I will be heading to the golf course as soon as I put up this post.
"Endo buying Par for $8b in push for generics, higher profit" by Linda A. Johnson Associated Press May 19, 2015
TRENTON, N.J. — Drugmaker Endo International PLC is climbing toward the top of the steadily consolidating generic medicine business with a deal to buy Par Pharmaceutical Holdings Inc. for about $8.05 billion.
The deal would enable Dublin-based Endo to leapfrog from No. 10 to No. 5 in US generic drug sales barely five years after its first foray into generics.
It appears to be the latest maneuver in a battle for pricing power that pits drugmakers against payers such as insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.
Recent consolidation has reduced the number of generic drug manufacturers and is driving shortages — and accompanying price spikes — of some generic drugs. Meanwhile, brand-name drugmakers are consolidating and in some cases swapping assets as they aim to increase revenue growth, cut costs, and boost profits.
Drugmakers of all kinds are trying to counter the increasing leverage of several payers with huge market share. In the United States, that includes the biggest health insurers and two pharmacy benefit managers, Express Scripts Holding Co. and CVS Health Corp.
Related(?):
"CVS Health Corp. chief executive Larry J. Merlo’s total compensation increased by 3.3 percent to $32.3 million last year, the company reported Tuesday. Merlo, whose compensation included personal use of the retailer’s jets
valued at $46,293, took over as the CVS chief executive in 2011. He has
worked for the company for more than 30 years. The Woonsocket, R.I.,
pharmacy chain made headlines last year for dropping tobacco products as
it expanded to offer more health services. Merlo’s total compensation
included his base salary, time- and performance-driven stock awards and
options, cash incentives, pension-related funds and other benefits,
according to the most recent disclosure statement from CVS."
Walgreen's is better and cheaper, and now I $ee why!
Also see: CVS said to be bidding for Omnicare
CVS Health to buy Omnicare in $12.7 billion deal
At least you know what you are getting for the value of your dollar, consumer.
In other developed countries, national health programs for several years have been demanding increasing discounts off rates already far below US prices and now are balking at astronomical prices for the newest drugs, particularly for cancer and hepatitis C....
It's hard to overlook.
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Related: Eleven Bio’s stock plunges after drug fails to meet goals
No nuance there.... or here:
"A Roslindale man who was arrested after allegedly aggressively panhandling at an Orange Line station was arraigned Monday on charges related to an outstanding sexual assault case, officials said. Gregory Haywood, 51, was released on his own recognizance at his arraignment in Boston Municipal Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney’s office. Haywood had failed to wear a GPS monitoring device while on release in a case where he faces charges of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, Wark said. On Sunday, Haywood was arrested at Tufts Medical Center Station after MBTA Transit Police received reports that he was acting hostile toward people, Transit police said in a statement."
Good thing the police are on patrol.
The best way to spend the morning on the golf course:
"Booze-delivery app maker Drizly adds $13m to expand staff, market" by Curt Woodward/Globe Staff
A lot of technology startups make their living by seeking to completely upset old, established markets. When it comes to adult beverages, however, tossing out the old regulations isn’t quite so easy.
That’s a big reason Boston-based Drizly, the company behind a smartphone app that arranges local liquor-store deliveries for consumers, has spent so much time mastering the arcane world of US liquor laws.
I usually prefer coffee.
The approach appears to be paying off. Today, Drizly says it has raised another $13 million in private investment cash to help it expand. Drizly plans to nearly double its employee base to about 70 by the end of the year, and hopes to expand its reach from 15 to about 30 markets.
Thersh all shorts of money floating around in the boozth!
That market expansion will be helped by one of Drizly’s new investors, the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, a trade association that represents wine and liquor wholesalers around the country.
Nick Rellas, Drizly’s co-founder and CEO, said the involvement of the wholesalers’ group gives the young startup a stamp of legitimacy when dealing with large liquor retailers, and also could help the company by sharing data about wine and liquor inventories in different parts of the country.
“The scope of their expertise is more or less unparalleled in the industry as a result of their members being the middlemen,” Rellas said. “They’re as connected as anyone. They’re going to allow us to be really the experts of alcohol delivery.”
Hic-cup!
The wholesalers’ group spent more than a year checking into startups that were trying to expand the market for liquor-store delivery, which has historically been a small-scale service dependent on phone and fax orders.
The final analysis of which company to work with “was an easy call,” said Craig Wolf, the association’s CEO.
Rellas “had a better understanding of the marketplace than certainly any of the other players we talked to,” Wolf said. “He understood the importance of the way the market was structured and was not coming in to be a disruptor, but was coming into be something that added value.”
Drizly’s smartphone app ties into the inventory software of local liquor stores that offer delivery and gives users an easy way of seeing what’s available on the shelves. Once an order is received, Drizly helps route the delivery driver to the correct address, arms drivers with ID-scanning apps, and passes the payment along to the retailer.
The company makes money by charging licensing fees, which can range from of hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars per month, and from in-app advertising. It doesn’t mark up the liquor prices or take a cut of sales, although there can be delivery charges.
Liquor delivery isn’t offered in every state in the country — another consequence of America’s patchwork liquor laws — but Drizly still has been expanding pretty steadily, recently adding Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Providence.
The new financing brings Drizly’s total fund-raising to nearly $18 million since it was founded in 2013. The investment round was led by Polaris Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm.
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Those are the kinds of things all that .01% dough is funding (with generous tax deduction).
So what kind of Phoodeez do you like to munch on in the morning?
Related: Boston Beer’s side project finally ready for national stage
Beer For Breakfast
Now I'm drunk enough to puke.
"Duxbury hatchery aims for harvest of 6 million oysters" by Callum Borchers Globe Staff May 19, 2015
Hannah Pearson works in a small, windowless room that resembles a super-villain’s secret lab. If it was a Hollywood set, the next mutant nemesis of Iron Man or Spiderman might burst forth at any moment.
But this is the hatchery at Island Creek Oyster Farm in Duxbury, so the only thing growing in those giant test tubes is algae. Pearson, a marine biologist and the hatchery manager, monitors each of the 18 tanks closely. Algae feeds the farm’s baby oysters — no bigger than grains of sand at this stage — and is one of the first keys to a business that expects to harvest and sell about 6 million oysters this year.
The miniature shellfish in the hatchery will be roughly the size of a half-dollar by summer’s end. That’s when farm manager Gardner Loring and his crew will scatter them over six acres of seabed in Duxbury Bay. There the young oysters will grow through the fall and winter, until they are big enough to eat.
Only half of them will make it.
Last year’s survivors are ready for seafood platters now. When the tide goes out and the water is shallow enough to wade through, the oysters can be plucked by hand. The rest of the time, Loring drags a net behind an outboard motorboat to collect them. In less than 10 minutes, the net traps enough oysters to fill three crates, each weighing 50 pounds....
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Maybe you should try KFC instead because those didn't hit the hubspot at all. Was hard getting down the throat. Must have been the $and.
Time to putt out for the day.
NDUs: Firms say top pay at Vertex is excessive
Wish this was California.
