What is interesting here is that this suddenly makes the new portfolio management team at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A)(NYSE: BRK-B) have to consider whether or not the “forever” time period applies to its relatively new investment here.

HealthCare Partners operates centers in Central Florida, Southern Nevada and also in Southern California. The outfit has just over 150 clinics, about 700 staff physicians, and it has a network comprised of over 8,300 doctors who operate independently. It provides and coordinates these services to over 667,000 managed care patients on a comprehensive capitated basis.

The terms of the deal call for DaVita to pay $3.66 billion in cash from its cash on hand and to borrow under its credit facility and to take on new debt.  The company also plans to issue almost 9.4 million shares valued at another $758 million or so before the dilution and there may be another $250 million or so in cash payments to partners if certain milestones are reached.

HealthCare Partners generated about $2.4 billion in sales and operating income was roughly $488 million in 2011.  DaVita generated $6.98 billion in sales with $1.13 billion in operating income in 2011.

Our question is whether or not this implies that DaVita is wanting to diversify further and further away from kidney care.  HealthCare Partners is called “a leader in multispecialty integrated and coordinated care delivery” and its website shows a much more general angle of care compared to DaVita.

Buffett’s most recent Berkshire Hathaway holdings shows in the filing that his 6 million shares were worth $90.17 at the March 31 cut-off date. DaVita shares are now down 1.8% at $79.35.

JON C. OGG

24/7 Wall St. has compiled a log of companies which have already signaled in press releases that they will be presenting data or that data will be presented on their behalf at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting.  We have previewed more than 25 companies so far and that is not even including Big Pharma names.  As of May 18, the total abstracts submitted were 5,264 and of those there have been 2,744 which have been accepted for presentation at ASCO.  Of those accepted for presentation, some 1,859 are going to be ‘ePublication only’ for viewers.  The breakdown for the Abstracts shows that the oral presentation is currently 257 presentations and 2,487 are listed as poster presentation only.

The most presentations accepted (203) so far are focused on Genitourinary Cancer, which covers urinary tract and male genital tract as follows: Prostate cancer; Bladder cancer; Kidney cancer; Testicular cancer; Penile cancer; Nonmalignant tumors of the urinary tract and male reproductive system; and Von Hippel Lindau disease.  As of today, the fewest accepted presentations (93) cover Pediatric oncology.

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), the largest independent biotech that there is, recently showed updated results from a Phase 2 study showing that treatment with blinatumomab helped achieve a high-rate of complete response in 72% of adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated in the study. This blinatumomab is the first of a new class of agents called bi-specific T cell engagers antibodies, which are designed to harness the body’s cell-destroying T cells to kill cancer cells.  Blinatumomab targets cells expressing CD19, a protein found on the surface of B-cell derived leukemias and lymphomas, such as ALL. Full results of the study will be presented during an oral abstract session on June 4 at the ASCO Annual Meeting.

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) recently sold off but will will have updated clinical data from the pivotal PACE trial of ponatinib, its investigational pan-BCR-ABL inhibitor in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) on June 4.  The company said that the data will form the basis of its regulatory filings for marketing approval of Ponatinib for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and Philadelphia-chromosome positive acute lymphoblasatic leukemia.

ArQule, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQL) and Daiichi Sankyo, Co., Ltd. (Japan) will have an oral presentation at the ASCO Annual Meeting featuring Phase 2 trial data with tivantinib as a single agent investigational second-line treatment in hepatocellular carcinoma. ArQule announced that this randomized, double-blind study met its primary endpoint in January and will now present the full results from this trial, including positive data in the pre-defined c-MET high population. Additional clinical data with tivantinib will be featured in two poster discussions and two general poster sessions.

Array BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRY) has recently risen on its lung cancer and melanoma results.  The company has three oral presentations at the annual meeting after having already presented Phase 1 data on MEK162 in 28 patients with biliary tract cancer at the ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in January 2012 showing that it was well tolerated and showed evidence of clinical efficacy in this patient population, including a complete response and a partial response. Stable disease was observed in 12 patients. The company has licensed selumetinib to AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) and licensed MEK162 to Novartis (NYSE: NVS).

