Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE: ELV) and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) announced an agreement to form a strategic partnership to accelerate innovation in primary care delivery, enhance the healthcare experience, and improve health outcomes. This effort, which will operate across multiple regions of the United States, will bring together certain care delivery and enablement assets of Elevance Health’s Carelon Health and CD&R portfolio companies, apree health and Millennium Physician Group (MPG).
Monday, April 15, 2024
Organovo's fatty liver disease drug meets main goal in mid-stage study
Organovo Holdings said on Monday its experimental drug to treat a type of fatty liver disease helped significantly reduce liver fat in a mid-stage study.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/organovos-fatty-liver-disease-drug-121338549.html
Microbot Medical Shares Status Following Recent Geopolitical Events
All Regulatory, Clinical, Operational and Pre-Commercial Activities Continue to Stay on Track Despite the On-going Situation in Israel
Company Believes that Both Regulatory and Commercial Milestones to be Achieved in Accordance with the Company’s Current Timeline
Nominal Retail Sales Soared In March As Gas Prices Spiked
Ahead of today's retail sales print, BofA's practically omniscient analysts forecast a hot-hot-hot core print...
...and they were massively correct.
After last month's surprise headline surge in retail sales (on the back of Motor Vehicle & Parts), consensus was for another monthly increase (but at a slightly slower pace). However, (nominal) retail sales soared 0.7% MoM (+0.4% exp), dragging the YoY change up 4.0%...
Source: Bloomberg
Interestingly, on an NSA basis, YoY retail sales slowed and gasoline station sales are actually down (albeit modestly)...
Source: Bloomberg
The core retail sales prints were even more dramatic - Ex-Autos +1.1% MoM (+0.5% exp) and Ex-Autos & Gas +1.0% MoM (+0.3% exp)...
Source: Bloomberg
Under the hood, Motor Vehicles & Parts plunged the most (after last month's surge) while Nonstore Retailers (internet retail) and Gas Stations soared the most...
Source: Bloomberg
Department Stores & Electronics & Appliances also saw sales plunge last month...
The crucial core-control group - used in GDP calculation - ripped higher by 1.1% MoM - its biggest beat since Feb 2023...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, bear in mind that these data are all nominal - not adjusted for the surge in prices of everything, especially gasoline - so are Americans spending more... for less.
Adjusted (crudely) for inflation, this was a big drop in 'real' retail sales (non-seasonally-adjusted). REAL retail sales have declined for 12 of the last 17 months...
Source: Bloomberg
Translation: on a crude basis (Ret Sales NSA - CPI), Americans aren't buying more shit.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nominal-retail-sales-soared-march-gas-prices-spiked
UK, France, Germany Join Biden Call For Israel Restraint; Russia Defends Iran 'Self-Defense'
As Israel's war cabinet again meets Monday to debate how to respond to Iran's first-ever direct attack on Israel, intense international reaction continues, with leading European countries joining the Biden White House in urging restraint. The United Kingdom, France and Germany have condemned the weekend Iranian attack which saw hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles target Israel, but they are warning against an Israeli counterattack, saying that this would assure that an all out war-is sparked. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that while Israel's mulling a military response is understandable and justified, the country must "think with its head as well as its heart, to be smart as well as tough."
Cameron told BBC the UK's position is that Israel will be better to not retaliate because the Saturday night attack was a "double defeat" for Iran in that its assault failed to result in major damage despite over 350 projectiles launched, and that at the same time Tehran is coming under world condemnation and isolation. Cameron said the aggression has revealed "to the world that [Iran is] the malign influence in the region prepared to do this."
This is consistent with Biden's words to Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Saturday overnight hours when he told the Israeli leader to "take the win" and don't retaliate. The US is hoping Israeli decisions-makers "slow things down" at this point to avoid spiraling into major war. Washington has also affirmed it will not back any Israeli military action against Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron also acknowledged to a French outlet Monday that the situation is "very unstable" and that Israel must show restraint. "We will do everything to avoid a conflagration," he said to BFMTV news channel.
But Iran has accused Britain, France, and Germany of "double standards" after they all condemned the Iranian attack. On Sunday Iran’s foreign ministry summoned their ambassadors over the "irresponsible stance", according to the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency.
Iran has further once again lashed out at the UN Security Council, pointing out that it failed to condemn the April 1st Israeli aggression against its consulate in Damascus which killed two top generals and several others. "The Security Council... failed in its duty to maintain international peace and security," Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said during Sunday's session.
