OvaScience, Seattle Genetics, and Qiagen Present at 31st J.P. Morgan Heathcare Event

This year’s 2013 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco (January 7  to 10) had around 8400 attendees and around 400 company presentations.  Navigating through the hallways to the numerous presentations was a challenge.  These are three of the many company presentations I attended.

OvaScience’s CEO Michelle Dipp gave a very interesting presentation about new infertility treatment options. The U.S. fertility market is over $4 billion and it is seeing rapid worldwide growth, said Dipp.  Some other interesting statistics included that every year there are 7.3 million childbearing women that are infertile and 1.2 million women seeking treatment.  There are over 400 IVF clinics in the U.S.  Most of them are in the East and West Coast.  Unfortunately, most IVF treatments fail because many women are delaying childbirth. Apparently, energy in eggs decreases with age.

OvaScience has discovered that adding mitochondria to human eggs increases IVF success. The company’s new approach to infertility is called the Egg Precursor Cell (EggPC).  The discovery of these EggPCs (germline stem cells) that mature into eggs offers new fertility treatment options, said Dipp.

The company has two product candidates that include Augment and OvaTure.  There is a study underway for the firm’s first product, Augment.  Augment uses EggPC mitochondria to rejuvenate eggs.  The company’s second product OvaTure involves fresh, young, healthy eggs matured in the lab from EggPCs.  The OvaTure program is currently being designed.  According to Dipp, the goal is to improve the IVF success rate for older women while reducing the number of embryos that need to be transferred to the uterus thus decreasing the number of multiple births.  That would be great news for the many infertile women who could benefit from this treatment and not have to worry about the potential of multiple births.

Seattle Genetics’ President and CEO Clay Siegall began his presentation with the company’s key value drivers.  They include building the Adcetris franchise, advancing the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) pipeline and technology along with its strong financial position and collaborations to fund a very robust research.  Adcetris targets the CD30 cell membrane protein, which is expressed on the surface of certain types of lymphoma cells.  Adcetris is FDA approved for relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

The firm also received EU approval for Adcetris in October 2012.  Seattle Genetics has 20 internal and collaborator ongoing clinical programs for Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers.  The company has collaborations with Millennium/Takeda, Genentech, Celldex, Bayer, and Abbott just to name a few.  According to Siegall, “ADC collaborations have generated over $200 million to date with the potential for around $3.8 billion in future milestones plus royalties.”  Net product sales of Adcetris since launch in August 2011 are over $145 million.  Siegall said they are “making strong progress towards a fully global brand.”

Peer Schatz, President and CEO at QIAGEN N.V., began by saying that “2012 was a very important and successful year.”  He said that QIAsymphony is the company’s fastest growing product in molecular diagnostic placements with Europe being the biggest at 40 percent and the U.S. coming in at 35 percent.  Another of its products is the Therascreen KRAS test, a companion diagnostic for metastatic colon cancer to help guide doctors in the use of Erbitux.  “The U.S. KRAS market conversion is progressing well.  Doctors are demanding the Therascreen test,” said Schatz.

Over the next 2 years, the firm will be developing several new molecular diagnostic assays.  Qiagen is also developing new biomarkers with the potential as companion diagnostics.  One of the company’s goals is to “expand NGS from research to routine clinical use.”  Qiagen is preparing the launch of its first NGS workflows in 2013, which includes a broad range of its products such as the QIAsymphony NGS version.  In closing, Schatz said the company will be “executing on its 2013 initiatives to drive growth and innovation at a faster pace.”

J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Kaiser Permanente Aims for “Total Health”

SAN FRANCISCO, Westin St Francis Hotel, January 7, 2013. The Alexandra’s room at the 32^nd floor was filled with attendees. Many people were standing around the seating area and out into the hall to hear speakers from Kaiser Permanente (KP) give their talk.

President and COO, Bernard Tyson opened the KP presentation with basic details about the big health care company.  He said that the not-for-profit HMO is in nine states and has 37 hospitals.  Its facilities occupy some six million square feet.  He said that the firm generated about $50 billion in revenues in 2012.  The firm has 17,300 doctors.  Their mission is to provide the highest quality care to the most patients possible.  Bernard said “This is the same mission created by Henry J. Kaiser when KP was founded.”  KP is active in prepaid care, is technology enabled and stands for “Total Health.”  He said that the future of it care focus has three parts: Quality, Accessibility, and Affordability.  Referring to J.D. Power member quality studies, Bernard said “Quality is rated as #1 with 5 stars.  Seven out of eight regions are rated at 5-stars.  Northern Calif. is rated at 5-stars.”

