LA County Experiences 1,200% Increase In Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Over 5-Year Period

 Between 2016 and 2021, Los Angeles County experienced a 1,280% spike in overdose deaths from fentanyl, according to a recent report from the county Department of Public Health.

In a joint statement, the LA County District Attorney's Office (which regularly refuses to charge drug dealers) and the health department announced the creation of a working group to address the situation "through prevention, education and enforcement."

According to the health department, there were 104 deaths in 2016 attributed to fentanyl, which ballooned to 1,662 in 2021.

Los Angeles County fentanyl overdose deaths from 2010 to 2021, according to a County of Los Angeles Public Health report. (Sophie Li/The Epoch Times)

According to City News Service, black residents had the highest overdose rate based on the population, at 30.6 per 100,000 residents. White residents are overdosing at a rate of 22.5 per 100,000, while Latinos are at 11.1 per 100,000 residents.

The overdoses also occurred much more frequently in less affluent areas - which came in at 38.4 deaths per 100,000 vs. 12.3 per 100,000.

"Fentanyl overdoses are a significant and growing public health problem across the United States and in [the county], across sociodemographic groups and geographic areas," reads the report, which adds "The increases among youth and the widening inequities between under-resourced and more affluent groups underscore the need to target prevention efforts to those at highest risk to decrease fentanyl overdoses and advance health equity in [LA County]."

Gascón, acting like he isn't a huge part of the problem, said in a statement that the working group is "bringing together the county’s public health experts, education leaders, community advocates, and law enforcement professionals to support and utilize evidence-based and effective approaches to stopping the toll fentanyl is taking,” Gascón said in a statement."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/la-county-experiences-1280-increase-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-over-5-year-period

Positively charged nanomaterials treat obesity anywhere you want

 Researchers have long been working on how to treat obesity, a serious condition that can lead to hypertension, diabetes, chronic inflammation, and cardiovascular diseases. Studies have also revealed a strong correlation of obesity and cancer -- recent data show that smoking, drinking alcohol, and obesity are the biggest contributors to cancer worldwide.

The development of fat cells, which are produced from a tiny fibroblast-like progenitor, not only activates the fat cells' specific genes but also grows them by storing more lipids (adipocytes and adipose tissue). In fact, lipid storage is the defining function of a fat cell. But the storage of too much lipid can make fat cells unhealthy and lead to obesity.

Challenges in targeting fat cells

The ability to target fat cells and safely uncouple unhealthy fat formation from healthy fat metabolism would be the answer to many peoples' prayers. A major challenge in obesity treatment is that fat tissue, which is not continuous in the body but is found piece by piece in "depots," has been difficult to target in a depot-specific manner, pinpointed at the exact location.

There are two main kinds of fat: visceral fat, internal tissues that surround the stomach, liver, and intestines, and subcutaneous fat, found under the skin anywhere in the body. Visceral fat produces potbellies; subcutaneous fat can create chin jowls, arm fat, etc. To date, there has been no way to specifically treat visceral adipose tissue. And current treatments for subcutaneous fat like liposuction are invasive and destructive.

New studies use cationic nanonmaterials to target fat

Two new studies from researchers at Columbia Engineering and Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) may have the answer to targeting fat cells depot-specifically and healthily. The papers demonstrate a new method to treat obesity by using cationic nanomaterials that can target specific areas of fat and inhibit the unhealthy storage of enlarged fat cells. The materials remodel fat rather than destroying it, as, for example, liposuction does. The first paper, published today by Nature Nanotechnology, focuses on visceral adiposity, or belly fat. The second paper, published online November 28 by Biomaterials, focuses on fat underneath the skin as well as chronic inflammation associated with obesity.

The team of researchers, led by Li Qiang, associate professor of pathology and cell biology at CUIMC, and Kam Leong, Samuel Y. Sheng Professor of Biomedical Engineeringand of systems biology at CUIMC, recognized that adipose tissue contains large amounts of negatively charged extracellular matrix (ECM) to hold fat cells. They thought that this negatively charged ECM network might provide a highway system of sorts for positively charged molecules. So they took a positively charged nanomaterial, PAMAM generation 3 (P-G3), and injected it into obese mice. The P-G3 quickly spread throughout the tissue and the team was excited that their method to specifically target visceral fat worked.

