Written by: Israel Investor Newsletter | June 18, 2007
Douglas Goldstein, CFP
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
According to an FDA warning, Teva (TEVA) Pharmaceuticals’ local/general anesthetic Propofol is giving some patients the chills, fever and aches immediately after receiving the shot.
According to Haaretz, any patient who feels chills, fever or pain after receiving Propofol should be tested for bacterial infection of the blood, which can lead to death mainly among the elderly and weak, or people with compromised immune systems.
Propofol, which is marketed as Diprivan and in generic versions, is responsible for 28% of the annual sales of Sicor, which Teva bought in November 2003 for $3.4 billion. Overall, Teva had almost $9 billion in revenue over the past year and has been growing its quarterly revenue by over 24% year over year.
Though there are many obstacles that can make a drug company’s stock look ill, this Propofol setback probably won’t have too much of a bottom line impact, unless it turns out that there are more severe health problems that result from its use.
Disclosure: Author’s fund is long Teva as of 6/17/07.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
Douglas Goldstein is the Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email doug@profile-financial.com.
Written by: Zack Miller | June 17, 2007
Zack Miller
www.israelnewsletter.com
Google (GOOG), the search behemoth, is definitely working on something large in the healthcare space. I’ve been following the healthcare buzz on the Official Google Blog. Last week, Dr. Roni Zeiger, Google’s Product Manager for Healthcare was surprisingly very chatty about Google’s upcoming plans for Healthcare.
It’s been my experience that the success of new forays are very much correlated to the quality of the managers of the new product. Clearly, says Zeiger, “patients get better care when they are more informed about generally accepted standards of care, and know more when talking to their doctors.” Zeiger, an internist and specialist in Medical Informatics, is well-regarded in the Clinical Information industry. I dug up a software package that Zeiger authored: called the 5-Minute Clinical Consult, the program provides an easy-to-use and rapid information retrieval for clinicians to access diagnosis, treatment and medications for more than 600 diseases and disorders.
Along with Zeiger, Google Health will be spearheaded by VP Engineering or “Architect”, Adam Bosworth. Check out his Wikipedia profile as well as what he has had to say recently on Google’s Health efforts. He is considered one of the pioneers of XML technology and has had stints with BEA, Microsoft, and Borland. He is a heavy hitter.
Let’s look at what the players themselves say about Google’s efforts:
Zeiger: patients should be able to input themselves “information such as age, gender or medications, learn about recommended screening tests and other preventive measures, or about harmful drug interactions.”
Bosworth: [Google's focus is to] 1) better organize and make accessible medical
information, 2) enable patients to “better coordinate and manage their own health
information”, & 3) “connect people with similar health interests.”
In short, it appears that Google is going to create a social network for consumers to manage their own medical profiles (not unlike how Guy Kawasaki manages his LinkedIn profile) and connect with others with similar profiles. I assume this is most useful in acute or chronic disease scenarios. Given Zeiger’s expertise, it also appears that doctors will be able to use Google Health for diagnostic purposes, to get a quick view of patient history (albeit from the patients point of view), and perhaps input notes from the clinical visit.
This sounds strikingly similar to the aspirations HLTH Corporation (HLTH) (formally, Emdeon, Healtheon and WebMD) once had. This company now exists in 4 segments:
- WebMD Health Corp (WHC), a holding company for public and private online medical portals.
- VIPS: healthcare data management, analytics and decision support to payers
- Porex: plastic medical products
- EBS: Business automation for healthcare payers and providers
What does this mean for companies like TEVA (TEVA)? With better informed consumers and new marketing channels (both to consumer and to the medical provider) opening up, it looks like TEVA and other generic drug manufacturers will have new revenue opportunities if Google can
- garner significant traffic on Google Health
- get users to input their own health histories
- co-opt Adsense into being able to monetize disease/condition profiling (not just keywords)
While it sounds kind of gross, if you were suffering from MS, wouldn’t you want to know that TEVA has a world-class product perfect for me and my health profile? Wouldn’t I get better medical care knowing that I can ask my physician about all my options?
I think Google is on to something — it will be interesting to watch the development of how Google Health plays out.
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Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email zack@profile-financial.com
Written by: Zack Miller | June 17, 2007
By Zack Miller
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
ECI Telecom (ECIL) announced today that it is currently in discussions with a group of investors led by Swarth Investments, an investment vehicle headed by Shaul Shani, regarding a potential acquisition of the controlling share of ECI at more than $10/share, a premium of over 12% over Friday’s close on Nasdaq. This is an exit for Nochi Danker’s IDB Holdings which owns the controlling interest in ECI. The total sale should be approximately $500MM, according to Maariv. Maariv also reports that Shlomo Dovrat, “the leading force behind the sale of the control,” will be selling his 5% stake as well.
Globes ran the story that healthcare technologies company, Card Guard AG, announced that it has pulled its planned Nasdaq IPO for subsidiary, LifeWatch. Cowen, Jeffries and Piper were all working the deal.
Interesting Ynet story on the UK economic boycott of Israel: The story quotes British attache, Richard Salt, saying that the British economic boycott of Israel is “pointless and frivolous…but won’t likely damage Israel’s thriving economy.”
Another interesting Ynet story: Israeli security and compliance testing company, Watchfire, is to be acquired by IBM. “According to a 2005 CSI/FBI Survey, internal security attacks cost US businesses $400 billion per year. Watchfire technology, together with IBM, can help customers reduce these security risks and the associated costs to their bottom line.” Reportedly, Watchfire has more than 800 customers in numerous industries.
Disclosure: Author’s fund is long ECIL 6/17/07.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
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Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email zack@profile-financial.com
Written by: Aaron Katsman | June 14, 2007
By Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
With news that local Israeli investors had redeemed more the 1 billion shekels (about $240 million) from mutual funds in the last few weeks, I got to thinking about how this large redemption could affect Israeli shares which are dually listed, trading in both Tel Aviv and in the US.
Interestingly enough it appears that the Israeli market has suffered in each of the last 9 summers, posting losses of between 5 and 17% in each (Tel Aviv 100 index). For investors in the US who want exposure to Israeli shares you need to watch out. If you look at the TA 25 index (large cap), for example, you will see that Teva (TEVA), Partner Communication(PTNR), Ormat(ORA), Elbit Systems(ESLT) and NICE Systems(NICE) have a combined total weighting of about 20% of the total index.
If redemptions continue and the seasonality of local Israeli stock weakness comes into play, these 5 stocks could be short term casulties, just becasue of local fund managers needing to sell to free up money for the redemptions. It’s also important to note that there has been a huge breakthrough of local Israeli ETF’s and index funds. Again, if we were to see a wave of selling hit, then they are going to be paring back proportionally, once again impacting these stocks.
Here at Israelnewsletter.com we have written positively on all 5 of these companies, and I am long all of them with an eye for the long term. For you short term traders who like trading in Israeli stocks, you may want to be cautious on these 5 names, for the technical reason given above.
Disclosure: Author’s fund is long ORA,TEVA,PTNR,NICE and ESLT as of 6/14/07.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
Like what you see? Sign up to receive daily updates from IsraelNewsletter here
Aaron Katsman is the lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
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