asked whether Daszak had been involved in the controversial gain of function experiments on bat coronaviruses at the WIV, Ebright said: "Daszak has been a contractor, a collaborator, and a co-author on work at the WIV on construction and analysis of novel chimeric coronaviruses."

A report by Independent Science News and a search of U.S. government databases revealed that EcoHealth Alliance received US$39 million in funding from the Pentagon from 2013 to 2020. Adding another US$64.7 million from USAID, the report found that Daszak's "non-profit organization" has raked in over US$103 million from the U.S. government.

Since 2014, Daszak's organization has funneled some of this U.S. government funding into the WIV to carry out research on bat coronaviruses. In the first phase of research, which took place from 2014 to 2019, Daszak coordinated with Shi Zhengli (石正麗) — also known as "Bat Woman" — at the WIV to investigate and catalog bat coronaviruses across China. EcoHealth Alliance received US$3.7 million in funding from the NIH for this research, and 10 percent was channeled to the WIV, reported NPR.

Shi Zhengli (center) and Peter Daszak (far right). (Emerging Viruses Group photo)

The second phase, which started in 2019, involved gain-of-function (GoF) research on coronaviruses and chimeras in humanized mice from the lab of Ralph S. Baric of the University of North Carolina. In a video interview originally recorded on Dec. 9, 2019, Daszak mentioned the testing of modified coronaviruses on human cells and humanized mice in the WIV, just weeks before the first cases of COVID-19 were announced in the city of Wuhan, China.

Daszak has dismissed the possibility of a lab leak, insisting since the start of the pandemic it's a "conspiracy theory" — without providing evidence for his claim. A report by U.S. Right to Know alleges that emails released through freedom of information requests reveal that Daszak persuaded 26 prominent scientists to sign a statement published in The Lancet on Feb. 19 2020, claiming that any suggestions that COVID-19 was not of natural origin are "conspiracy theories."

Four signatories of The Lancet statement are employed by EcoHealth Alliance. Six scientists who signed the statement, including Daszak, now comprise half of The Lancet's panel investigating the origins of the virus.

Furthermore, Daszak in 2015 co-authored an article in the journal Nature titled, "Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity," in which he stated that zoonotic virus spillover from wildlife was "most frequent" in a number of settings and occupations, including "laboratory workers." He also warned that laboratories are one of the most dangerous settings for major spillover events.

"Among all high risk interfaces and hosts, only viruses transmitted to humans by contact with wild animals in the wildlife trade and in laboratories ... were more likely to have broader geographic reach," Daszak said.

Daszak's colleague, Shi Zhengli, in 2010 published a paper describing a scenario in which infected rodents led to a deadly virus being leaked from a Chinese lab. The paper, titled, "Hantavirus outbreak associated with laboratory rats in Yunnan, China," detailed an outbreak of hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) at a college in Kunming as the result of a lab leak in 2003.

Since the start of the pandemic, both Daszak and Shi have denied that a lab leak occurred at the WIV. However, over a year since the outbreak, Shi has yet to provide independent investigators with access to the WIV's database and laboratory records.

Daszak has yet to respond to a request to comment on allegations that he has a conflict of interest in the WHO and The Lancet investigations. The WIV has also yet to reply to questions about their experiments in 2019.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4119101

Palihapitiya-backed Clover Health plunges as short-seller Hindenburg weighs in

 Noted short-selling specialist Hindenburg Research published a critical report of Chamath Palihapitiya-backed Clover Health Investments Corp on Thursday, sending the insurance firm’s down more than 10%, its biggest daily percentage drop in four months.

Venture capital investor Palihapitiya, who held a 27% stake in Clover Health as of Jan. 7, was among the big financial names to support last week’s GameStop buying frenzy against institutional short-sellers, saying early in the slugfest that he had bought in to the video game retailer.

The Hindenburg report hindenburgresearch.com/clover, the title of which called Clover Health a "broken business," risks reheating the battle between hedge fund short-sellers and investors.

Clover Health said it would be issuing a statement in the next few hours to address the claims made by Hindenburg. Neither Palihapitiya nor his representative immediately responded to a Reuters request for comment.

