U.S. Physical Therapy, Inc. ("USPH" or the "Company") (NYSE: USPH), a national operator of outpatient physical therapy clinics and provider of industrial injury prevention services, today announced an acquisition of a six-clinic physical therapy practice. The clinics are located in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
USPH acquired 70% of the equity interests of the physical therapy practice with the practice’s founder and owners retaining 30%. The purchase price for the 70% equity interest was approximately $3.5 million. The business generates more than $2.5 million in annual revenue and has approximately 26,000 patient visits per year.
Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has agreed to buy Forma Therapeutics in a deal valued at $1.1 billion to expand its blood disorders portfolio, the companies said on Thursday.
"We have an ambition to build a leading portfolio with standalone and combination treatments to tackle the complications and underlying causes of sickle cell disease," Novo Nordisk said in a statement.
Novo Nordisk, best known for its diabetes drugs, said it would pay 20 dollar per share, which is a premium of 92% to the U.S. company's volume-weighted average price per share over the past 30 days.
The Danish group said it expected the deal, which had been unanimously approved by Forma Therapeutic's board, to close in the fourth quarter and it would not impact Novo Nordisk's full-year guidance
Asian stocks tumbled after China announced the metropolis of Chengdu would lock down its 21 million residents as authorities battled a new Covid-19 outbreak.
In China's Western region, officials in Chengdu launched massive Covid testing and requested residents to abide by "stay home in principle" from 6 pm on Thursday. The new measure allows one person per household the ability to procure essential items at places like supermarkets.
"The current state of epidemic control is abnormal, complex, and grim," officials said, adding the lockdown aims to "decisively arrest the spread of the outbreak and guarantee the health of all citizens."
Chengdu is the biggest city to shut down since Shanghai's lockdown earlier this year. The move to lock down Chengdu will generate even more macro instability for the world's second-largest economy. It accounts for 1.7% of the national economy and is one of southwestern China's most important manufacturing hubs.
As the capital of Sichuan province -- the 6th-largest province in terms of annual GDP -- the metro area is home to 96 listed companies in the automobile, aerospace, IT, machinery, and pharmaceutical industries.
Automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp. and VW China. Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest assembler of Apple Inc.'s iPhones and other devices. All have manufacturing facilities in the city.
The lockdown was unexpected and caught investors off guard: Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slumped almost 2%, and CSI 300 Index dropped by nearly 1% to its lowest in three months.
Some US-listed Chinese stocks declined on the lockdown news. Alibaba traded 2% lower in the US premarket, while EV stocks such as Nio, XPeng, and Li Auto were down 3.4%, 3.1%, and 2.2%, respectively.
A spillover of pessimism from China leaked into European luxury stocks after HSBC analyst Erwan Rambourg downgraded LVMH, Hermes, Richemont, and Swatch to a "hold" from "buy." Rambourg wrote in a note he was more cautious about the short-term industry outlook, and valuation at these levels didn't make sense.
Analyst commentary (provided by Bloomberg) was overwhelmingly negative due to the uncertainty zero-Covid produces for the Chinese economy.
Bloomberg Intelligence, (Marvin Chen)
"China's Covid-zero policy will continue to be a risk for markets and sporadic lockdowns mean any reopening recovery will likely be a bumpy one"
"Local governments may ramp up efforts to contain rising Covid cases ahead of the 20th party congress"
Union Bancaire Privee, (Vey-Sern Ling)
Sporadic Covid-19 lockdowns such as this will pressure already-weak economic conditions in China but we do not expect the Covid-zero policy to shift substantially ahead of the 20th party congress in October"
AutoML Capital, (Rebecca Lim)
"This worsens the worry of China's economic slowdown, deepening of property crisis and even contagious to banking crisis if bad-loan continues"
The "stringent zero-Covid measures have been enforced for more than 2 years and the wider economic environment will have a bigger impact"
All residents in the southwestern Chinese city will be confined to their homes until they test negative for Covid. There was no guidance from officials on how long the lockdown will persist.
