The globalcancer immunotherapy marketshould reach $96.5 billion by 2021 from $73.0 billion in 2016 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.7%, from 2016 to 2021.

Report Scope:

The scope of this report covers current cancer immunotherapy markets for most common cancers. The market segments included in this report are therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (with special focus on checkpoint inhibitors), synthetic interleukins, interferons, and colony-stimulating factors; small kinase inhibitors of cancer-related targets; protective and therapeutic cancer vaccines; and adoptive cell therapies. This report also covers treatments that are in development for late-stage and early-stage oncolytic viruses. Detailed epidemiological information, discussion of incidence and mortality trends, overview of regulatory landscapes, and analysis of market shares for leading products and companies are also included in this report.

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Report Includes:

An overview of the global markets for cancer immunotherapies and oncolytic virology. Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2015, 2016, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2021. Analyses of factors influencing market demand, such as clinical guidelines, demographic changes, and market saturation. Information covering the latest trends, market structure, market size, key drug segments, and trends in technology. Coverage of colony stimulating factors (CSFs), interferon alfa and gamma products, interleukin products and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, including antibody conjugates, cancer vaccines, and other cancer treatment immunology products. Technological discussions, including the current state, newly issued patents, and pending applications. Profiles of leading companies in the industry.

Report Summary

Cancer is a disease with global implications. There are many different types of cancer, of which the most common types include lung, breast, colon and rectal, stomach, head and neck, prostate, cervical, melanoma, and ovarian cancer, as well as leukemia. Cancer is a genetic disease that is conventionally treated by surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and immunotherapy. Surgery is the mainstay treatment for all cancers. Usually surgery is complimented with radiation or chemotherapy to ensure the clearance of all residual cancer. Despite the advances in treatment, cancer has great plasticity; therefore, after a certain time the effects of treatment fade and cancer returns with acquired resistance. Combination therapy, using multiple modalities including surgery and pharmaceutical or radiation therapy, improves response to treatment.

Radiation and chemotherapy have many side effects. Biological treatment options provide less impactful treatment of cancer. Immunotherapy is a type of biological therapy and it incorporates elements of the immune system in cancer treatment. The immune system has various types of cells and proteins that detect and act upon signs of a disease or infection by harmful and foreign substances such as microbes, bacteria and viruses. The immune system differentiates the bodys own cells and tissues through an evolutionary bar-coding system. This system helps the immune system understand encountered foreign substances as nonself. Cancer cells are recognized as nonself as well. The immune system monitors the body for cancer and destroys when it detects a malignancy. Cancer cells can avoid being recognized by the immune system and develop resistance through numerous methods.

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Since the early 1900s, the connection between cancer and the immune system has caught the attention of various scientists and medical practitioners. Although the early studies were bluntly done without current technological and scientific tools, they nonetheless shed insights leading to the development of the first monoclonal antibodies and to the use of biologically derived synthetic interleukins and interferons. After many decades of research, immunotherapy finally emerged as a fully functionalclinical area in the 1990s. Since then, the cancer therapeutics landscape has changed dramatically.

With the stream of product approvals in recent years, the global immunotherapy market has reached its current value. In 2015, the global cancer immunotherapy market hit $65 billion. The current immunotherapy market contains several blockbuster products reaching their end-of-market exclusivities; however, the market is mostly comprised of newly introduced and expensive therapies. In 2016, the market expanded by more than 10% over the previous year, reaching $73 billion. During the period of 2016 through 2021, the global cancer immunotherapy market is forecast to grow by a 5.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), reaching $96.5 billion in 2021.

The strongest growth is expected to occur in checkpoint-inhibitor drugs with a 19.4% CAGR during the forecast period. Immunomodulators are anticipated to show the second-highest growth rates among immunotherapy products, with an 8.4% CAGR during the same period. The combined sales from both segments are expected to make up for nearly one-third of the market, with a combined sales value of $28 billion in 2021. Checkpoint inhibitors are virtually comprised of monoclonal antibodies; however,they are assessed separately due to their immense commercial and clinical significance. Sales from other therapeutic antibodies accrued to $28 billion in 2016, and this value is expected to remain relatively constant through 2021, due to several patent expiries, pressure from anticipated generic entries, and newly introduced classes of drugs expected by 2021.