Unexpected results

And then something intriguing happened: P-G3 shut off the lipid storage program in fat cells and the mice lost weight. This was totally unexpected, given the well-established function of P-G3 in neutralizing negatively charged pathogens, such as DNA/RNA cell debris, to alleviate inflammation.

"Our approach is unique -- It departs from the pharmacological or surgical approaches," says Qiang, who specializes in obesity and adipocyte biology. "We used cationic charge to rejuvenate healthy fat cells, a technique no one has ever used to treat obesity. I think this novel strategy will open the door to healthier and safer reduction of fat."

P-G3 helps new fat cell formation and also inhibits the unhealthy lipid storage of enlarged fat cells

In these two studies, the researchers discovered that the cationic material, P-G3, could do an intriguing thing to fat cells -- while it helped new fat cell formation, it also uncoupled lipid storage from the housekeeping functions of fat cells. And because it inhibits the unhealthy lipid storage of enlarged fat cells, the mice had more metabolically healthy, young, small fat cells like those found in newborns and athletes. The researchers found that this uncoupling function of P-G3 also holds true in human fat biopsies, signifying the potential of translation in humans.

"With P-G3, fat cells can still be fat cells, but they can't grow up," said Leong, a pioneer in using polycation to scavenge pathogens. "Our studies highlight an unexpected strategy to treat visceral adiposity and suggest a new direction of exploring cationic nanomaterials for treating metabolic diseases."

New applications for drug delivery, gene therapy, and aesthetics

Now that they can selectively target visceral fat, Leong and Qiang envision several applications. The Biomaterials study demonstrates a simple approach that could be used for aesthetic purposes; like Botox, P-G3 can be locally injected into a specific, subcutaneous fat depot. The investigators, who have patents pending, are now engineering P-G3 into various derivatives to improve the efficacy, safety, and depot specificity.

What the researchers are particularly excited about is developing P-G3 into a platform that can deliver drugs and gene therapies specifically to a given fat depot. This may repurpose many drugs from systemic safety concerns, such as Thiazolidinediones (TZDs), a potent but unsafe drug that is a strong modulator of fat and used to treat type 2 diabetes -- but it has been linked to heart failure and banned in several countries.

"We're very excited to discover that cationic charge is the secret to targeting adipose tissue," Qiang said. "Now we can shrink fat in a depot-specific manner -- anywhere we want -- and in a safe way without destroying fat cells. This is a major advance in treating obesity."

Story Source:

Materials provided by Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. Original written by Holly Evarts. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

---

Journal References:

1. Qianfen Wan, Baoding Huang, Tianyu Li, Yang Xiao, Ying He, Wen Du, Branden Z. Wang, Gregory F. Dakin, Michael Rosenbaum, Marcus D. Goncalves, Shuibing Chen, Kam W. Leong, Li Qiang. Selective targeting of visceral adiposity by polycation nanomedicine. Nature Nanotechnology, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41565-022-01249-3
2. Baoding Huang, Qianfen Wan, Tianyu Li, Lexiang Yu, Wen Du, Carmen Calhoun, Kam W. Leong, Li Qiang. Polycationic PAMAM ameliorates obesity-associated chronic inflammation and focal adiposity. Biomaterials, 2022; 121850 DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2022.121850

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221201123109.htm

Where did Omicron come from?

 First discovered a year ago in South Africa, the SARS-CoV-2 variant later dubbed "Omicron" spread across the globe at incredible speed. It is still unclear exactly how, when and where this virus originated. Now, a study published in the journal Science by researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and a network of African institutions shows that Omicron's predecessors existed on the African continent long before cases were first identified, suggesting that Omicron emerged gradually over several months in different countries across Africa.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the coronavirus has been constantly changing. The biggest leap seen in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 to date was observed by researchers a year ago, when a variant was discovered that differed from the genome of the original virus by more than 50 mutations. First detected in a patient in South Africa in mid-November 2021, the variant later named Omicron BA.1 spread to 87 countries around the world within just a few weeks. By the end of December, it had replaced the previously dominant Delta variant worldwide.

Since then, speculations about the origin of this highly transmissible variant have centered around two main theories: Either the coronavirus jumped from a human to an animal where it evolved before infecting a human again as Omicron, or the virus survived in a person with a compromised immune system for a longer period of time and that's where the mutations occurred. A new analysis of COVID-19 samples collected in Africa before the first detection of Omicron now casts doubt on both these hypotheses.

