Category: Uncategorized

Just A Quick Glance, Here — At Rising 12 Month Stock Price Targets, For Eli Lilly: Weight Loss And Diabetes Drugs Shine…

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Last Saturday, we mentioned that Lilly has decreased its lobbyist spend, in Q1 2024. It has also wildly improved its bottom line, over the past 12 months. And the stock shows it. But, it may yet be… undervalued, on the NYSE — even at ~$761 a share, this afternoon.

Various Wall Street firms see nearly $1,000 per share within 12 months. And I will candidly admit — that is a sober assessment. The ramp of supply, for two drugs they likely can sell unlimited amounts of — at pretty outrageous prices… seems solid. In any event, here’s a bit, from last week’s news, as well:

“…Now that we’re four months into the year, we have greater visibility into that, into these nodes of capacity and feel more confident,” Eli Lilly CFO Anat Ashkenazi told investors during an earnings call Tuesday.

She noted that Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites either “ramping up or under construction,” including two locations in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland and one in Germany, along with a seventh site the company recently acquired from Nexus Pharmaceuticals.

Eli Lilly said demand for Mounjaro and Zepbound — treatments known as incretin drugs, which mimic hormones produced in the gut to suppress a person’s appetite and regulate their blood sugar — outpaced increases in supply during the quarter. And the company expects supply to remain “quite tight” in the near- to mid-term amid continued demand for those drugs, Ashkenazi said.

But Eli Lilly expects the most significant production increases expected in the second half of the year, she noted.

“Our top priority is making more product, and we’re doing everything we can to do that,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in an interview Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We’re ramping that aggressively. But it’s capital intensive, it’s technically complex and highly regulated….”

Now you know — but I’d suggest that the company ought to split the stock about 8-for-one, to (simple math!) get the NYSE per share price down below ~$100 a share, and thus let more moms and pops get in on it, with their IRA money. Onward to a sunny and relaxing Spring weekend, in celebration of moms everywhere!

नमस्ते

Q.: Does Billingsley Chew… Peyote Buttons, Every Morning?

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As Rigby has cogently pointed out, he’s a very poor writer. That’s a fact — in evidence now.

But after suffering through several that seem to have no discernible premise (nor a plot line — no beginning / middle / or end, in any rational order)… I wonder if recreational chemicals are among his afflictions. [He’s written ten or more like this one this morning: free association pieces — about truly trivial events, most decades in the past — that claimed the non-event caused / predicted today’s Democratic ascendancy. Whatever.]

Me? I think he fancies himself as some kind of a low rent version of… Hunter S. Thompson.

But peyote… seems the equally likely answer — ingested as fuel, for unintelligible spewing like this.

Charming. Sort of… not.

Onward.

United Healthcare Is Transferring Its Zetia® Antitrust Claims Against Merck & Glenmark BACK To The Original Trial Court, ED VA… Opts Out Of Settlement.

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We had mentioned last Fall that some two or three of the insurers might choose to soldier on in this more than decade old, and multi-billion dollar sprawling piece of multidistrict litigation.

That has now happened, as Minnesota’s United Healthcare (an insurer) has received the orders it needs, as of yesterday, to prepare for trial back under its original case number, in the federal district court in Norfolk, Virginia. That case number is 20-cv-1005.

You may see the one page order, here. It is not likely that these two or three cases will go above $100 million each, but they might do half that, each — depending on how much Zetia they were billed for, over the last decade and a half.

So maybe this (in the aggregate) approaches $2 billion, all in — after the opt-outs’ dust has settled. We shall see.

Finally, one of our dozens of prior backgrounders may be found here.

Onward, grinning.

नमस्ते

Push The Boeing Crewed Launch Back Another Week: May 17, 2024 — Earliest. “Space Is… Hard”

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This is wise — and there is literally no reason to… rush it. As we’ve long said, it is no longer clear that humans on Mars yields any significant science dividend, compared to robotic missions — especially in view of not having solved for the radiation problems such a long voyage entails, to human health.

Obviously, the stepping stones are crewed missions in this capsule, then crewed missions to the Moon in it. That, at some point in the mid-2030s or beyond might lead to a crewed mission to Mars — but only after better shielding for radiation is worked out. So — here’s the latest, on it all. As ever, safety is (and should be) the prime objective:

…NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test now is targeted to launch no earlier than 6:16 p.m. EDT Friday, May 17, to the International Space Station. Following a thorough data review completed on Tuesday, ULA (United Launch Alliance) decided to replace a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank on the Atlas V rocket’s Centaur upper stage.