Also, in the Nanshan district in Shenzhen, tighter Covid measures beginning today through Sunday will close indoor public places, including cinemas, gyms, and bars, and halt in-person tutoring services to contain an outbreak.
New lockdowns will pressure Beijing's economic planners as the economy slips into the abyss as a worsening property market slowdown is causing turmoil among developers.
China's playbook to unleash stimulus primarily focused on infrastructure spending might not be enough to counter Covid lockdowns and a property market slump.
Scientists working to develop new therapies and treatments for heart failure patients have discovered three proteins that can be injected immediately after a heart attack, which have the potential to preserve heart function following an attack.
Positive preclinical data inScience Translational Medicine, published today, outlines the mechanisms of the three proteins, which have been shown to restoreheart functionfollowing aheart attackin mice.
Heart failure is the primary cause of death and disability globally, affecting approximately 64 million people worldwide according to the British Heart Foundation. There is currently no effective therapeutic treatment.
Led by Mauro Giacca, Professor of Cardiovascular Sciences at King's College London, researchers developed an innovative technology called FunSel that searched for proteins that could protect heart cells against the rapid cell death that typically occurs following a heart attack.
Forcefield Therapeutics, a pioneer of best-in-class therapeutics to retain heart function via protection of cardiomyocytes, which was launched in 2022 backed by leading healthcare investor Syncona, is undertaking the development work to enable clinical trials in patients in the future. The work originated at the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biology (ICGEB) and the University of Trieste, Italy.
Heart tissues from mice after heart attack, treated with either a control or the Chrdl1 protein. Credit: G. Ruozi, et al., Science Translational Medicine (2022)
Funsel, a protein "search engine" screens a library of human proteins to identify those with therapeutic potential, in an unbiased manner (unconstrained by the bias that researchers typically bring to drug development). Starting from a library of over 1,000 proteins, it identified three, (Chrdl1, Fam3c and Fam3b) which have been shown to prevent cardiac damage in mice after a heart attack and preserve cardiac function over time.
According to the British Heart Foundation, one person every five minutes is admitted to hospital with a heart attack in the UK. While 7 out of 10 people survive, heart attack is the main cause over time of heart failure—a condition that now affects almost one million people in the UK and 64 million worldwide.
Heart sections 60 days after heart attack in mice treated with various viral vectors, including a control and Chrdl1. Credit: G. Ruozi, et al., Science Translational Medicine (2022)
Heart failure after a heart attack is caused by the irreversible loss of cardiac cells, hence the need to develop effective therapies to prevent the death of these cells.
"This is the very first time that potentially curative factors for the heart are directly identified for their therapeutic potential," said Professor Mauro Giacca, Professor of Cardiovascular Sciences at King's College London. "Any of the three proteins we have identified can be administered immediately after a heart attack to minimize cardiac damage and thus prevent heart failure. There has been no significant development in this field for a long time, so we are very excited by this discovery."
Richard Francis, Chief Executive Officer of Forcefield Therapeutics, said, "Heart failure continues to have a devastating impact on public health and, despite the remarkable efforts in disease management, the long-term prognosis remains poor.
"Heart attack is the main acute cause of heart failure, providing a significant economic burden upon healthcare systems globally and reducing the healthy life span of those affected. This research is exciting not only because of the potential it offers for heart medicine, but also because it's a great example of academia and business, with the support of the UK's leading heart charity, collaborating effectively to bring a potential therapeutic to patients at speed."
Professor Ajay Shah, Director of the British Heart Foundation Center for Research Excellence at King's College London, said, "This is early-stage data but if the results we have seen in mice are borne out in human trials, the potential for this therapeutic is extremely significant and could revolutionize treatments for patients at risk of heart failure. There are no effective protective therapeutics to prevent the typically rapid deterioration of heart tissue in the aftermath of a MI so this is a major breakthrough in this field."