He said his country "had no choice" but to react in a "necessary and proportionate" and proportionate way while still asserting the Islamic Republic does not "seek escalation or war." However, he underscored that "If the US initiates military operations against Iran, its citizens, or its security and interests, Iran will use its inherent right to respond proportionately."
Russia too has called for restraint, but defended Iranian actions as done in self-defense. "We have repeatedly warned that the numerous unresolved crises in the Middle East, primarily in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, which are often fueled by irresponsible provocative actions, will lead to an increase in tension," its foreign ministry said.
Unlike the West, Russia firmly condemned the prior Israeli attack on Iran's sovereign embassy:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday held phone talks with Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov reiterated "decisive condemnation" of an Israeli strike in Syria this month that killed Iranian generals.
Russia has previously condemned Israel's conduct in its six-month war in Gaza.
Regional media noted of Moscow's stance: "Russia noted Tehran’s claim that the attack was made within the right to self-defense after the strike in Damascus, which Moscow condemned."
Interestingly, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said on Telegram that "America does not want a big war in the Middle East" as "The killings in Gaza worsen Biden’s prospects in the elections, and war between Israel and Iran would introduce additional uncertainty."
The below is some additional commentary via Bill Blain and his Morning Porridge blog...
* * *
But, of course, the big issue is the Middle East.
Markets don’t like uncertainty – even though uncertain markets often offer the best opportunities. The current wisdom is that it’s all utterly dependent on how Israel responds – will they go big with an all-out strike on Iran bases and its nuclear capability, or will they take the apparent win Iran granted them over the weekend?
There has been something of the sense of a well-choregraphed dance between Israel and Iran circling each other over recent weeks and months – very aware it’s not what is done, but how actions are perceived. Everyone expected the well-flagged Iran attack over the weekend. That’s why Oil prices barely wobbled. After a few words of predictable fury, this morning there are signs an Israeli stand down might be on the cards – which would favor markets. Doesn’t mean it’s over – revenge is oft a dish best tasted cold and considered.
The weekend strikes gave Israel a tactical win. After Israel took out key Iranian generals in a pinpoint surgical missile strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus, over 300 Iranian missiles, drones and rockets rained down, mostly in broken bits over deserts outside Israeli borders, swotted out the skies by Western and Israeli defence tech. Iron Dome and other systems were shown to work effectively.
But, strategically it might be a win for the Iran/China/Russia Axis. The strike’s apparent abject failure may have been exactly what the Iranian war planners expected. They would be very aware of how Russian drone and missile strikes have fared in Ukraine. The attack would have provided valuable information by forcing Israel to reveal just how effective their top of the range tech defences are at a time when global opinion meant there was a significantly reduced likelihood of a devasting Israeli counterstrike.
The Russians will be factoring countermeasures garnered from the strike into their current glide missile assaults, while the Chinese will already be pouring over the data to determine the practicalities of taking out similarly protected US carrier task forces in the South China Seas at some future date.
Where US Inflation Hit The Hardest In March 2024
The latest U.S. inflation figures were released in early April, revealing that the consumer price index (CPI) had risen by 3.5% in March 2024, on an annual basis.
This is unfortunately higher than the 3.2% logged in February, showing once again how stubborn inflation has been post-pandemic.
To add context to these figures, Visual Capitalist's Marcu Lu visualized CPI categories that became significantly more expensive from March 2023 to March 2024.
All figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which regularly posts CPI figures.
Data and Highlights
The data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below.
Prices of “video discs and other media” rose by a substantial 30.1% year-over-year as of March 2024, highlighting rising demand for physical media such as vinyl records.
According to an article from The Guardian, U.S. vinyl sales rose 21.7% in the first half of 2023, driven by artists like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and Fleetwood Mac. Swift’s latest album, Midnights, sold nearly 500,000 vinyl copies throughout the entire year.
Another category that rose significantly was “juice and drinks”, at 27.5%. This rise in cost has been attributed to numerous factors including sugar shortages, increased transportation costs, and diseases affecting orange trees in Florida.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/where-us-inflation-hit-hardest-march-2024
4 Investigational Weight Loss Drugs That Could Change the Market
Weight-loss treatments have quickly emerged as one of the hottest areas for R&D in the pharmaceutical industry. The rapidly realized blockbuster sales of the leading drugs in the space, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, means there is a strong interest in the pipeline of follow-on and next-generation drugs.