ULA plans to roll the rocket, with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, back to its Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral… to begin the replacement. The ULA team will perform leak checks and functional checkouts in support of the next launch attempt.

The oscillating behavior of the valve during prelaunch operations, ultimately resulted in mission teams calling a launch scrub on May 6….

Now you know. Onward, smiling — sun peeking through here, now.

नमस्ते

Once Again, None Of “The Boys” Have Anything Interesting To Say… So: Power Alley, Anew.

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A Slight (Immaterial) Setback In Post-Surgical Endometrial Tumors, With Chemo And Pembrolizumab…

This morning, Merck released top line results for a trial designed to show enhanced survival from Keytruda in post surgical settings, for certain endometrial cancers in women. It is immaterial, because Rahway already possesses two approvals for pembrolizumab in such cancers. [Our prior mention, here — as background.]

The stock is rising slightly on the news, as proof of immateriality. So, onward, the juggernaut rumbles — (perhaps to confirm) this cogent analysis, from Fierce:

…While Merck & Co.’s Keytruda already boasts a pair of approvals to treat certain forms of endometrial cancer, a recent effort to prove the PD-1 inhibitor’s worth as a post-surgery add-on therapy in newly diagnosed patients has fallen short.

Adjuvant treatment with Keytruda and chemotherapy — with or without radiotherapy — failed to hit the mark for disease-free survival (DFS) in newly diagnosed, high-risk endometrial cancer patients who received surgery with curative intent, according to an interim analysis of Merck’s late-stage KEYNOTE-B21 study. DFS refers to the length of time after a primary treatment ends that a patient survives without any signs or symptoms of their cancer….

Now you know — smiling and trusting all is well, in the soaked South, after a hectic weather night… onward.

नमस्ते

A Passing I Missed, From March of This Year: Jim Dean, Created NASA’s Art — And Artists’ — Program…

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But first, a confession — many I night I lay awake staring at posters tacked to the ceiling in our mountain town (not the kinds some might imagine!), as these were re-gifted — from the nuns, after the same had run their course, as teaching aids, in the elementary school (and likely furnished to schools nationwide, nearly for free, by NASA).

I am certain some of those renderings — of water-color laden moons around Jupiter, and Mars… and even the tiny but history-making Sputnik-1… were Jim’s creations, or collaborations.

So it is that we celebrate both his career at NASA, and at the Smithsonian, in inspiring generations of STEM kids to go into… the space sciences — a field that didn’t really exist much before 1962. Well-lived, Jim — well lived:

…Dean also recognized the importance of having a diverse range of artists present, even if they were all ostensibly there to capture the same historical event. “When you have six artists sitting together painting the same thing,” he explained, “each painting is different. And that’s because … they’re seeing all the same thing, but the image goes through their imagination too and all their experience….”

Dean served as the director of the NASA Art Program from 1962 to 1974, before leaving to become the first art curator for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum from 1974 until his retirement in 1980. He passed away in Washington on March 22, 2024, at the age of 92. But his legacy lives on in the NASA Art Program collection, which currently has some 3,000 works divided between the National Air and Space Museum and NASA. Today, the program is focused on STEM outreach initiatives to inspire youth through creative activity….

Grinning ear to ear. Onward.

नमस्ते

With Scant “On Topic” News — One More Tangent: The Father Of Modern Chemistry, Beheaded This Day — In Paris, May 8, 1794.

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Let us stipulate at the top: Antoine Lavoisier was born into money. He was a French aristocrat, from the go. And in the end, that is probably why he was executed at age 50. But his immense advancements in the sciences, chemistry in particular, are why I write to commemorate him, today. [I don’t think we’ve covered him before here.]

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that much of what pharmaceutical sciences have achieved in the ensuing three plus centuries. . . stems directly from his pioneering work. Rather than focusing on his untimely demise, in a time of mob-rule, let us remember his achievements (via easy Wikipedia!):

…It is generally accepted that Lavoisier’s great accomplishments in chemistry stem largely from his changing the science from a qualitative to a quantitative one. Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He named oxygen (1778), recognizing it as an element, and also recognized hydrogen as an element (1783), opposing the phlogiston theory.

Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He predicted the existence of silicon (1787) and discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same. His wife and laboratory assistant, Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, became a renowned chemist in her own right….