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Cancer Immunology And Oncolytic Virology Market Opportunities and Forecast Assessment, 2021 - Downey Magazine

A Wayne State University School of Medicine student and two recent graduates working on a collaborative project in the laboratories of Associate Professors of Ophthalmology, Visual and Anatomical Sciences Ashok Kumar, Ph.D., and Ryan Thummel, Ph.D., have discovered that zebrafish dont contract endophthalmitis.

The eye infection can cause blindness within hours if not diagnosed and treated quickly.

Matthew Rolain, Frank Mei, M.D. 19 and Xiao Yi Zhou, M.D. 17, contributed to the study, Zebrafish are Resistant to Staphylococcus aureus Endophthalmitis, published in Pathogens, a peer-reviewed journal in the field of microbiology and immunology.

The study showed that while humans require only 10 to 100 bugs to cause endophthalmitis, and mice require 5,000 before infection, in the freshwater fish even 250,000 bacteria wont cause the eye infection. The finding indicates that zebrafish eyes are incredibly resistant to such eye infections and possess strong host defense mechanisms.

Dr. Thummel and others in the field have shown that humans and fish share similarities in eye structure and immune responses. Studying why fish, but not human eyes, are resistant, may help identify protective pathways and molecules that could be translated to humans.

Traditionally, we have used a mouse model to study the pathobiology of these infections. In recent years, zebrafish have emerged as an important model organism in biomedical research, providing insight into the pathogenic mechanisms of infectious diseases. We sought to determine their susceptibility with the ocular bacterial infection, Dr. Kumar said. I contacted my colleague Dr. Thummel and discussed the idea, and the project took off with participation of three medical students who completed the task collectively.

Dr. Kumars laboratory focuses on understanding the pathobiology of ocular infections, especially those affecting the retina, such as endophthalmitis. The infection most often occurs due to surgical complications or eye trauma.

Apart from conducting research, I truly enjoyed mentoring these medical students, Dr. Kumar said. I hope they continue develop scientific acumen as they transition to their respective residency programs.

Matthew Rolain will graduate from the School of Medicine in 2020.

Working with Dr. Kumar and Dr. Thummel was an awesome experience, he said. They gave me great guidance and were always very supportive, regardless of the outcome of our experiments. It was nice being able to learn about the research process while working on such an interesting and potentially impactful project. Hopefully the scientific community will be able to build on our results to better help future patients.

Dr. Mei is now a resident in his transitional year in Chicago before starting a two-year Ophthalmology program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Individually, Drs. Kumar and Thummel were well respected in their separate expertise. However, the unification of their talents into a singular project created a collaborative environment where the strengths of both labs meshed, launching and dramatically expeditingthis project to completionin a very short timeframe. Bridging the gap between Scott Hall and the KresgeEye Institute, Drs. Kumar and Thummel created a warm atmosphere to foster my growth as a researcher. This experience was invaluableand an encouragement for me to seek further collaborations in my career in academic ophthalmology, Dr. Mei said.Lastly,I would like to thank the Medical Summer Research Project through Wayne State and the Kresge Summer Internship for supporting me through this project.

Their colleague, Dr. Zhou is a resident in her transitional year at NorthShore University Health System in Illinois. She completed a one-year fellowship at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami after graduation.

Moving forward, they plan to test zebrafish susceptibility to other bacterial and fungal pathogens.

The work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01EY027381 and R01EY026964 to Dr. Kumar, and R01EY026551 to Dr. Thummel. Histology and imaging core resources were supported by a vision core grant (P30EY04068) and an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness to the Department of Ophthalmology, Visual and Anatomical Sciences.

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Medical student and alumni discover zebrafish are resistent to eye infection - The South End

Manizheh Narimani,1 Mohammadreza Sharifi,2 Ali Jalili1

1Cancer and Immunology Research Center, Institute of Research for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran; 2Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Correspondence: Ali JaliliCancer and Immunology Research Center, Institute of Research for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, IranTel +98-9183771862Email Ali130@gmail.com