The analysis was carried out by an international research team led by Prof. Jan Felix Drexler, a scientist at the Institute of Virology at Charité and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF). Other key partners in the European-African network included Stellenbosch University in South Africa and the Laboratory of Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (LFHB) in Benin. The scientists started by developing a special PCR test to specifically detect the Omicron variant BA.1. They then tested more than 13,000 respiratory samples from COVID-19 patients that had been taken in 22 African countries between mid-2021 and early 2022. In doing so, the research team found viruses with Omicron-specific mutations in 25 people from six different countries who contracted COVID-19 in August and September 2021 - two months before the variant was first detected in South Africa.

To learn more about Omicron's origins, the researchers also decoded, or "sequenced," the viral genome of some 670 samples. Such sequencing makes it possible to detect new mutations and identify novel viral lineages. The team discovered several viruses that showed varying degrees of similarity to Omicron, but they were not identical. "Our data show that Omicron had different ancestors that interacted with each other and circulated in Africa, sometimes concurrently, for months," explains Prof. Drexler. "This suggests that the BA.1 Omicron variant evolved gradually, during which time the virus increasingly adapted to existing human immunity." In addition, the PCR data led the researchers to conclude that although Omicron did not originate solely in South Africa, it first dominated infection rates there before spreading from south to north across the African continent within only a few weeks.

"This means Omicron's sudden rise cannot be attributed to a jump from the animal kingdom or the emergence in a single immunocompromised person, although these two scenarios may have also played a role in the evolution of the virus," says Prof. Drexler. "The fact that Omicron caught us by surprise is instead due to the diagnostic blind spot that exists in large parts of Africa, where presumably only a small fraction of SARS-CoV-2 infections are even recorded. Omicron's gradual evolution was therefore simply overlooked. So it is important that we now significantly strengthen diagnostic surveillance systems on the African continent and in comparable regions of the Global South, while also facilitating global data sharing. Only good data can prevent policymakers from implementing potentially effective containment measures, such as travel restrictions, at the wrong time, which can end up causing more economic and social harm than good."

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Carlo Fischer, Tongai Gibson Maponga, Anges Yadouleton, Nuro Abílio, Emmanuel Aboce, Praise Adewumi, Pedro Afonso, Jewelna Akorli, Soa Fy Andriamandimby, Latifa Anga, Yvonne Ashong, Mohamed Amine Beloufa, Aicha Bensalem, Richard Birtles, Anicet Luc Magloire Boumba, Freddie Bwanga, Mike Chaponda, Paradzai Chibukira, R. Matthew Chico, Justin Chileshe, Gershom Chongwe, Assana Cissé, Umberto D’Alessandro, Xavier Nicolas de Lamballerie, Joana F. M. de Morais, Fawzi Derrar, Ndongo Dia, Youssouf Diarra, Lassina Doumbia, Christian Drosten, Philippe Dussart, Richard Echodu, Yannik Eggers, Abdelmajid Eloualid, Ousmane Faye, Torsten Feldt, Anna Frühauf, Afiwa Halatoko, Pauliana-Vanessa Ilouga, Nalia Ismael, Ronan Jambou, Sheikh Jarju, Antje Kamprad, Ben Katowa, John Kayiwa, Leonard King’wara, Ousmane Koita, Vincent Lacoste, Adamou Lagare, Olfert Landt, Sonia Etenna Lekana-Douki, Jean-Bernard Lekana-Douki, Etuhole Iipumbu, Hugues Loemba, Julius Lutwama, Santou Mamadou, Issaka Maman, Brendon Manyisa, Pedro A. Martinez, Japhet Matoba, Lusia Mhuulu, Andres Moreira-Soto, Judy Mwangi, Nadine N´dilimabaka, Charity Angella Nassuna, Mamadou Ousmane Ndiath, Emmanuel Nepolo, Richard Njouom, Jalal Nourlil, Steven Ger Nyanjom, Eddy Okoth Odari, Alfred Okeng, Jean Bienvenue Ouoba, Michael Owusu, Irene Owusu Donkor, Karabo Kristen Phadu, Richard Odame Phillips, Wolfgang Preiser, Vurayai Ruhanya, Fortune Salah, Sourakatou Salifou, Amadou Alpha Sall, Augustina Angelina Sylverken, Paul Alain Tagnouokam-Ngoupo, Zekiba Tarnagda, Francis Olivier Tchikaya, Tafese Beyene Tufa, Jan Felix Drexler. Gradual emergence followed by exponential spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in Africa. Science, 2022; DOI: 10.1126/science.add8737

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221201141936.htm

Small studies of 40Hz sensory stimulation confirm safety, suggest Alzheimer's benefits

 A pair of early stage clinical studies testing the safety and efficacy of 40Hz sensory stimulation to treat Alzheimer's disease has found that the potential therapy was well tolerated, produced no serious adverse effects and was associated with some significant neurological and behavioral benefits among a small cohort of participants.