J.P. Morgan forecasts that the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) market alone will exceed $100 billion in revenue by 2030, through the use of these medicines in diabetes and obesity. According to IQVIA, the number of clinical trials for obesity drugs in 2023 was up by 68% from 2022, with 124 drugs in active development—of these, 40% are agonists of either the GLP-1 or glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP) receptor.
“The focus continues to be mainly GLP-1-based therapies,” Graig Suvannavejh, senior biopharmaceuticals and biotechnology equity research analyst at Mizuho Americas, told BioSpace, adding that there is a significant interest in combination approaches, such as Eli Lilly’s ‘triple-G’ approach, which binds and activates the GIP, GLP-1 and glucagon receptors.
Suvannavejh said the oral delivery of these medicines is also of significant interest, as it could lower the cost of current peptide treatments by enabling lower manufacturing costs. This would allow for a greater number of patients to receive these types of treatments, he said.
Of the assets that are moving through the pipeline, BioSpace highlights four potentially market-changing treatments. Though the focus of the industry’s pipeline has been on injectable GIP/GLP-1 assets, the leading companies have recognized the need to also approach the development of medicines from a new angle.
Novo Nordisk’s Cagrilintide and Semaglutide
Novo Nordisk is exploring a once-weekly subcutaneous combination of semaglutide and a novel amylin analog, cagrilintide. The use of an amylin analog would differentiate the company’s treatment portfolio from the current pipeline dominated by GIP/GLP-1 assets. Novo has already set the combination treatment, known as CagriSema, head-to-head against Eli Lilly’s Zepbound in a Phase III trial. In Phase II, the combination demonstrated greater body weight reduction in overweight people with type II diabetes. Body weight reduction was 15.6% with CagriSema compared to 5.1% in the semaglutide-only group and 8.1% in the cagrilintide-only group.
Eli Lilly’s Orforglipron
Eli Lilly has various assets in Phase III trials for weight loss, including orforglipron, which is a GLP-1 receptor agonist that is delivered as a once-daily oral treatment. Leaders in this space are racing to be the first-to-market with an oral treatment. This could be significant in garnering market share due to the aforementioned manufacturing advantages and the fact that oral delivery is generally preferable to subcutaneous delivery. In Phase II trials, orforglipron achieved statistically significant dose-dependent body weight reductions for all doses tested, according to Lilly’s June 2023 announcement.
Viking Therapeutics’ VK-2735
In February, Viking Therapeutics revealed positive clinical trial results for its obesity candidate, VK2735—a dual GLP-1/GIP agonist, similar to Lilly’s Zepbound. Phase II results showed that the drug was able to achieve up to 13.1% placebo-adjusted mean weight loss. Then, last month, Phase I results revealed that an oral formulation of the treatment led to reductions in mean body weight. There were very few gastrointestinal adverse events reported 28 days after receiving VK2735, which could be an important differentiator as these side effects are a chief complaint associated with GLP-1 medicines.
“Viking is viewed as one of the companies at the forefront of working on an oral formulation,” Suvannavejh said. The company noted in its Phase I data announcement that it would explore “longer treatment windows and potentially higher doses” in Phase II. Suvannavejh said this is because tolerability of the treatment appeared to be “quite good.”
Outside of Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s portfolios, VK2735 is one of the furthest along in clinical development, so these data could signal the approach of a third player on the market—whether that be Viking or a future suitor of the company, with Suvannavejh suggesting that the company could be an acquisition target in the future.
Inversago Pharma’s INV-202
A lesser-known drug candidate but backed by Novo Nordisk’s financial firepower, the CB1 receptor blocker could be another angle of attack for weight loss therapies. In June 2023, two months before Novo Nordisk’s $1 billion buyout, Inversago posted Phase Ib results for INV-202, an oral treatment, which elicited an average weight loss of 7.7 pounds for those treated with the candidate over a 28-day period, compared to 1.2 pounds for placebo comparators. The treatment has been specifically designed to block CB1 receptors in peripheral tissues to avoid the adverse events previously associated with the targeting of this pathway.
Suvannavejh said these four treatments could be positioned as “combination approaches, and in patients who do not respond to GLP-1 or cannot tolerate the side effects.”
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