Introduction: Human Baculoviral inhibitor of apoptosis repeat-containing 5 (BIRC5) which encodes survivin exhibits multiple biological activities, such as cell proliferation and apoptosis. Survivin is overexpressed in numerous malignant diseases including acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Recent studies have shown that the CRISPR/Cas9 nuclease-mediated gene-editing systems are suitable approachsfor editing or knocking out various genes including oncogenes.Methods and materials: We used CRISPR-Cas9 to knockout the BIRC5 in the human leukemic cell line, HL60, and KG1, and these cell lines were transfected with either the Cas9- and three sgRNAs expressing plasmids or negative control (scramble) using Lipofectamine 3000. The efficacy of the transfection was determined by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain (RT-qPCR) and surveyor mutation assays. Cell proliferation and apoptosis were measured by MTT assay and flow cytometry, respectively.Results: We have successfully knocked out the BIRC5 gene in these leukemic cells and observed that the BIRC5-knocked out cells by CRISPR/Cas9 showed a significant decrease (30 folds) of survivin at mRNA levels. Moreover, cell death and apoptosis were significantly induced in BIRC5-CRISPR/Cas9-transfected cells compared to the scramble vector.Conclusion: We demonstrated for the first time that targeting BIRC5 by CRISPR/Cas9 technology is a suitable approach for the induction of apoptosis in leukemic cells. However, further studies targeting this gene in primary leukemic cells are required.

Keywords: BIRC5, survivin, CRISPR/Cas9 nuclease, AML, KG1 cells, HL60 cell

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Knockout Of BIRC5 Gene By CRISPR/Cas9 Induces Apoptosis And Inhibits C | BLCTT - Dove Medical Press

University of Iowa professor Gail Bishop has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the worlds largest general-scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members bytheirpeers.

As part of the Biological Sciences Section, Bishop,a professor of microbiology and immunology at the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, was selected for her distinguished contributions to the field of immunology, particularly for insights into regulation of T and B lymphocyteactivation.

This year, 443 members were awarded this honor by the AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or itsapplications.

I am very honored by this recognition from my scientific colleagues,says Bishop, who also is associate director for basic science research at Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the UI, and a professor of internalmedicine.

Bishop joined the UI in 1989. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that regulate the function of blood cells known as lymphocytes in normal immunity, inflammatory disease, and cancer. In particular, Bishop and her team are investigating lymphocyte signaling and interactions between innate and adaptive immune receptors. Her work has implications for treating B-cell cancers, including multiple myeloma, and developing cancervaccines.

She received a doctoral degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan in 1983 and performed postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, focusing on understanding the molecular mechanisms of B lymphocyte activation and interactions between B cells and Tcells.

Bishop has served in many roles during her 30-year UI career. She was appointed as endowed College of Medicine Distinguished Professor of Microbiology in 2001 and Holden Chair of Cancer Biology in 2004; from 1998 to 2013, she directed the Immunology Graduate Program; and in 2004, she was appointed associate director for basic science research of Holden Comprehensive CancerCenter.

This is such a well-deserved honor for Dr. Bishop, who exemplifies the values that we believe make the University of Iowa great, says Brooks Jackson, UI vice president for medical affairs and the Tyrone D. Artz Dean of the UI Carver College of Medicine. As her election to the AAAS demonstrates, she is an established leader in her field of immunology, and she has coupled that scientific success with a deep commitment to training and mentoring the next generation of scientists. Her leadership within our research community has helped to shape an environment where collaboration and collegiality are valued andfostered.

Bishop also is the recipient of many awards and honors for service to the field of immunology. She served as both a section editor of The Journal of Immunology, and is on the current editorial board of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. She has served as a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the National Institutes of Health, serving as chair of the NIH Tumors, Tolerance and Transplantation studysection.

In 2003, she received the UI Graduate Mentoring Award, and in 2009 was awarded the Iowa Technology Associations Woman of Innovation award for academic research innovation and leadership. Bishop served as president of the American Association of Immunologists in 201213, and is the director of the UI Center for Immunology and Immune-Based Diseases. She was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists in2019.

This years AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News and Notes section of the journal Science on Nov.29.

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Bishop named 2019 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - Iowa Now

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Newswise Structural immunologist Dr. Erica Ollmann Saphire is available to discuss Lassa virus and current efforts to develop much-needed antibody therapies to treat often lethal Lassa infections.

A Dutch doctor, who was evacuated from Sierra Leone after contracting Lassa fever, died on November 23, while being treated at Leiden University Medical Center. A second Dutch doctor and a Sierra Leonean anesthetist have also been infected. Other Dutch and British medical personnel have been evacuated.