Hindenburg said in the report that it had no investment position in Clover Health.

Citron, another of the financial world’s famous short-selling research houses, said last week it would no longer publish reports recommending shorts.

Clover, which sells Medicare-backed insurance plans, went public through a $3.7 billion deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by Palihapitiya. Its other investors had included Alphabet Inc and Sequoia Capital.

Palihapitiya’s SPAC raised $720 million in April 2020 and six months later announced the tie-up with Clover.

In recent months, the popularity of using SPAC’s has exploded among startup companies who want to avoid the more traditional route of using an initial public offering to enter the market.

Clover shares closed down 12.33% at $12.23, the biggest daily percentage drop since Oct. 6. Volume in the session topped 68 million units, by far the most active trading day in the stock’s history and well above its 10-day average of about 14.4 million.

Shares of Clover had fallen 16.8% so far this year before Thursday’s tumble.

In September, Hindenburg issued a report on Nikola Corp calling it an “intricate fraud built on dozens of lies.” Shares of the electric truck maker have fallen about 35% since the report.

In a Dec. 15 report, Hindenburg said it remained short on Loop Industries with a $0 price target. Shares of Loop have climbed nearly 50% since.

https://www.reuters.com/article/clover-health-short-seller/update-4-palihapitiya-backed-clover-health-plunges-after-short-seller-hindenburg-weighs-in-idUSL4N2KA3NP

Sana Biotech valued at over $6 billion in market debut

 Shares of gene-regulation startup Sana Biotechnology Inc surged 40% in their U.S. stock market debut on Thursday, giving the Seattle-based company a market capitalization of $6.38 billion.

It offered 23.5 million shares in its initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday, raising about $587.5 million in what was the largest-ever IPO for a preclinical biotech company.

The company’s shares opened at $35, well above the IPO price of $25 per share.

Sana, founded in 2018, is led by several co-founders of another Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company, Juno Therapeutics, which is a unit of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

The biotech firm has raised a total of around $865 million in funding so far from investors including venture capital firm Arch Venture Partners and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, according to data from PitchBook.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and BofA Securities were the lead underwriters for the offering.

https://www.reuters.com/article/sana-biotech-ipo/sana-biotech-valued-at-over-6-bln-in-market-debut-idUSL4N2KA49K

J&J asks emergency authorization from FDA for Covid vaccine

 Johnson & Johnson applied for an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its coronavirus vaccine after releasing data last week showing it was about 66% effective in protecting against the virus.

If J&J’s application is approved, it would be the third Covid-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use in the U.S. behind those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Pfizer’s vaccine was authorized by the FDA on Dec. 11, and Moderna’s was authorized a week later.

“Today’s submission for Emergency Use Authorization of our investigational single-shot COVID-19 vaccine is a pivotal step toward reducing the burden of disease for people globally and putting an end to the pandemic,” J&J’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Paul Stoffels, said in a statement.

“Upon authorization of our investigational COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, we are ready to begin shipping,” he said. “With our submission to the FDA and our ongoing reviews with other health authorities around the world, we are working with great urgency to make our investigational vaccine available to the public as quickly as possible.”

U.S. officials and Wall Street analysts are eagerly anticipating the authorization of J&J’s vaccine, which could happen as early as this month. President Joe Biden is trying to pick up the pace of vaccinations in the U.S. and experts say his administration will need an array of drugs and vaccines to defeat the virus, which has killed more than 450,000 Americans over the last year, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Unlike Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines, which require two doses given about three to four weeks apart, J&J’s medication only requires one dose, easing logistics for health-care providers.

J&J said on Jan. 29 that its vaccine was 66% effective overall in protecting against Covid-19. The vaccine, however, appeared to be less potent against other variants. The level of protection was just 57% in South Africa, where a new, highly contagious strain called B.1.351 is rapidly spreading. South Carolina officials detected the first-known U.S. case of that strain last month.

Infectious disease experts point out that J&J’s numbers can’t be used as a direct comparison with Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines, which were found to be 95% and 94% effective, respectively. That’s because J&J’s vaccine is a single dose and the company’s trial was conducted when there were more infections and new, more contagious variants, they said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said the most crucial finding of the J&J data was the vaccine appeared to be 85% effective in preventing severe disease.