Tyson went on to say that they have made improvements in care delivery.   KP uses the EPIC information technology system that helps KP deliver healthcare.  He said that quality is an increasing trend and that variation in practices is going down, which is a good thing. With its race-based data system, KP doctors can to look at all ethnicities, which helps to build good data.

Tyson said going forward KP would mainly focus on:

1. Staffed beds (in-hospitals)

2. Face to face meetings (in doctor’s offices)

3. In-home care (in patient’s home)

4. Technology/ virtual care.  (email and mobile apps)

Bernard said that in 2012 KP had 20 million e-visits to doctors and expects the see this activity grow to 25.3 million in the next few years.  He said that in 2012, KP had about 40 million face-to-face visits to doctors.  He is excited about the future.

He introduced Kathy Lancaster, Executive VP and CFO.  Kathy provided some color on the financial details.  She said that quality drives affordability, so investments help the KP regions to achieve NCQA (National Committee for Quality Assurance) goals that ultimately drive better financials. She mentioned that KP received the J.D. Power quality award (2012 national member health plan quality survey).  She said that the investment in quality dramatically drives down affordability costs. The “over-65” (population) group is growing at 3X the rate of the “under-65” group.

She spoke of EBITA data and said that cash is at 3.3X of debt. Managing cash internal to its business is the reason for KP to come to the capital markets.  KP supports about nine million members. Twenty percent of KP’s capital investment goes into IT.  KP developed a $38 billion capital plan.  She said that KP rebuilt 15 of its hospitals in California for seismic repair, etc.  She said that KP is getting ready for Obama Care and its new patients.

Kathy wrapped up her remarks by saying that “Total Health” is staying healthy, returning to health, and healthy aging.  The “80/20 rule” says that patients with most illness cost 80% of the overall healthcare expense.  The “over-65” group is the fastest growing group.

Maria Bartiromo and J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon On Business in 2012 at SF Healthcare Meeting

On Monday January 9, 2012, I attended the J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference luncheon at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.  During the luncheon, Maria Bartiromo, journalist and news anchor at CNBC, interviewed Jamie Dimon, Chairman, President and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase about a number of issues facing his company, the U.S. economy and Europe in 2012.

I compiled a list of some of the answers to questions from Bartiromo and Dimon’s answers to those questions.  Bartiromo asked Dimon about the financial health of J.P. Morgan Chase.  The stock is lower, but the company is better with record earnings, Dimon said.  When asked about the U.S. economy, Dimon’s answer was that the U.S. economy is in a mild recovery.  He sees small business in better shape.  He does not see a huge formation of small businesses, however.  It is not access to capital that is the problem, but demand for their products.  There are also IPO backlogs.

He said that early indicators for the recovery include: housing improving and near bottom and shadow inventory is getting better.  He also believes that more people working, the better it is for the economy.  He is not nervous about the capital markets.  However, he did say that geo-politics is always the wild card.   When asked about the European debt crisis, he said that it has to be fixed for the health of the world.  He said that “countries have to be responsible.  They need to change their fiscal policies.”  J.P. Morgan has cut back exposure, but still is investing in Europe.

Bartiromo also asked Dimon about the “Basel Stress Test”.  He said he is in favor of a good  stress test.  Dimon said that J.P. Morgan will be fine with worst case scenario.  He added that J.P. Morgan never lost money in a quarter after the greatest stress test, which was the “Financial Crisis” in 2008.  He wants fairness around the world for derivatives.   He also commented on the Fed’s “Volcker Rule.”  “The Feds do not want us to take any risks,” Dimon said.  He wishes that people “writing these government rules were business people.” However, he is not opposed completely to regulation.

When asked about ObamaCare, he said he wants healthcare for everyone, but he believes that “ObamaCare just added to the mess.”  Bartiromo asked him about Fannie and Freddie.  He said they should have a hybrid or eliminate them.

When a member of the audience said he should run for President, there were huge laughs.  However, he said he has no plans to do so.