"In these clinical studies we were pleased to see that volunteers did not experience any safety issues and used our experimental light and sound devices in their homes consistently," said Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor in the The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and senior author of the paper describing the studies in PLOS ONE Dec. 1. "While we are also encouraged to see some significant positive effects on the brain and behavior, we are interpreting them cautiously given our study's small sample size and brief duration. These results are not sufficient evidence of efficacy, but we believe they clearly support proceeding with more extensive study of 40Hz sensory stimulation as a potential non-invasive therapeutic for Alzheimer's disease."

In three studies spanning 2016-2019, Tsai's lab discovered that exposing mice to light flickering or sound clicking at the gamma-band brain rhythm frequency of 40Hz -- or employing the light and sound together -- produced widespread beneficial effects. Treated mice modeling Alzheimer's disease pathology experienced improvements in learning and memory; reduced brain atrophy, neuron and synapse loss; and showed lower levels of the hallmark Alzheimer's proteins amyloid beta and phosphorylated tau compared to untreated controls. The stimulation appears to produce these effects by increasing the power and synchrony of the 40Hz brain rhythm, which the lab has shown profoundly affects the activity of several types of brain cells, including the brain's vasculature.

Study designs

Based on those encouraging results, Diane Chan, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a postdoctoral clinical fellow in Tsai's lab, led the two new clinical studies at MIT. One set of tests, a "Phase 1" study, enrolled 43 volunteers of various ages including 16 people with early stage Alzheimer's to confirm that exposure to 40Hz light and sound was safe and test whether it increased 40Hz rhythm and synchrony after a few minutes of exposure, as measured with EEG electrodes. The study also included two patients with epilepsy at the University of Iowa who consented to having measurements taken in deeper brain structures during exposure to 40Hz sensory stimulation while undergoing epilepsy-related surgery.

The second set of tests, a "Phase 2A" pilot study, enrolled 15 people with early stage Alzheimer's disease in a single-blinded, randomized, controlled study to receive exposure to 40Hz light and sound (or non-40Hz "sham" stimulation for experimental controls) for an hour a day for at least three months. They underwent baseline and follow-up visits including EEG measurements during stimulation, MRI scans of brain volume, and cognitive testing. The stimulation device the volunteers used in their homes (a light panel synchronized with a speaker) was equipped with video cameras to monitor device usage. Participants also wore sleep-monitoring bracelets during their participation in the trial.

The Phase 2A trial launched just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, causing some participants to become unable to undergo follow ups after three months. The study therefore only reports results through a four-month period.

Study results

In the Phase 1 study volunteers filled out a questionnaire on side effects, reporting a few minor but no major adverse effects. The most common was feeling "sleepy or drowsy." Meanwhile, measurements taken with EEG scalp electrodes clustered at frontal and occipital sites showed significant increases in 40Hz rhythm power at each cortical site among cognitively normal younger and older participants as well as volunteers with mild Alzheimer's. The readings also demonstrated significant increase in coherence at the 40Hz frequency between the two sites. Between the two volunteers with epilepsy, measurements showed significant increases in 40Hz power in deeper brain regions such as the gyrus rectus, amygdala, hippocampus and insula with no adverse events including seizures.

In the Phase 2A study, neither treated nor control volunteers reported serious adverse events. Both groups used their devices 90 percent of the time. The eight volunteers treated with 40Hz stimulation experienced several beneficial effects that reached statistical significance compared to the seven volunteers in the control condition. Control participants exhibited two signs of brain atrophy as expected with disease progression: reduced volume of the hippocampus and increased volume of open spaces, or ventricles. Treated patients did not experience significant changes in these measures. Treated patients also exhibited better connectivity across brain regions involved in the brain's default mode and medial visual networks, which are related to cognition and visual processing respectively. Treated patients also exhibited more consistent sleep patterns than controls.