“The most important thing, more important than whether you prevent someone from getting aches and a sore throat, is preventing people” from getting severe disease, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on a call with reporters on Jan. 29. “That will alleviate so much of the stress and human suffering and death in this epidemic.”

The FDA has indicated it would authorize a vaccine that’s safe and at least 50% effective. The flu vaccine, by comparison, generally reduces people’s risk of getting influenza by 40% to 60% compared with people who aren’t inoculated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

J&J has said it plans to ship the vaccine at 36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be stored in ultra-cold freezers that keep it between negative 112 and negative 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Moderna’s vaccine needs to be shipped at between negative 13 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it reached a deal with Janssen, J&J’s pharmaceutical subsidiary, worth approximately $1 billion for 100 million doses of its vaccine. The deal gives the federal government the option to order an additional 200 million doses, according to the announcement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/04/covid-vaccine-jj-requests-fda-emergency-use-authorization.html

I-Mab (IMAB) Target Raised at Cantor

 Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Louise Chen raised the price target on I-Mab (NASDAQ: IMAB) to $76.00 (from $55.00).

https://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/I-Mab+%28IMAB%29+PT+Raised+to+%2476+at+Cantor+Fitzgerald/17914325.html

HC Wainwright & Co. Upgrades Ocugen to Buy

 Target $4.50

https://www.benzinga.com/news/21/02/19484339/hc-wainwright-co-upgrades-ocugen-to-buy-announces-4-5-price-target

'Strong Buy Penny Stocks With Over 200% Upside Potential'

 Let’s talk about risk and the big picture. It’s an appropriate time, as the big risk – presented by the COVID-19 pandemic – is finally receding thanks to the ongoing vaccination program. COVID is leaving behind an economy that was forced into shutdown one year ago while in the midst of a great expansion, boosted by the deregulation policies. While the new Biden Administration is busy reversing many Trump policies, at least for now the economy is rebounding.

And this brings us to risk. A time of economic growth and rebound is a forgiving time to move toward risk investments, as general economic growth tends to lift everything. Two strategists from JPMorgan have recently chimed in, promoting the view that the market’s fundamentals are still sound, and that small- to mid-cap sector is going to keep rising.

First, on the general conditions, quant strategist Dubravko Lakos-Bujas wrote, “Although the recent technical selloff and short squeeze is receiving a lot of attention, we believe the positive macro setup, improving fundamentals and COVID-19 outlook, strength of the US consumer, as well as the reflation theme remain the bigger forces at play. Not only should this drive further equity upside, but it remains favorable for continued rotation into economic reopening…”

Building on this, Eduardo Lecubarr, chief of the Small/Mid-Cap Strategy team, sees opportunity for investors now, especially in the smaller value stocks.

“We stick to our view that 2021 will be a stockpicker’s paradise with big money-making opportunities if you are willing to go against the grain… Many macro indicators did fall in January but SMid-Caps and equities in general continued to edge higher,” Lecubarr noted.

And if you are prone to look at high-risk, small- to mid-cap stocks, you’ll find yourself drawn to penny stocks. The risk involved with these plays scares off the faint hearted as very real problems like weak fundamentals or overwhelming headwinds could be masked by the low share prices.

So, how should investors approach a potential penny stock investment? By taking a cue from the analyst community. These experts bring in-depth knowledge of the industries they cover and substantial experience to the table.

Bearing this in mind, we used TipRanks’ database to find two compelling penny stocks, according to Wall Street analysts. Both tickers boast a Strong Buy consensus rating and could climb over 200% higher in the year ahead.

CNS Pharmaceuticals (CNSP)

We will start with CNS Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company with a focus on the treatment of glioblastomas, a class of aggressive tumors that attack the braid and spinal cord. These cancers, while rare, are almost always terminal, and CNS is working a new therapy designed to more effectively cross the blood-brain barrier to attack glioblastoma.

