Biotech
The first trillion-dollar health care company …
… will be one co-founded by Bob Nelsen, according to Bob Nelsen.
Speaking at the STAT Breakthrough Summit yesterday, Nelsen made the case for Altos Labs, a handsomely funded startup focused on longevity. It starts with the science. Altos is working on epigenetic reprogramming that, at least in animals, can transform cells back to a younger, pre-diseased state. Then there's the business model. If that approach pans out in humans, Altos could cut out the many middlemen in health care and open its own cellular rejuvenation clinics, allowing them to "own the customer" rather than function as a simple supplier.
"It eliminates hospitals as we know them," Nelsen said. "It eliminates pharmaceutical companies as we know them…. I think by 2050, that will happen, and that will probably be the biggest company in the world. If it works."
R&D
AstraZeneca is very good at inventing drugs
At least according to the latest league table for Big Pharma, an annual ranking of drugmakers based on their ability to come up with new medicines and effectively get them onto the market.
The Pharmaceutical Innovation and Invention Index, produced by the consultancy Idea Pharma and released at the STAT Breakthrough Summit yesterday, ranks the largest pharmaceutical companies based on two measures: what it calls invention, which is basically how good they are at coming up with new medicines, and innovation, which the firm defines as the ability to run clinical trials, deal with regulators, handle manufacturing, and market the new medicine.
AstraZeneca, which launched seven new drugs from 2018 to 2022, topped the invention index. Pfizer, which had nine approvals, led the innovation index, with Idea noting that the company's pandemic success meant that it had added sales at the fastest rate seen in the innovation index's history.
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Markets
Icahn v. Illumina has taken a strange turn
Activist investor Carl Icahn is in the end stages of his effort to shake up the board of Illumina, issuing another characteristically colorful letter to shareholders yesterday in which he chastises the company for spending too much money and ponders whether its recent star-studded public forum was "simply an excuse for CEO Francis deSouza to hobnob with some bigwigs and curry favors and invites to Davos and Sun Valley." But Illumina, which once seemed powerless to stop him, might have gotten a lifeline from a short seller.
Icahn Enterprises has lost nearly $8 billion in value this week after Hindenburg Research, a short-focused firm that has punctured more than a few bubbly stocks, published a report claiming the company is over-valued, over-leveraged, and employing "Ponzi-like economic structures" to recruit new investors.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Icahn has borrowed heavily against his shares in his namesake firm, and if its value declines further, banks might start liquidating their holdings to cover his debts. The whole thing creates a reputational issue for Icahn as he heads into Illumina's shareholder vote later this month, and if the situation substantially worsens, his stake in the company could be at risk, too.
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