Neither the treatment and control groups showed any differences after just three months on most cognitive tests, but the treatment group did perform significantly better on a face-name association test, a memory task with a strong visual component. The two groups, which were evenly matched by age, gender, APOE risk gene status, and cognitive scores, differed by years of education but that difference had no relationship to the results, the researchers wrote.

"After such a short time we didn't expect to see significant effects on cognitive measures so it was encouraging to see that at least on face-name association the treatment group did perform significantly better," Chan said.

In PLOS ONE the researchers concluded: "Overall, these findings suggest that 40Hz GENUS has positive effects on AD-related pathology and symptoms and should be studied more extensively to evaluate its potential as a disease-modifying intervention for AD."

After the study ended all participants were permitted to continue using the devices set to provide the 40Hz stimulation.

The MIT team is now planning new clinical studies to test whether 40Hz sensory stimulation may be effective in preventing the onset of Alzheimer's in high-risk volunteers and is launching preliminary studies to determine its therapeutic potential for Parkinson's disease and Down syndrome. Cognito Therapeutics, an MIT spin-off company co-founded by Tsai and co-author Ed Boyden, Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology at MIT, has launched Phase 3 trials of 40Hz sensory stimulation as an Alzheimer's treatment using a different device.

Tsai, Boyden and co-author Emery N. Brown, Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Medical Engineering at MIT, are among the co-founders of MIT's Aging Brain Initiative, which has advanced this collaboration and other neurodegeneration research at MIT.

In addition to Tsai, Chan, Boyden and Brown, the study's other authors are Ho-Jun Suk, Brennan Jackson, Noah Milman, Danielle Stark, Elizabeth Klerman, Erin Kitchener, Vanesa S. Fernandez Avalos, Gabrielle de Weck, Arit Banerjee, Sara D. Beach, Joel Blanchard, Colton Stearns, Aaron D. Boes, Brandt Uitermarkt, Phillip Gander, Matthew Howard III, Eliezer J. Sternberg, Alfonso Nieto-Castanon, Sheeba Anteraper, Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, and Bradford C. Dickerson.

Funding for the study came from sources including the Robert A. and Renee E. Belfer Family Foundation, Ludwig Family Foundation, JPB Foundation, Eleanor Schwartz Charitable Foundation, the Degroof-VM Foundation, Halis Family Foundation, and David B Emmes, Gary Hua and Li Chen, the Ko Han Family, Lester Gimpelson, Elizabeth K. and Russell L. Siegelman, Joseph P. DiSabato and Nancy E. Sakamoto, Alan and Susan Patricof, Jay L. and Carroll D Miller, Donald A. and Glenda G. Mattes, the Marc Haas Foundation, Alan Alda, and Dave Wargo.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Picower Institute at MIT. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Diane Chan, Ho-Jun Suk, Brennan L. Jackson, Noah P. Milman, Danielle Stark, Elizabeth B. Klerman, Erin Kitchener, Vanesa S. Fernandez Avalos, Gabrielle de Weck, Arit Banerjee, Sara D. Beach, Joel Blanchard, Colton Stearns, Aaron D. Boes, Brandt Uitermarkt, Phillip Gander, Matthew Howard, Eliezer J. Sternberg, Alfonso Nieto-Castanon, Sheeba Anteraper, Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, Emery N. Brown, Edward S. Boyden, Bradford C. Dickerson, Li-Huei Tsai. Gamma frequency sensory stimulation in mild probable Alzheimer’s dementia patients: Results of feasibility and pilot studies. PLOS ONE, 2022; 17 (12): e0278412 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278412

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221201163449.htm

FDA Clears First IND for Beam Multiplex-Base Edited Investigational Therapy

 The FDA has lifted its clinical hold on Beam Therapeutics’ BEAM-201 and cleared the way for an Investigational New Drug Application, the company announced Friday.

BEAM-201 is an anti-CD7, multiplex-edited, allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) development candidate. The company is gearing up to trial the experimental cell therapy as a potential treatment for relapsed/refractory T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL)/T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LL). The Cambridge biotech announced in August that the FDA placed a clinical hold on the therapy.

Beam revealed the reasons for the FDA’s hold in a subsequent SEC report, filed late August. As stated in its formal letter, the regulatory body requested additional control data from the genomic rearrangement studies, as well as further analyses of off-target editing experiments.

The agency also needed more control data for a specific cytokine-independent growth assay and asked for an updated investigator brochure with information on any new non-clinical studies.