Berubicin, CNS’s flagship drug candidate, is an anthracycline, a potent class of chemotherapy drugs derived from the Streptomyces bacteria strains, and used in the treatment of a wide variety of cancers. Berubicin is the first drug in this class to show promise against glioblastoma cancers.

The drug candidate has completed its Phase 1 clinical trial, in which 44% of patients showed a clinical response. This number included one patient who showed a ‘Durable Complete Response,’ defined as a demonstrated lack of detectable cancer.

Following the success of the Phase 1 study, CNS applied for, and received, FDA approval of its Investigational New Drug application. This gives the company the go-ahead to conduct a Phase 2 study on adult patients, an important next step in the development of the drug. CNS plans to start the mid-stage trial in 1Q21.

Based on the potential of the company’s asset in glioblastoma, and with its share price at $2.22, several analysts believe that now is the time to buy.

Among the bulls is Brookline’s 5-star analyst Kumaraguru Raja who takes a bullish stance on CNSP shares.

“Until now, the inability of anthracyclines to cross the blood brain barrier prevented its use for treatment of brain cancers. Berubicin is the first anthracycline to cross the blood-brain barrier in adults and access brain tumors… Berubicin has promising clinical data in a Phase 1 trial in recurrent glioblastoma (rGBM) and has Orphan drug designation for treatment of malignant gliomas from the FDA. We model approval of Berubicin for treatment of recurrent glioblastoma in 2025 based on the Phase 2 data with 55% probability of success for approval. We model peak sales of $533 million in 2032,” Raja opined.

“CNS pipeline also includes WP1244 (novel DNA binding agent) that is 500x more potent than daunorubicin in inhibiting tumor cell proliferation is expected to enter the clinic in 2021… In vivo testing in orthotopic models of brain cancer showed high uptake of WP1244 by brain and subsequent antitumor activity,” the analyst added.

To this end, Raja rates CNSP a Buy, and his $10 price target implies room for a stunning 350% upside potential in the next 12 months. (To watch Raja’s track record, click here)

What does the rest of the Street have to say? 3 Buys and 1 Hold add up to a Strong Buy consensus rating. Given the $8.33 average price target, shares could climb ~275% in the year ahead. (See CNSP stock analysis on TipRanks)

aTyr Pharma (LIFE)

The next stock we’re looking at, aTyr Pharma, has a focus on inflammatory disease. Its leading drug candidate, ATYR1923, is a Neuropilin-2 (NRP2) agonist, working through the receptor proteins expressed by the NRP2 gene. These pathways are important for cardiovascular development and disease, and play a role in the inflammatory lung disease pulmonary sarcoidosis.

In December, the company reported that the drug candidate had completed enrollment of 36 patients in a Phase 1b/2a clinical trial, testing the drug in the treatment of pulmonary sarcoidosis. Results of the current study are expected in 3Q21, and will inform further trials of ATYR1923, including against other forms of inflammatory lung disease.

On a more immediate note, in early January the company announced top-line results of another Phase 2 clinical involving ATRY1923 – this time in the treatment of patients hospitalized with severe respiratory complications from COVID-19. The results were positive, showing that a single dose of ATYR1923 (at 3 mg/kg) resulted in a 5.5-day median recovery time. Overall, of the patients dosed in this manner, 83% saw recovery in less than one week.

Covering LIFE for Roth Capital, 5-star analyst Zegbeh Jallah noted, “We like the risk profile here, with two shots on goal, and updated data details from the COVID study is expected in the coming months. Also announced recently, is that data from aTyr's Pulmonary Sarcoidosis program, will be reported in 3Q21… the success of either of these studies could result in a doubling or more of the market cap as these opportunities appear to barely be accounted for by investors.”

In line with his optimistic approach, Jallah gives LIFE shares a Buy rating and his $15 price target suggests an impressive 277% potential upside for the coming year. (To watch Jallah’s track record, click here)

Other analysts are on the same page. With 2 additional Buy ratings, the word on the Street is that LIFE is a Strong Buy. On top of this, the average price target is $13.33, suggesting robust growth of ~236% from the current price of $3.97. (See LIFE stock analysis on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for penny stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-strong-buy-penny-stocks-165357551.html