trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/5IhLzCLJN-4iWBH5gpoNEQ2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Fosun's Henlius tests Hong Kong's IPO market; NIH taps Apple on women's health

Blog

A Pharmaceutical Company Capitalizes on M&A Activity with Brokerage Research

Blog

2021 Year in Review: Highlighting Key Investment Banking Trends

Blog

Insight Weekly: US stock performance; banks' M&A risk; COVID-19 vaccine makers' earnings

Blog

Global M&A By the Numbers: Q3 2021


Fosun's Henlius tests Hong Kong's IPO market; NIH taps Apple on women's health

Top news

* Shanghai Henlius Biotech Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co. Ltd. and Fosun International Ltd., filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company's IPO is set to be priced at between HK$49.6 and HK$57.8, for proceeds of up to $477 million, Reuters reported, citing a term sheet.

The biotechnology company's offering is the first sizable public float to test market sentiment amid local protests against a bill that would have allowed the extradition of individuals to mainland China from the city.

* The National Institutes of Health is collaborating with tech giant Apple Inc. and Harvard University to study women's health, including conditions such as pregnancy, infertility, polycystic ovary syndrome, menopausal transition and osteoporosis.

* Mayo Clinic is partnering with Google LLC to store healthcare data in Google Cloud and to use the tech giant's artificial intelligence capabilities to advance the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. As part of the decadelong collaboration, Google will open a new office near Mayo Clinic's headquarters in Rochester, Minn., where Google's engineers will join forces with Mayo Clinic's researchers to work on healthcare solutions.

In July, Providence St. Joseph Health entered into a multiyear strategic alliance that would combine Microsoft Corp.'s cloud and AI capabilities with the healthcare system operator's clinical expertise. Later that month, healthcare technology company Cerner Corp. announced a similar partnership with Amazon.com Inc.

* U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is taking the top government infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, and other high-level U.S. health officials with him to the Democratic Republic of Congo to get a ground view of the ongoing Ebola outbreak. The U.S. officials will also visit Rwanda and Uganda while in Africa, but the specific travel timeline is being kept secret for security reasons.

The purpose of the trip is multifaceted but is mostly aimed at sending a signal that the U.S. takes the Ebola outbreak very seriously, Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told S&P Global Market Intelligence in an interview.

* About 27.5 million Americans did not have insurance in 2018, up from 25.6 million in 2017, according to data from the New Census Bureau. Protect Our Care, a U.S. healthcare advocacy organization, blamed the increase — the first in nearly a decade — on the Trump administration's efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act.

* U.S. drug pricing watchdog Institute for Clinical and Economic Review said it has "high levels of uncertainty" over the cost-effectiveness of Novo Nordisk A/S' diabetes treatment oral semaglutide, intended for type 2 diabetes mellitus, when compared to other therapies. "Based on the current clinical evidence, with limited follow-up, and without knowing the eventual price for oral semaglutide, we are unable to draw conclusions on its cost effectiveness with any certainty," ICER said in a draft evidence report.

On the policy front

* By mirroring President Donald Trump's idea of using a foreign pricing index for negotiating what Americans would pay for medicines, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made a savvy move, which may give her the upper hand in getting legislation adopted or in putting her political rivals in a tight spot, said Evercore ISI public policy analyst Sarah Bianchi.

* The White House is looking into an executive order that would block shipments of fentanyl and counterfeit goods, which could pressure Beijing to help the U.S. combat its opioid epidemic, Bloomberg News reported. The draft order would force shipments from international seas to pass through the U.S. Postal Service instead of the country's largest couriers, United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp., insiders told Bloomberg.

Drug and product pipeline

* Xeris Pharmaceuticals Inc. said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its ready-to-use glucagon rescue pen Gvoke to treat severe hypoglycemia in diabetes patients older than two years. The Chicago-based pharmaceutical company developed Gvoke as liquid-stable glucagon in an auto-injector that will cut down preparation and administration time in situations where patients have dangerously low levels of blood sugar.

* AVEO Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s tivozanib extended the lives of patients with renal cell carcinoma, an aggressive type of kidney cancer, in a late-stage study. CEO Michael Bailey said on a special call held Sept. 10 that AVEO reached an agreement with the U.S. FDA in January to hold off on submitting a marketing application for tivozanib in the U.S. until more mature overall survival results under a prespecified analysis are available.

AVEO plans to discuss the updated results with the FDA in the fourth quarter and expects to provide an update on a marketing application for tivozanib in RCC after these discussions.

Operational activity

* AstraZeneca PLC is looking at new and innovative medicines to bring in 60% of its sales in China by 2024, potentially overtaking revenues from off-patent drugs, Leon Wang, the company's executive vice president overseeing international markets, told Bloomberg News.

* VBI Vaccines Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC started a partnership to evaluate a combination of VBI's cancer vaccine VBI-1901 with GSK's proprietary AS01B. Under the collaboration, VBI intends to add another study group to part B of its ongoing phase 1/2a study of VBI-1901 as a treatment for recurrent glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain tumor associated with infection caused by a common virus called cytomegalovirus.

* Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc. terminated a collaboration with France's Sanofi for the development of diabetes treatments, settling the matter for an up-front payment of $208 million. Woodlands, Texas-based Lexicon will receive another $52 million from Sanofi within 12 months and will regain all rights to develop and commercialize Zynquista for treating type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Sanofi said it was ending the collaboration in July after the experimental diabetes drug failed to achieve all the goals set out in three late-stage clinical trials.

* BeiGene Ltd. CEO John Oyler disputed a short seller's claims that the Chinese drugmaker had misreported its sales, leading to a partial recovery in the stock following a two-day decline. The Sept. 5 report by investment research firm J Capital Research accused BeiGene of faking 60% of its sales. Oyler said in the Sept. 8 conference call that the report is a "collection of misleading statements with malicious assumptions."

The day ahead

Early morning futures indicators pointed to a higher opening for the U.S. market.

In Asia, the Hang Seng gained 1.78% to 27,159.06, and the Nikkei 225 increased 0.96% to 21,597.76.

In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 climbed 0.92% to 7,334.87, and the Euronext 100 was up 0.46% to 1,084.33.

Click here to read about today's financial markets, setting out the factors driving stocks, bonds and currencies around the world ahead of the New York open.

The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 6:30 a.m. ET. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.