In its Q3 financial results released in early November, Beam noted it had already responded to the FDA’s requests.

Using proprietary technologies, BEAM’s base editors work by chemically transforming one nucleotide base into another. BEAM-201 is designed to side-step current logistical and technical limitations of CAR-T treatments by simultaneously affecting many target genes, potentially allowing for universal compatibility, as well as resistance to immunosuppression and host rejection.

In a statement, BEAM CEO John Evans said that the FDA’s lift of its clinical hold marks “the first IND clearance for a multiplex-base edited investigational drug," and could lead to an innovative and effective treatment for patients with few therapeutic options for their disease.

Beam’s stock rose some 6% premarket in reaction to the news.

The Next Step in Gene Editing

Most gene therapies break both strands of the DNA to introduce genetic changes. This approach, while effective, has long been known to yield substantial off-target effects, which are induced genetic mutations at loci other than the target site. In turn, this could lead to safety concerns and toxicities.

In contrast, base editors make use of chemical reactions to change one base pair into another. The first-ever editor, for instance, was developed in 2016 and made used a specific deaminase enzyme to change a cytosine-guanine into a thymine-adenine pair.

This approach is not only safe, yielding fewer off-target effects, but also turns out to be more efficient than typical gene editing, especially when it comes to point mutations.

There are other early adopters of base editing in biopharma, including Verve Therapeutics, which has licensed its base editing technology from Beam and is testing it against heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. The FDA also put Verve’s lead candidate on hold earlier this month.

Another is Metagenomi, which develops “next-generation therapies” using base editing technologies, alongside more typical CRISPR-based gene editing approaches.

https://www.biospace.com/article/fda-clears-first-ind-for-a-multiplex-base-edited-investigational-drug/

Cash-hungry companies get creative raising capital

 The end of the era of easy money is forcing companies that need cash to get creative. Dozens of companies have recently raised money through so-called structured private funding rounds, and bankers and lawyers say there are many more in the works.

A number of companies with depressed stocks and limited access to traditional financing are doing so, often adding sweeteners like extra dividends or preferred-note status to lessen the risk and make the deals more attractive for investors. 

Some, like electric-vehicle maker Lordstown Motors Corp., are announcing them after they are done, in an effort to limit an additional drop in share price. Typically, public companies disclose plans to sell more shares and then spend a few days meeting with prospective investors to drum up interest, often putting pressure on existing shares as they do so.

Health-insurer Bright Health Group Inc. raised $175 million in a similarly structured deal in October. 

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
RIDE	LORDSTOWN MOTORS	1.72	+0.07	+4.24%
BHG	BRIGHT HEALTH GROUP INC	0.98	-0.05	-4.83%

Private companies, many growing fast but with limited cash flow and their plans for initial public offerings on hold, are seeking funds that will help them reach profitability. And they are structuring the deals to avoid the dreaded "down round," or raising money at a lower valuation than before, including through the use of convertible bonds. 

Creative deal-making among private companies has helped push U.S. venture-capital investment activity to $195 billion this year through Sept. 30, higher than all other prior full years except 2021, according to PitchBook Data Inc.

Some deals involving private companies aren’t publicized and likely won’t be revealed until they file regulatory paperwork to go public.

"The big misconception is that the private financing world is closed," said Keith Canton, head of private capital markets at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
JPM	JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.	135.16	-1.08	-0.79%
Powered By

Lordstown raised $170 million, nearly half of its market capitalization, in a combination common-stock and private investment by Foxconn Technology Group, in November. Lordstown, whose shares have fallen more than 80% since they started trading in 2020, provided Foxconn with preferred shares that pay a dividend and can be converted into common stock once certain conditions are met.

Arctic Wolf Networks Inc. had planned to go public this year, but with the new-issue market shut, the cybersecurity company launched a $401 million convertible-note offering instead. The deal, announced in October, was led by private-credit powerhouse Blue Owl Capital Inc.

"Our backlog for these types of deals has never been larger, at least in my history of being here," said Kurt Tenenbaum, a managing director at Blue Owl. He added that he expects more later-stage companies that had anticipated going public to consider structured deals if it becomes more difficult to raise capital through traditional means.

The rethinking of how to raise money comes at a time when the U.S. IPO market is on track for its worst year in decades in money raised. Companies are unable to turn to buyout shops as they have in other slow IPO markets, as leveraged-debt financing also has dried up. 

