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Our briefing for Friday, November 19, 2021:
Nov 19, 2021 3:16:38 PM
- In the United States, the government is set to purchase 10 million courses of Pfizer’s new Covid-19 treatment, if regulators authorize it. The deal will cost $5.29 billion, though the drugs are about 25% cheaper than the oral Covid-19 pills made by Merck, who the U.S. also has a contract with. Pfizer has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the experimental pill for emergency use; the FDA is already reviewing the submission from Merck and will have a meeting about it later this month. Both oral treatments have been shown to significantly reduce the risk of hospitalizations and deaths among people with coronavirus infections.
- In Canada, the province of Ontario announced that they will bring Covid-19 testing sites to shopping malls and other busy locations over the winter months, in an effort to help curb the spread of the virus. Deputy Premier Christine Elliott made the announcement on Thursday, explaining that the sites will offer tests to asymptomatic people in areas with high infection and hospitalization rates and lower vaccination levels. Ontario students will also be sent home over the winter break with rapid Covid-19 tests as part of the government’s winter testing plan. The program is voluntary and instructs students to test every three to four days over the holidays beginning December 23.
- In the United Kingdom, the government was not prepared to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and the impacts it had on society, a new report has found. The report from the National Audit Office (NAO) said the government lacked planning on shielding, job support programs and school disruption. The spending watchdog also said that time and energy spent preparing for Brexit took up a significant number of resources. The NAO also found that overall, the pandemic “exposed a vulnerability to whole system emergencies,” and that there was “limited oversight and assurance” of the plans the government had in place.
- The Philippines approved emergency use authorization of Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, becoming the second country to do so, after Indonesia. The vaccine will be manufactured by Serum Institute of India, under the brand name Covovax. The shots are to be taken in two doses not less than 21 days apart and are approved for adults ages 18 and older. Only about 35% of the population is fully vaccinated in the Philippines. The Southeast Asian nation has approved eight other vaccines for emergency use: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Sinopharm, Gamaleya Sputnik V and Bharat Biotech.
- Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a record $490 billion stimulus package to help the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The package includes cash handouts to families with children under 18 who meet an income cap, and support for ailing businesses. It also includes a pay raise for nurses and care workers. "The package has more than enough content and scale to deliver a sense of security and hope to the people," Kishida told reporters. Analysts say Japan’s economy, which contracted at an annual rate of 3% in the July-September period, is not likely to rebound until next year.
- In Australia, the state of Victoria will pause the debate over a contentious bill that would give pandemic powers to the state premier and health minister. The move came as a motion from the Labor Party, which carried 20 votes to 17. The government had hoped to pass the bill this week but will now have to enter into further negotiations to reach an agreement before the existing pandemic powers end on December 15. The legislation would give the premier the power to make an indefinite declaration of a state of emergency, and the health minister the power to make broad public health orders.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
UK and US drive global growth in healthtech sector
Brief: The UK and US are driving forward the rapid growth of the global healthtech sector, with latest data from London & Partners and Dealroom.co showing a record USD51.3 billion has been pumped into startups already this year, up 280 per cent on 2016 levels. The findings have been released to coincide with this week’s Silicon Valley Comes to the UK event series, bringing together investors, entrepreneurs and CEOs from the UK and the Bay Area both physically and virtually to discuss the role of technology in building a better future and solving the great challenges of our time. As the world continues to tackle the impacts of coronavirus, the pandemic has acted as a catalyst to an already growing healthtech sector and investment has reached record highs in 2021. The US leads globally with USD31.9 billion in VC investment so far this year, while the UK comes in third with USD3.8bn, close behind China’s USD4.1 billion.
Europe lockdown rattles Wall Street, boosts safe-havens
Brief: Resurgent concerns about COVID-19 in the face of looming European lockdowns weighed on a range of sectors Friday, pushing stocks and oil down and boosting the dollar. Wall Street opened the day mixed, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq posting a record open but the blue-chip Dow dipping on fears the economic recovery could stall. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7%, the S&P 500 lost 0.08% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.42%. The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 45 nations, fell 0.16%. European stocks also retreated from record highs as the specter of a fresh COVID-linked lockdown in Germany and other parts of Europe cast a shadow over the global economy. Markets went into a tailspin after news that Austria will become the first Western European state to reimpose a full lockdown to tackle a new wave of coronavirus infections and signs that Germany might do the same.
Hedge funds’ service provider selection “more important than ever before”
Brief: The selection of service providers – be they prime brokers, administrators or software systems – is more important than ever before following the seismic upheaval faced by hedge fund firms over the past 18 months. 2020 and 2021 proved to be “a different world” for hedge funds and the financial services industry more broadly, with firms being forced to evolve through working and trading remotely amid the Covid-19 pandemic, said Billy Murray, head of prime at InterTrader, during the service provider-focused panel at this year’s hedgeweekLIVE European Emerging Manager Summit. That, in turn, has thrown the whole business of selecting and managing service provider relationships into ever-sharper focus for start-up hedge funds, which Murray said is “more important than ever before”.
Pandemic puts cybersecurity and succession planning at the heart of due diligence process
Brief: This year’s hedgeweekLIVE European Emerging Managers Summit examined how start-up funds can best organise their approach to operational due diligence, with attendees hearing how cybersecurity and succession planning have emerged as key considerations as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Sarah-Jane O’Sullivan, director at Willis Towers Watson, set out a range of corporate governance and front-, middle-, and back-office functions which remain central to the ODD process. Along with IT and HR, there has also been an increased emphasis on controls around cybersecurity as a result of Covid-19 and homeworking, according to O’Sullivan and panel moderator Thomas Deinet, executive director at SBAI. The session heard how the wholesale moves towards cloud-based tech have heralded sweeping changes to the operational due diligence process over the past decade, which had been further accelerated by Covid, in turn bringing added cybersecurity challenges.
Why billionaire Jeff Vinik is “taking the over” on workers going back to the office
Brief: Since buying the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2010, Jeff Vinik has looked to transform downtown Tampa. The NHL team has improved on the ice, winning the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cups, and he has spearheaded a more than $3.5 billion real estate development. While Vinik told CNBC’s Diani Olick that he is “no commercial real estate expert” during a CNBC Evolve Livestream on Wednesday, the 56-acre development is putting a big bet on office space with more than 1-million-square-feet of new space and the first office tower to be built in Tampa in over 25 years. That comes as the commercial real estate market is still trying to find its footing amid the pandemic as employers and workers embraced hybrid and virtual work arrangements. For example, a recent survey found that only 28% of Manhattan office workers are back at their desks and fewer than half will return by January.