Lassa typically causes flu-like symptoms but can be deadly in about a quarter of infected people. There is no vaccine.

Earlier this year, Dr. Ollmann Saphire and her team identified the molecular properties shared by antibodies that are particularly efficient at inactivating Lassa virus. The beauty of structural biology is that it gives you the ability to directly see how these therapies work, says Dr. Ollmann Saphire. These high-resolution images become blueprints to engineer potent antibody therapeutics or a vaccine that elicits the desired immune response.

Bio:

Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D. is a Professor of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Her research explains, at the molecular level, how and why viruses like Ebola and Lassa are pathogenic and provides the roadmap for medical defense. Her team has solved the structures of the Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Bundibugyo and Lassa virus glycoproteins, explained how they remodel these structures as they drive themselves into cells, how their proteins suppress immune function and where human antibodies can defeat these viruses.

Dr. Ollmann Saphire also directs the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium (VIC), which unites 43 academic, industrial and government labs across five continents. The consortiums goal is to understand which antibodies are most effective in patients and to streamline the research pipeline to provide antibody therapeutics against Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and other viruses.

Dr. Ollmann Saphire is available via email, phone and Skype.

Watch Dr. Ollmann Saphire discuss Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Expert available to discuss Lassa virus and antibody therapies against the virus - Newswise

Surprisingly, the antiviral cytokine type I interferon (IFN-I) was found to be a master regulator of metabolic pathways in liver cells. The researchers focused on the urea cycle, a central metabolic node, and found that it is disrupted by IFN-I during viral infection. This led to altered serum metabolite concentrations which regulated antiviral immunity and reduced liver pathology.

The liver is a crucial organ for systemic metabolism in our body. Apart from the turnover of biomolecules and drug metabolism, the liver's main function is the removal of toxic substances from the organism. Hepatocytes, or liver cells, are the most abundant cell type and functional unit of the liver. They are metabolic powerhouses in the healthy organism, but they also serve as important immune signaling platforms during infections. As such, they have the potential to react to a range of cytokines - small molecules that are essential for the coordination of immune responses.

Previous studies in the field of immunology and metabolism, or immunometabolism, unveiled groundbreaking mechanisms about how cells of the immune system need to adjust their metabolism to perform their functions to fight pathogens and cancer. Building on this, Andreas Bergthaler and his group at CeMM aimed to study the immunometabolic changes that occur in the whole organism during infection. They particularly focused on the liver due to its important role in controlling systemic metabolism.

To dissect the involved complex processes, the authors took advantage of the benchmark model of chronic infection, the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV). Research with LCMV had already led to fundamental insights into immunology over the past 80 years, and notably contributed to three Nobel Prizes. Among them is the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to James Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their discoveries relating to the revolutionary new cancer immunotherapies which exploit the body's own immune killer cells, or CD8 T cells.

The present study by Alexander Lercher, Anannya Bhattacharya et al. is the result of cross-disciplinary collaborations with researchers from the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna (Austria), as well as from the Hannover Medical School (Germany), the Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen (Switzerland) and the company Bio-Cancer Treatment International Ltd (China). The study was designed as an integrative unbiased approach to investigate the molecular changes in the liver during chronic infection. Next to expected inflammatory changes, the authors identified intriguing changes in hepatocyte metabolism. Many central metabolic pathways, among them the urea cycle, were found to be repressed upon infection. The urea cycle is essential to remove toxic ammonia from the body to prevent brain damage. Surprisingly, the researchers identified the antiviral cytokine signaling pathway of type I interferons (IFN-I) as a regulator of the urea cycle. This resulted in altered blood concentrations of the amino acids arginine and ornithine. "A key experiment for us was that when we removed the receptor for IFN-I on the surface of hepatocytes, we didn't see these metabolic changes anymore", says Alexander Lercher, first author of the study and PhD student in the laboratory of CeMM Principal Investigator Andreas Bergthaler. The systemic changes of arginine and ornithine were found to inhibit antiviral CD8 T cell responses and to reduce liver damage.

