Johandesilva
10 May 2017
Re: Time to buy again Yep same price as my last buy rec but with the added bonus of no NAV report today after a good 1.6% up in the sector in the US. Also there is a fund selling widening the spread. Long term only.
Stepenwolf
10 May 2017
Re: Time to buy again HiWhat do people think - time to buy now ?
Johandesilva
03 May 2017
Factsheet and newsletter Sign up on the website for the newsletter and PDF fact sheetwww.ibtplc.com23rd March 2017Dear Reader,Please find attached International Biotechnology Trust’s February 2017 factsheet. There is a constant flow of new investment opportunities in the biotech sector. To fully investigate these opportunities we often meet with the management teams directly. In January, we travelled to the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference venue in San Francisco and met with 35 company management teams. In the last six weeks, we attended another three investment conferences, BIO CEO and Leerink Healthcare Conference in New York, and Cowen Healthcare Conference in Boston. This has led to five new stocks being introduced into IBT’s portfolio, one of which has already been acquired by a major pharmaceutical company. A hot topic, for many panels at these meetings, has been the potential changes in healthcare policy/law/regulation. Everyone is trying to find an answer to the question, “What will the new US administration do?” It is difficult, if not impossible, to know the answer at this stage. It is our view that there will be continued uncertainty and until final proposals have been made, valuations in the sector may remain volatile. Taking a helicopter view, the founders of the USA in the 18th century, separated power into three parts; The Supreme Court, “the Hill” (House of Representatives and Senate) and the President. Their thought behind this was to reduce the risk that any party or person would turn a democracy to a dictatorship. The result today is that significant changes are slow. Our view is that changes to the US healthcare system will eventually happen, but the impact on drug prices will be gradual over time. We expect the practise of “price gouging” to stop and pharmaceutical companies to temper price increases as a result of political pressure rather than direct legislation. However we believe that innovative drugs for serious medical conditions will still command high prices and be very profitable to those companies that develop them. We think our portfolio is well positioned to capture the value creation generated by innovation in biotech.After a quiet period in the IPO market, a window seems to be opening again and we have invested in one IPO this year. This is not the main source of our new investment ideas but as and when we see good IPO opportunities, we act. Extract from the investment manager’s comment in the factsheet.“In February 2017, IBT’s NAV/share increased by 6.1% (GBP) while the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index was up 8.2% (GBP). The FTSE All-Share Index was up 3.1% (GBP) and the S&P 500 Index rose 5.3% (GBP). IBT’s share price increased 7.6% (GBP). The USD strengthened 1.6% vs the GBP.The main positive contributors to NAV in February were Tesaro, Amgen and Biogen. Tesaro shares rose after speculation mounted that various companies, including Sanofi Aventis, were exploring an acquisition of the company to access their PARP inhibitor, currently filed with FDA for approval in recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer. Amgen shares rose after the company announced that their cholesterol lowering PCSK9 Rapatha reduced cardiovascular risk in an outcomes trial. Biogen shares showed strength during the month as investors grew more comfortable that their recently approved drug Sprinraza for a rare neuromuscular disorder (SMA) would achieve blockbuster status.The main negative contributor to NAV in February was Gilead. Synergy and Innate shares were relatively weak. Gilead shares fell as investors became impatient with the management team’s ability to grow the company. Expectations have been that the company would allocate capital through an acquisition and return to growth. Shares in Synergy Pharmaceuticals reported weaker than expected results during their quarterly earnings update. Innate Pharmaceuticals announced disappointing phase two data for their drug lirilumab in leukemia.”Than
Johandesilva
28 Apr 2017
