SEC Cracks Down On SPACs; Plus, Second Covid Boosters

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Whither the SPAC IPO? The recent solution to go public in 2021 – a reverse merger with a clean examine firm – appears to be falling out of trend in 2022. At this time the Securities and Alternate Fee introduced it will be cracking down on SPACs because the federal company proposed new guidelines associated to disclosures round sponsors, battle of curiosity and dilution. They’d additionally change the way in which SPAC sponsors and their goal corporations can discuss projections. (Flashback to when “SPAC King” Chamath Palihapitiya advised buyers Medicare Benefit insurer Clover Well being already had 200,000 lives underneath contract for 2021 when pitching his SPAC deal, when in actuality the corporate solely had half that quantity.)

“Functionally, the SPAC goal IPO is getting used instead means to conduct an IPO,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. “Thus, buyers deserve the protections they obtain from conventional IPOs, with respect to info asymmetries, fraud, and conflicts, and in the case of disclosure, advertising practices, gatekeepers, and issuers.”

Whereas there have been a complete of 613 SPAC IPOs in 2021, there have solely been 53 thus far this 12 months. There are at present 77 healthcare-related SPACs trying to find a goal firm and 13 which have signed definitive agreements, according to SPACTrak. The general public markets haven’t been significantly type to healthcare SPACs, lots of which have seen vital declines from the preliminary $10 per share pricing. Hims & Hers was buying and selling round $5.32, Clover Well being round $3.65 and Talkspace at $1.74 on Wednesday.

UnitedHealth’s Optum Eyes Residence Well being As It Buys LHC Group For $5.4 Billion

SOPA Photos/LightRocket by way of Getty Photos

UnitedHealth’s curiosity in LHC Group has been designed to additional the insurer’s inhabitants well being technique to preserve sufferers out of the hospital and cared for in lower-cost outpatient settings.Optum owns an array of outpatient care property together with physician practices, pressing care facilities and surgical procedure facilities. LHC Group has 30,000 staff that present greater than 12 million in-home care visits yearly from 964 areas in 37 states and the District of Columbia.The deal is predicted to shut within the second half of 2022, the businesses mentioned. Learn extra right here.

Offers Of The Week

Healthtech For Children: Brightline, a digital behavioral well being startup centered on youngsters, youngsters and their households, raised a $105 million Sequence C led by KKR. The corporate will use the funding to broaden its choices, together with specialty applications for caregivers of younger youngsters with autism and youngsters who determine at LGBTQ+ or BIPOC. Brightline gives on-demand digital care, together with teaching applications and scientific companies, in all 50 states.

AI Unicorn: ConcertAI, which supplies software program options to life sciences and healthcare corporations, has raised a $150 million Sequence C led by Sixth Avenue, which values the 5-year-old firm at $1.9 billion. Its software program helps pace up product launches and scientific trials.

B For Brightside: Psychological well being telemedicine firm Brightside introduced Tuesday that it had raised a $50 million collection B spherical led by MCME Capital and Mousse Companions. The corporate’s raised $75 million to this point.

Seed For Drug Discovery: Drug discovery firm Zephyr AI, which was based by Rally Well being founder Grant Verstandig and got here out of stealth in November, introduced Wednesday that it has raised an $18.5 million seed funding spherical led by Lerner Group Investments and M-Cor Holdings.

Noteworthy

Opposite to well-liked opinion, hashish smoke from a bong is a possible well being hazard for non-smokers, in accordance with new analysis.

Collectively Individuals owed $195 billion in medical debt in 2019, in accordance with a brand new evaluation, however conquering it’s potential.

International well being is damaged. Right here’s how younger folks plan to restore it.

Coronavirus Updates

President Joe Biden publicly obtained his second Covid booster shot immediately. Previous to the vaccination, he introduced the launch of Covid.gov,a “one-stop store” for offering assets about masks, remedies, vaccines, exams and extra. The President additionally referred to as on Congress to go an emergency Covid funding bundle of $22.5 billion. “Within the final two weeks, the Administration has needed to cease reimbursing well being care suppliers for treating the uninsured, cancel monoclonal antibody orders and minimize states’ provide, cut back orders of remedies for the immunocompromised, and pull the U.S. out of line for future vaccine and next-generation remedy purchases,” the White Home mentioned in a statement. The request is coming at a time when Covid circumstances have began to plateau nationwide and tick up in sure states because the BA.2 variant turns into dominant within the U.S.

FDA Authorizes 2nd Covid Booster For Individuals 50 And Older

Joe Raedle/Getty Photos

The Meals and Drug Administration Tuesday greenlit a second booster shot of Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for folks ages 50 and older, after knowledge emerged indicating a primary booster wanes in effectiveness after three to 6 months. Learn extra right here.

Different Coronavirus Information

Black folks with most cancers who contracted Covid-19 had considerably worse outcomes than white folks with most cancers who received Covid-19, in accordance with a brand new examine.

The extremely transmissible BA.2 Omicron variant comprised greater than half of COVID-19 infections final week, the CDC mentioned yesterday.

The CDC advisable that individuals who have obtained two pictures of a Covid-19 vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson observe up with a booster of one of many mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Authorities in Shanghai have expanded its pandemic restrictions by locking down western elements of town two days forward of schedule because the variety of Covid-19 circumstances in China’s monetary hub continued to sharply rise.

For the primary time because the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, a majority of Individuals are selecting to go maskless in public, a brand new ballot suggests.