Investment

Coronavirus spending: an expense — or an investment? – STAT

Published

5 years ago

March 5, 2020

In the context of a looming global pandemic, what does it mean to invest in public health?

At a White House meeting this week, President Donald Trump convened key biopharmaceutical industry leaders to advance the development of effective treatments and vaccines to combat the new coronavirus. The industry has responded to this global challenge in unprecedented ways: Moderna identified a promising vaccine candidate just 42 days after the virus was sequenced, the fastest turnaround in history. Gilead’s drug remdesivir, developed (and abandoned) in response to the Ebola outbreak, was resurrected to treat the first U.S. Covid-19 patient and will enter Phase 3 trials in China in a matter of weeks. Other companies, like Regeneron, Inovio, and CureVac, have also jumped into the race.

Is it important that the U.S. is prepared for a pandemic? It feels that way now, as Covid-19 threatens to tank our economy and overwhelm our hospital systems. But public health didn’t feel like a priority two years ago when Trump fired the CDC’s pandemic response team without replacing it. And it certainly didn’t feel like a priority last year when bills like H.R. 3 proposed shaving $1 trillion from the biotech sector, which would have crippled its ability to function at its current capacity.

Here’s something most people don’t understand: the American biopharmaceutical industry is flourishing. And it is precisely because this industry is flourishing that drug companies can respond to this new global threat with unprecedented speed and precision.

Maintaining a biotech sector that consistently leads the world in finding scientific advancements for human health is good for all of us.

In the context of this election season, it is especially important to stress that sustaining this level of productivity does not have to mean placing an outsized burden on patients. Out-of-pocket costs for drugs are not some immutable part of our system etched into stone on the mountain of health care economics: they were invented by insurance companies and we can do away with them.

This week, New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued a directive mandating that insurance companies in his state could not engage in cost-sharing for health care expenses associated with Covid-19, essentially rendering testing and follow-up costs free to patients at the point of care. It would be entirely possible for us to expand that directive nationwide in the same way we prevented insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions: as a society we decided that the practice was unethical, and Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.

The burden is on us as a nation to make conscientious investments. We spent $61 billion on out-of-pocket drug costs in 2018, along with $254 billion on alcoholic beverages and $800 billion in health care-associated administrative costs, including chasing after unsuspecting patients to pay surprise medical bills.

We have the money to lift the cost-sharing burden from patients while maintaining scientific productivity.

So let’s not ask “What’s the right price for a coronavirus drug?” Because this isn’t about any particular drug. Some therapies will fail as we race toward controlling Covid-19, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad investments — like Gilead’s remdesivir, they may someday be recycled to fight the next global crisis. This is about making a conscientious investment in maintaining the system that allows us to intervene to head off crises like Covid-19 and its successors.

Inventing a successful drug means investing in the future. By treating conditions that would otherwise result in expensive hospital stays and costly medical management, effective drugs save our system massive amounts of money every year. And though drug prices may seem high at launch, drugs go generic after patents expire, with most becoming available to patients at far more affordable prices once competitors enter the market, saving untold sums for the rest of time. These savings are easy to overlook because it’s impossible to talk about the costs we have avoided — they don’t exist, so we can’t dispute them.

After we conquer Covid-19, we shouldn’t just move on and forget the level of biotech industry hustle that got us there. We should move to protect patients from out-of-pocket costs, and then we should be asking this: “What’s the most reasonable amount a prosperous society like ours should put aside for drug development even when there’s no looming crisis?”

When you put it that way, the 1.3% of gross domestic product our country spends on branded drugs seems like a bargain.

Jessica Sagers, Ph.D., is head of engagement at RA Capital Management, a Boston-based healthcare and life science investment firm.

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Economy

Energy stocks help lift S&P/TSX composite, U.S. stock markets also up

Published

21 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was higher in late-morning trading, helped by strength in energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also moved up.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 34.91 points at 23,736.98.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 178.05 points at 41,800.13. The S&P 500 index was up 28.38 points at 5,661.47, while the Nasdaq composite was up 133.17 points at 17,725.30.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.56 cents US compared with 73.57 cents US on Monday.

The November crude oil contract was up 68 cents at US$69.70 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up three cents at US$2.40 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$7.80 at US$2,601.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.28 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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Economy

S&P/TSX gains almost 100 points, U.S. markets also higher ahead of rate decision

Published

5 days ago

September 13, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets climbed to their best week of the year.

“It’s been almost a complete opposite or retracement of what we saw last week,” said Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.

While last week saw a “healthy” pullback on weaker economic data, this week investors appeared to be buying the dip and hoping the central bank “comes to the rescue,” said Petursson.

Next week, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut its key interest rate for the first time in several years after it significantly hiked it to fight inflation.

But the magnitude of that first cut has been the subject of debate, and the market appears split on whether the cut will be a quarter of a percentage point or a larger half-point reduction.

Petursson thinks it’s clear the smaller cut is coming. Economic data recently hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been that bad either, he said — and inflation may have come down significantly, but it’s not defeated just yet.

“I think they’re going to be very steady,” he said, with one small cut at each of their three decisions scheduled for the rest of 2024, and more into 2025.

“I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency on the part of the Fed that they have to do something immediately.

A larger cut could also send the wrong message to the markets, added Petursson: that the Fed made a mistake in waiting this long to cut, or that it’s seeing concerning signs in the economy.

It would also be “counter to what they’ve signaled,” he said.

More important than the cut — other than the new tone it sets — will be what Fed chair Jerome Powell has to say, according to Petursson.

“That’s going to be more important than the size of the cut itself,” he said.

In Canada, where the central bank has already cut three times, Petursson expects two more before the year is through.

“Here, the labour situation is worse than what we see in the United States,” he said.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.

The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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Economy

S&P/TSX composite down more than 200 points, U.S. stock markets also fall

Published

2 weeks ago

September 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was down more than 200 points in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the technology, base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets also fell.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 239.24 points at 22,749.04.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.36 points at 40,443.39. The S&P 500 index was down 80.94 points at 5,422.47, while the Nasdaq composite was down 380.17 points at 16,747.49.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.80 cents US compared with 74.00 cents US on Thursday.

The October crude oil contract was down US$1.07 at US$68.08 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.26 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$2.10 at US$2,541.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was down four cents at US$4.10 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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