One of the most important revelations of this study was the identification of IFN-I signaling as a master regulator for the repression of metabolic processes in hepatocytes upon infection. "We were really surprised that an antiviral molecule affects such vital biological processes as the urea cycle during infection", says Michael Trauner, co-author of the study and head of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Medical University of Vienna. Together, these findings shed new light on how the body's immune system evolved to regulate liver metabolism that modulate CD8 T cell responses and reduce collateral tissue damage during infection. Andreas Bergthaler: "We regard this study an important contribution to the field of systemic immunometabolism. It also highlights the central role of the liver for our immune system and how organs of the body communicate through metabolites." In the future, such findings may be exploited to therapeutically intervene with the regulation of metabolic processes to modulate CD8 T cell responses in diverse diseases such as infection, cancer and autoimmunity.

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Immunity -- master regulator of liver metabolism identified during infection - Science Codex

1.7 million. That's how many people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) each year worldwide. 1.7 million people who are condemned to lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) or risk developing fatal AIDS . Out of the 37.9 million people living with HIV (PLWH), 22.3 million have access to ART, allowing them to have an almost normal lifespan. Unfortunately, however, the medications only go so far: they don't reach the cells where the virus lies dormant for years. Moreover, potential long-term adverse effects of these medications remain unknown.

Still, HIV research has been making steady strides to help the large number of PLWH. HIV laboratories around the globe are trying to unlock the "secrets" of the virus and find its weak spots in order to prevent or cure the infection. At the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM), scientists ric A. Cohen and Tram NQ Pham have recently identified a way to thwart HIV infection at its very early stages. Their discovery is the subject of an article in the scientific journal Cell Reports.

Contrary to popular belief, HIV is not so easily transmitted. We are studying the window of vulnerability of the virus, meaning the moments in the infection process when it could be weakened or attacked. We focused on the very early stages following viral invasion.

ric Cohen, director of the Human Retrovirology Research Unit at the IRCM and a virology professor in the Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Universit de Montral

Once transmitted, HIV does not immediately spread through the body. It initially has to multiply locally, mainly in the genital tissues. It is only after this initial, local expansion that the virus spreads. This localized expansion offers a very brief window of vulnerability before the virus efficiently establishes a systemic infection.

The immune response is like an armed struggle: an enemy infiltrates and the body defends itself. Viruses are the intruders, and white blood cells are soldiers trying to hold down the fort. The white blood cells are equipped with their own "infantry units": lymphocytes, phagocytes, granulocytes and others. The phagocyte group has an even more specialized unit known as 'plasmacytoid dendritic cells' (PDCs). These small, round-shaped cells patrol the body, specializing in both pathogen detection and antiviral response orchestration. In other words, they are the whistleblowers, the ones through which the entire defence process is set into motion. When they detect a threat, they change shape and develop protuberances called dendrites. "Most importantly, they start producing large amounts of interferon, a protein that triggers a state of infection resistance in other cells," Cohen explained.

As its name implies, HIV preferentially targets the immune system: it attacks and weakens the body's own defences, and the infected person becomes susceptible to the slightest infection. As soon as it arrives, HIV gets PDCs out of the way and prevents them from sounding the alarm. "The virus doesn't seem to kill them directly, but it makes them disappear in a way that is still not understood," said Pham, the senior research associate in the Human Retrovirology Research Unit. "The loss of PDCs from both the infection site and throughout the body helps establish the infection."

"Given what HIV does to PDCs, we wondered what would happen if we boosted PDC levels and their function both prior to and during infection," said Cohen. To test this, the scientists used a special protein known as Flt3 receptor ligand to stimulate the production of PDCs from the bone marrow of humanized mice. These rodents are engineered to have a human immune system in place of the mouse's own machinery. Consequently, in an infected humanized mouse, HIV behaves as it otherwise would in a human host.

Administration of this special protein maintained high levels of PDCs in these mice and produced some striking results: 1) the initial number of infected mice was reduced; 2) the time it took for the virus to be detectable in the blood was lengthened; and 3) the amount of virus in the blood, also known as viremia, was significantly reduced. "We observed up to a 100-fold decrease in viremia," Pham noted. "In other words, the initial infection is suppressed by maintaining a high level of PDCs."

This seminal work also showed that the injection of the Flt3 receptor ligand not only increased PDC abundance, but also boosted their ability to detect the virus and produce interferon following its detection.