Here is how the company describes itself: We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel prescription products for the aesthetic medicine market. Our objective is to develop first-in-class, prescription products using an approach that relies on the scientific rigor of biotechnology to address unmet needs in the rapidly-growing market for aesthetic medicine. Our initial focus is on the facial aesthetics market, which comprises the majority of the aesthetic medicine market. Our product candidate, ATX-101, is a potential first-in-class, injectable drug currently in Phase III clinical development for the reduction of submental fat, which commonly presents as an undesirable “double chin.”

KYTHERA notes that ATX-101 is a proprietary synthetic formulation of sodium deoxycholate, a well-characterized component of human bile that is naturally occurring in the body and promotes the breakdown of dietary fat.

The company is collaborating with Bayer outside the United States and Canada, and Bayer recently completed two pivotal Phase III trials with positive topline results.  KYTHERA initiated a Phase III clinical program with a planned enrollment of 1,000 patients in the United States and Canada in March 2012 and it expects to report results from these trials in 2013.

J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs are listed as the bookrunners, with other firms in the syndicate listed as Leerink Swann and Lazard Capital Markets.

FULL S-1 FILING

JON C. OGG

Shares hit a high of $7.84 as the top-tick on Wednesday and that was against a close of $1.62 the day before.  You have to keep in mind that things were so bad at Rosetta that the company completed a 1 for 15 reverse stock split to close at $2.10 on a split adjusted basis but shares had nominally been at $0.14 before that.  So raising $2.2 million does not sound out of line on the surface, but the offering was a direct share offering of 632,057 ordinary shares at a price of $3.50 per share.  That is a 30% discount, but it was after a gain of more than 200%.

Aegis Capital Corp. acted as the exclusive placement agent for the offering. Rosetta’s use of proceeds is primarily to fund its operations and for other general corporate purposes.  These uses include debt repayment or refinancing, working capital, intellectual property protection and enforcement, capital spending, investments, acquisitions or collaborations, research and development and product development.

Shares are indicated down close to 20% at $4.05 in active trading on what is usually a thin volume stock.  No good deed goes unpunished.

JON C. OGG

MiRview® mets² is said to accurately identify the primary tumor of origin in primary and metastatic cancer including Cancer of Unknown or Uncertain Primary.

Medicare coverage opens up a giant commercial opportunity as this test will now be made available to Medicare patients.  Medicare is the largest U.S. payor and the idea is that if Medicare starts covering a product then the private payor systems out there are likely to adopt reimbursement for medical insurance coverage as well.

Rosetta Genomics said that it launched its direct selling effort in the U.S. just one year ago.

As far as just how big this is… “The policy will cover the 45 million Medicare beneficiaries and will enable Rosetta to provide the miRview® mets2 assay for Medicare beneficiaries throughout the U.S. at no cost to the patient, thereby eliminating an adoption barrier for the physician ordering the test and for the patient.”

Teh company further noted about its test products, ” In the U.S. alone, Rosetta Genomics estimates that 200,000 patients a year may benefit from the miRview® mets and miRview® mets² test, 60,000 from miRview® squamous, 60,000 from miRview® meso, 54,000 from miRview® kidney and more than 1 million patients worldwide from miRview® lung.”

Shares were just at $1.62 on a split-adjusted basis Tuesday and this stock’s 1:15 reverse split has just taken place this week in the share price for what had been a penny stock.  Now shares are up some 295% at $6.40 against a split-adjusted trading range of $1.40 to $36.45 over the last 52-weeks.

JON C. OGG

24/7 Wall St. wanted to make a log of companies which have already signaled that they will be presenting data or that data will be presented on their behalf at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting.  The data below is as follows:

As of May 10, the total abstracts submitted were 5,264 and of those there have been 2,744 which have been accepted for presentation at ASCO.  Of those accepted for presentation, some 1,859 are going to be ‘ePublication only’ for viewers.  The breakdown for the Abstracts shows that the oral presentation is currently 257 presentations and 2,487 are listed as poster presentation only.

The most presentations accepted (203) so far are focused on Genitourinary Cancer, which covers urinary tract and male genital tract as follows: Prostate cancer; Bladder cancer; Kidney cancer; Testicular cancer; Penile cancer; Nonmalignant tumors of the urinary tract and male reproductive system; and Von Hippel Lindau disease.  As of today, the fewest accepted presentations (93) covers Pediatric oncology.

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) will have updated clinical data from the pivotal PACE trial of ponatinib, our investigational pan-BCR-ABL inhibitor in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Array BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRY) recently noted that it “presented Phase 1 data on MEK162 in 28 patients with biliary tract cancer at the ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in January 2012. MEK162 was well tolerated and showed evidence of clinical efficacy in this patient population, including a complete response and a partial response. Stable disease was observed in 12 patients.”