Value-Based Pricing For Pharmaceuticals In The Trump Administration Value-Based Pricing For Pharmaceuticals In The Trump AdministrationApril 27, 2017[link] seems to agree: Drug prices are too damn high. Scandalous prices for new drugs and enormous price hikes on old drugs have focused public ire on the pharmaceutical industry. A bipartisan consensus has emerged that something must be done to tackle drug prices.There’s less consensus, however, about what that something ought to be. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is one popular possibility; outright price controls are also under discussion. But with Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House, neither appears to be on the policy agenda. But one market-friendly alternative, “value-based pricing,” may hold more promise. Many different groups—from drug companies to patient advocates to policy shops—would like to pivot away from a pricing model that links sales revenue to volume. Instead, they would like to explore paying for prescription drugs based on how well they work.What Is Value-Based Pricing?Value-based pricing is an umbrella term, encompassing a number of different possible payment arrangements. At its administratively simplest, a company could link the single price it charges for a given drug to an assessment of how well it works. More sophisticated versions of value-based pricing in the marketplace would allow insurers and patients to receive rebates from drug manufacturers if a drug failed to work, an arrangement known as “outcome-based pricing.” Another variant would involve “indication-based pricing,” in which drug companies charge different prices for the same drug when it is used to treat different conditions.In principle, pharmaceutical companies appear open to novel pricing arrangements. Some have even signed outcome-based pricing contracts with insurers. In general, however, the industry has held back, arguing that government regulations—and, in particular, Medicaid’s best-price rule—are obstacles to value-based pricing.Medicaid’s Best-Price RuleWhat is the best-price rule? Does it really impede the adoption of value-based pricing? If so, what can be done about it?To keep federal spending in check, state Medicaid programs never pay full price for a drug. statute, they receive rebates worth about one-quarter of a drug’s average manufacturer price. But if a manufacturer chooses to sell the drug to someone else for less than the rebated amount, Medicaid will only pay that “best price.” It’s a guarantee that Medicaid can buy the drug at the cheapest price that the manufacturer can afford to sell it.Now consider outcome-based pricing, in which manufacturers get paid less when their drugs perform poorly. A manufacturer, for example, might agree to pay a $75 rebate on a $100 drug that fails to work for a particular patient. If it did, however, $25 would now be the drug’s “best price.” Every Medicaid program would be legally entitled to that price, decimating the manufacturer’s revenue from Medicaid.That’s why the pharmaceutical industry complains that the best-price rule impedes outcome-based pricing. Its objection is accurate so far as it goes, but it ignores a technique that drug companies and insurers could use to contract around the best-price rule. Instead of granting a rebate if a drug fails to work for a particular patient, manufacturers can offer a rebate based on the performance of the drug across a patient population. To return to the earlier example, a drug manufacturer might sell a drug for $100 but offer a $75 rebate per patient for whom the drug doesn’t work, based on the drug’s performance across 1,000 patients. If the drug is 75 percent effective, the average price for the drugs sold to the 1,000 patients would be north of $80, high enough not to trigger the best-price rule. Indeed, the fact that drug companies have begun to enter into some of
Johandesilva
25 Apr 2017
Time to buy again NAV about to go well past 630p tomorrow.Charts show this as well south of the 50 day averages."Weak BUY" not Strong cos of The Trump.
Johandesilva
29 Mar 2017
Success for an IBT Vertex Vertex Pharmaceuticals onto a winner. Should add 0.7% to NAV of IBT, report tomorrow on top of the US phama recovery looking good but slow in early trading[link]
Johandesilva
24 Mar 2017
Re: Health care vote today The vote was withdrawn shortly after 15:30 US time.However, House Speaker Paul Ryan said this was "not the end of the story" [link]
Johandesilva
23 Mar 2017
Health care vote today The reason why the sector has been falling...[link]
Johandesilva
21 Mar 2017
Re: Share purchase I have since switched to Youinvest.co.uk do people still buy direct?Sad to see this dip under 600p today. Looks like US market specific in return hitting biophama. This sector just needs some clean air again and that is not always possible under the Trump. In the short term sadly bearish charts down to 590p on the 50 day averages. On the upside mid term the trend is still upward and history shows this as a long term investment.
peterjg1
20 Mar 2017
Re: Share purchase I bought my holding via iii. Good luck!
markdalton
20 Mar 2017
Re: Share purchase I bought mine via fund supermarket....iii as it happens
Johnill
20 Mar 2017
Share purchase Is it possible to buy shares in IBT direct or do I need a stockbroker?
Johandesilva
16 Mar 2017
Buy now for long-term gain A good overview of the sector over the last few years and hopefully going forward:[link] Outstanding performance by IBT in comparison to market and other biophama funds.
Johandesilva
23 Feb 2017
Total of 3 M&A in Jan Ariad, Colucid and Actelion
Johandesilva
08 Feb 2017
Second M&A of 2017 for IBT TESARO Inc (NASDAQ:TSRO) - cr4.6% of portfolio[link]