Professor James Leiper, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said, "Halting damage to the heart after it has become injured is a huge challenge in cardiology, but this major development has the potential to spearhead a new type of treatment to help protect and minimize damage after a heart attack. We're proud to support such a ground-breaking discovery that will hopefully lead to new protective medicines in the future."
After successful preclinical testing, first clinical trials in humans will take place in the next two years.
More information: Giulia Ruozi et al, Cardioprotective factors against myocardial infarction selected in vivo from an AAV secretome library, Science Translational Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abo0699
The Biden administration proposed new regulations aimed at overhauling the application and renewal processes for Medicaid and other government programs, including that ensuring that a beneficiary's returned mail doesn’t automatically lead to coverage denials.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesreleased a proposed rule that makes changes to the enrollment process for Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Basic Health Programs. The changes include new requirements for states, which are busy preparing for the unwinding of the COVID-19 public health emergency, and with it a continuous coverage requirement in Medicaid.
“This proposed rule will ensure that these individuals and families, often from underserved communities, can access the health care and coverage to which they are entitled – a foundational principle of health equity,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure in a statement. “In addition, this proposed rule will help more people pay their Medicare premiums by making it easier for them to enroll in the Medicare Savings Programs.”
The agency is proposing to limit renewals once every 12 months as well as allow applicants 30 days to respond to any requests for information. States also must create a clear and consistent process for how beneficiaries can renew their coverage.
In addition, there are specific guidelines which a state must abide by before they drop off a beneficiary due to returned mail.
“Many of the individuals we serve in Medicaid and CHIP move frequently and lose coverage because they do not get the coverage [notice] in the mail,” said Daniel Tsai, the director of Medicaid and CHIP, on a call with reporters Wednesday.
Other proposed changes include:
Ensure automatic enrollment with limited exceptions into Qualified Medicare Beneficiary group;
Establishing a clear process to prevent the termination of an eligible beneficiary that should transition from Medicaid and CHIP if their income changes or if a beneficiary is eligible for another program;
Allowing CHIP beneficiaries to re-enroll or still be enrolled without any lockout period if they fail to pay premiums and remove waiting periods and lifetime or annual benefits in CHIP;
Creating standardized timeframes for when renewals must be completed. The regulation clearly “defines the types of eligible determination information and documentation to be maintained by states,” according to a fact sheet on the rule. States also have specific timelines to complete Medicaid and CHIP renewals; and
New guidelines to ensure that if a beneficiary returns their information late are still properly evaluated for “other eligibility groups prior to being terminated,” the agency said.
The proposed rule could bring new requirements for states right as they must prepare for the end of the COVID-19 PHE. At the start of the pandemic, Congress increased the federal matching rate for Medicaid payments but only if a state agreed to not drop anyone off Medicaid for the duration of the PHE.
Health and Human Services (HHS) is expected to renew the PHE again this October for another 90 days.
States in the meantime have been creating new processes and outreach efforts to alert Medicaid beneficiaries that they could lose coverage and have to redetermine their eligibility.
Senior CMS officials told reporters Wednesday that it will take some time for the rule to finalize things, but the PHE unwinding could help with implementation.
“We think a lot of the tactics will align well with this rule,” one official said.
Health First Health Plans, an early adopter of Oscar Health's tech stack, is pulling the plug on the project amid implementation challenges.
The Florida-based health insurer intends to terminate its deal with Oscar's information tech platform +Oscar and "transition the services from +Oscar to Health First, effective as early as January 1, 2023," the insurtech revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commissionfiling Tuesday.
It marked Oscar's first full-service tech agreement but there were major implementation snags due to the complexity and size of the project.
Under a deal signed last year, Oscar was contracted to provide administrative functions and services for the insurer, along with giving it and its individual commercial and Medicare Advantage members access to Oscar’s technology platform.