Biovest International, Inc. (OTCQB: BVTI), a majority-owned subsidiary of Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: ABPI) announced in early May that the new data from the BiovaxID® Phase II mantle cell lymphoma clinical trial conducted by the U.S. National Cancer Institute will be presented by the NCI at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLDX) previously noted that interim topline results of the Phase 2b EMERGE study of CDX-011 in patients with advanced breast cancer will be presented in a webcast on May 23, 2012 but it is not going to get in at ASCO as it noted, “Celldex anticipated presenting these topline results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2012 Annual Meeting. Due to a clerical error in which the incorrect submission category was inadvertently selected in the on-line ASCO submission form, the abstract for the EMERGE study was not considered for acceptance. Celldex attempted to rectify this clerical error but was informed that no exceptions are made to the submission policy.”  Call this the “ASCO-less ASCO presentation.”

CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ: CYTR) will present data from its Phase 1b/2 clinical trial in patients with advanced solid tumors, primarily soft tissue sarcomas.

Exelixis, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXEL) recently announced that cabozantinib will be the subject of nine presentations at the upcoming Annual Meeting… The company noted that cabozantinib encompasses phase 3 pivotal trials in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Galena Biopharma (NASDAQ: GALE) will present “Safety and Long-Term Maintenance of Anti-HER2 Immunity Following Booster Inoculations of the E75 Breast Cancer Vaccine” and it will host a panel called “HER2 Targeted Cancer Therapies” which includes NeuVax update from the Phase 2 and current Phase 3 PRESENT trials.

Generex Biotechnology Corporation (OTCBB: GNBT) will be presenting data on its breast cancer treatment ambitions.

Genomic Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: GHDX) recently announced that 18 abstracts were accepted for presentation at ASCO which will be highlighting Breast, Colon and Prostate progress.

ImmunoGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMGN) noted in late-April “At the upcoming ASCO meeting in June, we expect to see not only EMILIA Phase III data and new SAR3419 Phase I data, but also data from the Phase II trial evaluating the safety of trastuzumab emtansine in the adjuvant/neoadjuvant setting.”

Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR) has two abstracts: one covering a Phase 3 study of NKTR-102 versus Treatment of Physician’s Choice in patients with locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer previously treated with an anthracycline, a taxane and capecitabine; a second will be NKTR-102 in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.

NewLink Genetics Corporation (NASDAQ: NLNK) announced in April that data from its HyperAcute(R) Pancreas immunotherapy and its HyperAcute(R) Lung immunotherapy as well as its D-1MT IDO pathway inhibitor will be presented at the annual meeting.

Pharmacyclics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCYC) will have two oral presentations and one poster discussion session: two oral presentations will highlight the first reporting on data from the ibrutinib (formerly PCI-32765) Phase II CLL single agent trial in treatment naïve patients and the ibrutinib Phase Ib/II CLL combination trial with ofatumumab in relapsed or refractory patients; the poster discussion session will highlight data from the ibrutinib Phase Ib CLL combination trial with bendamustine and rituximab in relapsed or refractory patients.

Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGEN) will show updated information on ADCETRIS for patients with relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (sALCL).

Here was a recent list of other stocks to watch covered by an analyst in the Denver Post.

JON C. OGG

Businesses have begun to take on the price of obesity already. The New York Times reports that the average airline seat is made to bear a load of 170 pounds in a crash. The average America male weighs 194 pounds and the average woman 165 pounds. The FAA probably will need to issue new rules for the support strength of seats, and these new seats will cost money. And there are PR effects, too. There have been recent accounts of how airlines handle, or mishandle, wildly overweight passengers.

As scientists turn their focus to the future of the obese population, they have even started to determine the extent to which the obese can safely exercise. This might, in turn, bring down the weight of people who are more physically active. The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health published a report by Dr. Paul Jarle Mork of the Department of Human Movement Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. It recommends that obese people should get more exercise without too much concern about the effects of risk of knee and hip osteoarthritis. Even exercise equipment may be adjusted to help overweight Americans use gyms.

Science, it seems, has begun to turn its problem-solving methods as much to obesity as to heart disease, cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. It makes a perverse sense. Obesity may be the largest problem among that group of illnesses, particularly because of the role it plays in heart diseases, cancer and Type 2 diabetes.