[Just for the record, the ultimate charge by the revolutionaries — accusing him of tax fraud, by selling “adulterated” tobacco, was completely trumped up — and for that, he was put to death.]

Onward, smiling a slightly sad, soaked sort of smile… do be excellent to one another. Now you know.

नमस्ते

Well… At Least Paul Realizes His “Eradication Agenda” In Gaza… Is A Dead Letter. But Not Much Else He Writes… Makes Any Sense.

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I suppose the scant good news here is that Paul, John, Steve and Scott (and now even Lloyd and Bill!) realize that the world will not support their eradication agenda.

The dust is settling, and Bibi may be out, if he doesn’t establish a near term two state solution — and lots of humanitarian aid in Gaza, for the retaliatory destruction he’s wrought.

More than that though, the US is now stopping the shipment of large munitions, to Israel — for the laudable goal of forcing compliance with rational peace-establishing measures. And then for peace-keeping ones. In a two state future. [BTW, this — seeking peace — is precisely the opposite of Tangerine stopping humanitarian aid, to Ukraine — until it would find “dirt” on his own domestic political opponents. That was simple… larceny.]

Paul knows the “war” rhetoric is now… dead. It won’t sell, in view of the lack of serious compromises, from Israel — on getting hostages home. This whole “hard no” approach… is utterly-dead rhetoric, now. And Paul senses it.

So he writes of what he’d like, post war. Not that he will get it, mind you.

But this is… some progress.

Onward.

Long Thought Lost To The Deep Silty Riverbed, A Storied Arts & Crafts Typeface… Rises — And Echoes The Words, In A River Cut By Ancient Floods… [Yes, A Tangent]

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I was put in mind of this story, which I saw only last week — by what will likely be the overnight flooding of a certain river, near Nashville, Tennessee — and how the rivers run through… all of us, truly.

So here it is — not life science, per se — but more the history of art… recovered. [Which is, after all — some measure of the life of all of us, recorded for eternity.]

Well over a century ago, now… two partners had a falling out over whether one was being “swindled” by the other, over some small rights-payments, for an enigmatic-but-beautiful leaden typeface the two had designed several decades earlier — in London.

And so, one of them tossed every single tangible, leaded bit of the proprietary face… into the muddy Thames River, near Fleet Street, off the Hammersmith Bridge one night.

While many printed paper books (and even bibles, from the 1910s and 1920s) still preserve what the font looked like when struck, no versions of the molded lead dies remained. It was indeed — thought lost, to the raindrops, under the rocks, from the basement of time — in that ancient riverbed.

Then in 2014 — a century on, an enterprising art historian got to work, sifting the Thames… in just the right spots (do go read it all!):

…With its extra-wide capital letters, diamond shaped punctuation and unique off-kilter dots on the letter “i,” Doves Type became the press’s hallmark, surpassing fussier typographic attempts by their friend and sometime collaborator, William Morris.

The letterforms only existed as a unique 16 pt edition, meaning that when Cobden-Sanderson decided to “bequeath” every single piece of molded lead to the Thames, he effectively destroyed any prospect of the typeface ever being printed again. That might well have been the case, were it not for several individuals and a particularly tenacious graphic designer.

Robert Green first became fascinated with Doves Type in the mid-2000s, scouring printed editions and online facsimiles, to try and faithfully redraw and digitize every line. In 2013, he released the first downloadable version on typespec, but remained dissatisfied. In October 2014, he decided to take to the river to see if he could find any of the original pieces….

And so… as other rivers likely leapt their banks this evening, what treasures lost to pre-civil war Tennessee… might be washed onto the otherwise dry flats? We shall soon possibly… see. Onward, grinning….

नमस्ते

Bill Otis Is 💯 Right: “No Consequences” = BAD!

~ condor ~ 3 Comments

He’s finally offered a major premise (about his fellow Americans) I might 💯 support.

The problem is… he’s entirely fixated… on the wrong Americans.

He writes that a lack of “consequences“, for malign actions, and actors… is ruining the US.

Confidential note to Bill Otis: the most-culpable people who refuse to accept the lawful criminal consequences… for their own malign acts… now lead his party.

In fact, he’s backing a no consequences serial sexual predator, and financial fraudster… for a return stay at 1600 Penn, in 2024.

A man soon to be a multi-count convicted felon.

Yes, Mr. Otis: we do need to get tough on crime.

Especially… white collar crimes committed by a then sitting Commander in Chief.

Man are you… a putz.

Out.