Coronavirus stock A second primary-care company is gearing up to go public

Hello,

Welcome to Dispensed, Business Insider’s weekly healthcare newsletter. 

This week, amid rising coronavirus hospitalizations and political attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci for his response to the pandemic, we covered new developments in the vaccine race, what’s on deck for the next coronavirus stimulus package, and another primary care IPO that’s in the works. 

But first:

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What’s in store for the next stimulus bill

Congress and the Trump administration are gearing up for the next coronavirus bailout bill. 

Ahead of it, Kimberly Leonard spoke to analysts about what’s inside. 

They told her to expect tension around:

• A fight over what will replace the $600 weekly coronavirus unemployment boost that’s set to expire at the end of the month.
• A push by Republicans to protect companies from coronavirus lawsuits as businesses reopen.

All that and more is expected in the next bill, which analysts said could total $1.5 trillion.

You can read the full story here>>

From stimulus checks to unemployment benefits, top analysts shared their predictions for the next coronavirus bailout package. They’re pegging it at $1.5 trillion.

We just got our first official look at Moderna’s early coronavirus vaccine data

You might read that headline and think, Lydia, didn’t you say we got results from Moderna’s early vaccine trial back in May? 

Yes, yes I did. However, that information came from a news release. As of Tuesday, we now have results that are published in a peer-reviewed journal, Andrew Dunn reports. It’s a more comprehensive view of the trial and its results, which found that the shots generated an immune response.

That’ll be key as the company heads into its late-stage, 30,000-person trial later this month.

That said, not all the news on coronavirus treatments and vaccines looked promising this week. On Thursday, yet another study of hydroxychloroquine found that it doesn’t work to treat the coronavirus. This time, the drug was tested in recently infected coronavirus patients.  

To be sure, there are plenty of endeavors focused on vaccines and treatments in the works.

This week Andrew took a look at a vaccine effort underway at Canadian biotech Medicago that stands out because it’s making its vaccine out of plants (!).  

All the excitement around companies looking at potential treatments and vaccines has led to inflated stock prices for some of the biotech companies touting their efforts, a reality that makes RBC’s top dealmaker Andrew Callaway wary. 

“The valuations of some of these companies make absolutely no sense,” he told Business Insider’s Blake Dodge.

Speaking of valuations, Moderna’s stock has been surging since its positive results, and the company is now valued at $34 billion. Analysts at some of Wall Street’s top banks expect the company’s stock price to rise even more. 

You can read the full story here>>

Moderna’s stock is at an all-time high after early but promising results for its coronavirus vaccine. Here’s why top banks like Goldman Sachs say it can surge another 20%.

Lydia Ramsey/Business Insider

We’re headed toward our second primary care IPO of the year

The past two weeks have been chock-full of primary care and pharmacy news. Two pharmacy startups — Medly and NowRx — raised additional capital this week. 

And some of Walmart’s recent movements in health — signing on to be an insurance broker, and its deal with a pharmacy startup — make it a “sleeping giant to watch,” according to Morgan Stanley.

(Longtime readers of this newsletter might remember that same “sleeping giant” phrase from our initial chats with experts last September when Walmart’s health ambitions became clearer.)

Then last Friday, Oak Street Health filed to go public. 

I’ve been keeping my eye on Oak Street as one of eight primary care startups trying a new approach to the business.

To that end, I read through the full Oak Street S-1 so you don’t have to. It reveals a lot about the company’s financials and its backers (Humana is much more involved than I realized). 

You can read the full story here>>

We looked through Oak Street Health’s 188-page IPO filing, and it revealed 5 crucial details about the company as it looks to transform how seniors are cared for

Hospitals are grappling with the move to online healthcare

When the pandemic hit the US, a significant portion of medical visits moved online, leaving medical practices and health systems to navigate that new reality. 

Theoretically, that should make going to the doctor a more efficient and less expensive process, both for patients and hospitals. That’s not the case — at least not yet. 

Mayo Clinic’s technology chief told Blake why telehealth won’t save hospitals money in the near term.

Meanwhile, amid the pandemic, health systems are still making the move onto the cloud as a way to store hospital information.

Blake spoke to the chief information officer at Northwell Health about why cloud provider Microsoft has become a favorite among health systems as they make that transition. 

You can read the full story here>>

3 reasons why Microsoft is beating out Amazon and Google to become the emerging favorite in healthcare, according to the tech chief of New York’s biggest hospital system

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Inside a secretive government project to track coronavirus data

Finally, Blake and Hilary Brueck have the story on the controversy surrounding how hospitals share their coronavirus data with the federal government. 

On Wednesday, hospitals stopped reporting information on capacity, staffing, and supplies directly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They’re sending it to a database managed by the Department of Health and Human Services (of which the CDC is a part) instead.

That means the public isn’t able to directly see how much capacity hospitals around the country have left. 

Instead, that information is going into a database built by private contractors, including Palantir, as part of a project known as HHS Protect.

You can read the full story here>>

A secretive government project to track coronavirus data is now at the center of a Trump controversy. Here’s what you need to know about HHS Protect.

I’ll leave you with some news you can use: The best and worst face masks, ranked by their level of protection.

Thoughts, questions, tips? You can find me at lramsey@businessinsider.com, or you can reach the entire team at healthcare@businessinsider.com.

Don’t forget – Sign up for daily updates from the healthcare team! Have a good weekend.

– Lydia

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