Oscar will lose out on up to $60 million in administrative services revenue this year. The company said it does not expect the loss of the contract to impact its earnings or net loss in 2022.
"The company is actively moving forward with the development and sale of +Oscar’s Campaign Builder, which is consistent with the company’s focus on new modular and Software as a Service offerings," the company said in the SEC filing.
Oscar "continues to be committed to growing the +Oscar business and continuing to serve current clients," the company said.
Earlier this month, Oscar Health said it was pressing pause on new deals for its technology platform for more than a year as it manages issues in integrating with Health First Health Plans.
Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser told investors during the company's second-quarter earnings call it planned to hold off on additional full-service deals for its +Oscar platform for the next 18 months. Oscar formally launched its tech platform business in April 2021.
The +Oscar tech stack aims to simplify administrative tasks and boost the member experience.
The partnership with Health First was set to go live at the start of this year but faced significant challenges due to the complexity of integration, Schlosser said. Putting a pin in new deals allows Oscar to address issues with implementation without overextending its capabilities.
Chief Financial Officer Scott Blackley said on the August 11 call that Oscar is still negotiating potential deals in the space even as it focuses on addressing the implementation challenges, as there is a demand for such services.
The company is still pushing toward profitability and is focused on turning a profit in its insurance business by next year and overall by 2025. Oscar posted $1 billion in revenue for the second quarter and a net loss of $112.2 million, up from a $73.3 million loss in the prior-year quarter.
Amazon Web Services tapped 10 startups as finalists to participate in its 2022 healthcare accelerator focused on health equity, itannounced Wednesday.
The cohort of 10 startups, selected from more than 250 applicants, pitched solutions aimed at improving access to care and addressing social determinants of health, the company said. Those social drivers range from expanding access to medical transport to helping unhoused patients reach housing and health goals.
The program will run for four weeks and will offer technical and business mentoring, up to $25,000 in AWS computing credits and opportunities to collaborate with existing AWS clients, industry leaders and members of the AWS Partner Network.
“We cast a very broad net,” Jeff Kratz, AWS general manager for worldwide public sector partners, programs and sales, said in an interview. “Health equity is such a needed area for practical solutions,” Kratz said. The panel making the selections looked for unique solutions that have a market and considered startups’ culture and diversity, Kratz said. Learn more about this year’s cohort here.
The 10 startups are:
1. Clinify Health
2. ClosedLoop.ai
3. CognitiveCare
4. Harmony Health
5. Kinetik
6. Pair Team
7. Samaritan
8. SameSky Health
9. Vincere Health
10. Zócalo Health
COVID-19 “accelerated many of the challenges of inequality in health,” Kratz said. It also accelerated how many web-enabled startups have cropped up to fill in gaps in care. This newer approach is preferred by many companies for its possibilities around security, reduction of costs in healthcare and accessibility, Kratz added.
“We’re providing the tools and the access to the smallest startups to the largest healthcare institutions to hospitals and clinics and more, which is revolutionizing the healthcare market,” Kratz said of AWS. This accelerator is one way it hopes to boost ongoing innovation efforts.
The program will kick off with an assessment of each startup based on its individual goals and how AWS can help achieve them, Kratz said. Then, the program will pull on experts to provide advice and training related to scaling, going to market and fundraising. Finally, startups will design their next steps, such as proofs of concept or pitches.
Participants will get to experiment with AWS technologies and work with the likes of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Mass General Brigham, Philips and GE Healthcare. The program will conclude in the first-ever demo day at the AWS Healthcare Accelerator Pavilion at HLTH 2022 in November.
The programs are a way for AWS to use the cloud to improve the healthcare system, the company says. The first U.S.-based AWS healthcare accelerator concluded in October 2021. Past cohort members reached a variety of goals through the program, Kratz said, including one participant landing a deal with Walmart Health and another being featured in Time. AWS separately has the Health Equity Initiative—a $40 million commitment meant to help advance health equity globally.