A number of proposals have been put forward about how to cover the costs of a weight-gaining America. The taxes or medical insurance amounts that obese people pay could be increased. That would cover some of the rising costs associated with weight. The airlines could increase ticket prices for people who weigh more than 200 pounds, or 250, to pay for new seats and fuel. Food companies and restaurants might get tax breaks for preparing meals with fewer calories and less fat.

Of course, the American way is to take no prejudicial action against people because of age or infirmity. The obese are, as a group, treated like the aged, the sick and the infirm so far. And, in a world in which politicians and the courts create and enforce rules, the obese are not likely to face discrimination. As individuals, they represent too many votes. They may even want to start their own version of the AARP.

Douglas A. McIntyre

DSM, a Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company with sales of about 9 billion Euros per year and with about 22,000 employees, has agreed to acquire all of the common stock of Kensey Nash under a routine cash tender offer of $38.50 per share in cash.  The tender offer for the Kensey Nash shares is currently expected to be completed by the end of June 2012.

Kensey Nash shares closed at $29.01 with a $251.5 million market capitalization rate for its common stock on Wednesday, and the prior 52-week trading range is $18.17 to $30.50.  This is a company which has been public since the mid-1990s and this offer will constitute an all-time high above the 2008 highest printed price of $38.15.

Kensey Nash shares were already trading at 18-times expected fiscal June-2012 earnings expectations and 2.9-times expected revenues before this premium buyout offer.

Shares are trading up 32% at $38.35 in relatively active trading this morning.

JON C. OGG

Just this week we saw a Dow Jones report calling for DJIA components to boost their dividends by about 8% on average in 2012, and J&J is announcing a hike of 7% to its quarterly payout.  J&J was one of the predicted dividend hikes in that report. The prior quarterly dividend of $0.57 per share is rising up to $0.61 per share per quarter.

The company is talking up its 2011 results, its strong financial position, and confidence in the future.  It is the 50th consecutive year that it has raised the payout.  With a $64.70 share price, the new dividend yield comes to almost 3.8% if you round higher (from 3.77%).

Today’s dividend hike makes no mention of J&J’s quality control issues and product recalls that it is still working through. The company issued a separate release noting that Alex Gorsky is formally taking over as CEO and that Bill Weldon will remain in place as a non-executive Chairman of the board of directors.

Gorsky’s ”outline for the future” has a lot of good buzzwords in there… adapt faster than ever… be more agile than ever… new thinking… more cost-efficient ways of delivering health care… an expanded global presence and mindset… working smarter and harder.

Both Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) have raised their dividend in recent quarters for the first time in years.  J&J’s 3.8% indication compares to dividend yields of 3.9% for Pfizer and 4.4% for Merck & Co.  That may lag in yield and the company may still be working through some issues, but 50 straight years of dividends hikes is rather impressive even if the yield lags.

JON C. OGG

The Social Security trust funds for Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) plus Disability Insurance (DI) “continues to fail the long-range [75 years] test of close actuarial balance, [although] it does satisfy the conditions for short-range financial adequacy.” The trust fund for the Disability Insurance program alone is expected to be exhaused by 2018. For OASI the picture is similarly grim:

After 2022, [OASI+DI] trust fund assets will be redeemed in amounts that exceed interest earnings until trust fund reserves are exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than was projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2085.

Medicare posts equally sobering numbers. The Health Insurance (HI) portion of Medicare is being hit by the slow US economic recovery and by higher costs for medical care. The Trustees project that the HI trust fund will be exhausted in 2024:

Over 75 years, HI’s actuarial imbalance is estimated to be equivalent to 21 percent of tax receipts or 17 percent of program outlays.

Medicare parts B and D (supplemental insurance and prescription drugs) are projected to be adequately financed indefinitely, but that’s due to a guaranteed Congressional allocation that currently amounts to 1.9% of GDP in 2010 and will reach 4.1% of GDP by 2085.

Obamacare lowers projected Medicare costs by 25% over the 75-year term. Most of the savings are related to reducing annual payment increases to providers, of which the Trustees note, “the long-term viability of this provision is debatable.”

The summary concludes:

Projected long-run program costs for both Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable under currently scheduled financing, and will require legislative corrections if disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers are to be avoided.

The financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare should be addressed soon. If action is taken sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that those affected can adequately prepare.

The Trustees summary is available here and the full report is available here.

Paul Ausick