Private-equity and sovereign-wealth funds and large family offices, meanwhile, have piles of cash on hand, but they are wary of stock-market volatility and want downside protection, investors, lawyers and bankers say. That can be provided through sweeteners such as warrants and preferred shares, and so-called ratchets for private companies, which guarantee investors additional shares if they go public at a price below a certain level. 

Companies are willing to make these concessions to get the money they need to keep their businesses running, in many cases until they can reach profitability.

"In a period of public market volatility, many more companies are turning to bespoke, private and structured solutions to raise money with a high degree of certainty and efficiency," said Stephen Bloom, head of private capital markets Americas at Bank of America Corp.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/cash-hungry-companies-get-creative-raising-capital

Planned Parenthood director claims kids ‘sexual beings’ from birth, promotes porn literacy

 An executive director at a Planned Parenthood’s sex education arm claimed that children are born “sexual” while simultaneously advocating for comprehensive sex education from kindergarten through 12th grade and porn literacy for certain ages, Fox News Digital found.

Bill Taverner, who has advocated for sexuality education at U.S. congressional briefings, is the executive director of Planned Parenthood’s Center for Sex Education located in New Jersey. The Center provides training materials nationally and hosts the largest conference for sex educators in the U.S.

In 2015, he said, “[We have] in our society, an assumption of asexuality of people with intellectual disabilities. It’s a myth that’s perpetuated, and really we are all sexual beings from birth until death.”

Taverner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Planned Parenthood also did not immediately provide a response to a request for comment on whether Taverner’s statement on “sexual beings” was consistent with the organization’s viewpoint. However, Fox News Digital found a similar statement on a Planned Parenthood sex education document. 

Planned Parenthood said in a guide entitled the “Fundamentals of Teaching Sexuality” that “sexuality is a part of life through all the ages and stages. Babies, elders, and everyone in between can experience sexuality.” 

Bill Taverner works as the executive director at a Planned Parenthood in New Jersey.

LinkedIn / Bill Taverner

Around the year 2012, Taverner said children of a certain age should be taught about pornography in sex education, a position he has maintained up until at least February 2021. 

Taverner appeared to say during the 2012 interview that some of “erotica” was “useful.”

He said, “I think that there’s this yearning for information that young people have that… hasn’t changed. [The] delivery of how we get information is quite different. I think that the internet is a major influence on how people learn about sexuality. There’s access to erotica, pornography. That was very different for young people 30 years ago. It’s certainly not as accessible, certainly not as instantaneous. So there’s a lot of information that is useful.”

The interviewer interrupted Taverner and said, “some of it is wrong.”

“Some of it is wrong, a lot of it is wrong,” Taverner said. “But there’s good stuff out there as well.”

Taverner did not clarify what he meant when Fox News Digital inquired, however, he said in the 2021 interview that sex educators never wanted pornography to be the primary source of sex education, and that instruction needs to adapt to modern times.

He further argues that teaching about pornography in classrooms is similar to instructing children on how to use a condom. 

“There’s a resistance to… if we talk about porn, [some think] is it going to make people want to watch it? Which is the same faulty kind of premise as if we teach about condoms, it’s going to make people want to have sex with condoms or maybe that’s not a bad thing,” the sex educator continued. 

He added that porn literacy would help students clarify their values on the topic and will meet “people where they are.”

“Getting back to meeting people where they are, if this is what they’re doing with their cell phones and tablets and their laptops, then we need to shift our education and stop doing the banana on a condom and think that, you know, we’ve done our thing. So we need to present opportunities for young people to think about…, for example, their values. You know, let’s do an opinion activity. Let’s do the ethics of porn. And that’s not to say that there’s a right answer .”

Taverner has said in the past that some parts of comprehensive sexuality education should begin in kindergarten.  

“Sexuality education is not isolated to a particular point in a person’s life, it’s a continuous process. Young children are learning about sexuality from the attitudes their parents display… When we think of K-12 education… we may be talking about what makes a family, we may be talking about disease prevention… All of that sets the foundation for a basic understanding that is useful for further conversations when we’re talking about condoms… [and] pregnancy conversations,” he said. 

“Age-appropriate sex education is so important,” he said. “And we have to let our experts guide us.”

https://nypost.com/2022/12/02/planned-parenthood-director-bill-taverner-claims-kids-are-sexual-beings-from-birth/