Of course, HIV infection normally goes unnoticed and by the time the viremia is detectable, it is a little too late. In this context, the discovery by Cohen and Pham is highly important in terms of prevention and a potential cure. "These new findings will be crucial in the design of an HIV vaccine, which is basically aimed at teaching the immune system to defend itself by introducing it to a weakened form of the virus," said Cohen. "We can now focus on PDCs in order to control the seeding and expansion of the virus at the early stage of infection."

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New way to thwart HIV infection at early stages - News-Medical.net

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Gossamer Bio, Inc. (GOSS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, acquiring, developing and commercializing therapeutics in the disease areas of immunology, inflammation and oncology, today announced that members of the management team will participate in the following investor conferences:

A live webcast of the presentations will be available on the Events and Presentations page in the Investors section of the companys website at https://ir.gossamerbio.com. A replay of the webcast will be archived on the companys website for 90 days following the presentation.

About Gossamer Bio

Gossamer Bio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, acquiring, developing and commercializing therapeutics in the disease areas of immunology, inflammation and oncology. Its goal is to be an industry leader in each of these therapeutic areas and to enhance and extend the lives of patients suffering from such diseases.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191126005147/en/

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Gossamer Bio Announces Participation in Upcoming Investor Conferences - Yahoo Finance

AbbVie's (NYSE:ABBV) third-quarter earnings call reminded investors about the transformative potential of the Allergan acquisition for the pharma giant. Management reiterated that they continue to expect the deal to close by the end of the first quarter of 2020. This is promising for investors, as the combined entity will allow AbbVie to gain a more diversified foothold in faster-growing therapeutic areas such as Botox and neuroscience while expanding its immunology portfolio with the addition of Allergan's Linzess and Viberzi.

AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez said on the earnings call that "the Allergan transaction will make us even stronger and more diversified." Let's see why.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The new AbbVie will have a strong market leadership position in a number of therapeutic areas. AbbVie would be No. 1 in immunology, supported by its flagship arthritis treatment, Humira, but investors are also excited about potential approvals following results of ongoing Phase 3 clinical trials of Skyrizi in psoriasis and Upadacitinib in rheumatoid arthritis before the end of 2020. Not surprisingly, AbbVie will also have a market leadership position in medical aesthetics, with a product suite covering Botox, the CoolSculpting fat removal system, and Juvederm dermal fillers, which are used to help conceal wrinkles. Medical aesthetics is still a rapidly growing market, especially internationally. Management cited a Markets and Markets Medical Aesthetics report from September 2018 that cited the aesthetics addressable market being $12B at the time and "growing."

Investors should be encouraged by Gonzalez's comments on the call that, "Based on the uniqueness of this particular molecule, we have come to the conclusion that it would be extremely difficult to create a biosimilar version of Botox, and I would tell you, we looked at this very extensively with a lot of outside expertise and we feel very confident that that's the case." This should create a steady stream of earnings and cash flow to AbbVie to help support other therapeutic areas without the worry of generic competition.

The scale and synergies of the acquisition are another bright spot for investors in a world where size matters more than ever to fend off competition.

Let's start with scale. Using full-year 2018 financials, adding AbbVie and Allergan gives us an entity that would have trailed only Johnson & Johnson, Roche, and Pfizer in revenue, lagging only the first two in operating cash flow. With the company's new scale, management believes it can achieve high-single-digit revenue growth.

With respect to the synergies, management expects the combined entity to lower costs and increase returns. Total savings are expected to top $2 billion over a three-plus-year period: 50% from R&D efficiency; 40% from selling, general, and administrative expenses as the footprint of the combined organization becomes leaner; and 10% from greater manufacturing efficiency. Those savings should show up quickly: Earnings per share are expected to get a 10% boost in year one and eventually top 20%. This will help support the increase of an already generous 5%-plus dividend yield, coupled with the promise of further shareholder-friendly actions as the company reduces its debt load. Gonzalez said that "combined, we will generate significant earnings and cash flow to enhance our innovative R&D platform support a strong and growing dividend and rapidly pay down debt."

Year to date, AbbVie's stock price has been more or less flat, lagging the S&P 500. As a result, it's sporting a forward price-to-earnings multiple of roughly 10 times consensus estimates. That's not a steep price for an attractive dividend yield coupled with the prospect of accelerating revenue and earnings growth.

As closure of the acquisition draws near, any negative investor sentiment should begin to abate, allowing for the prospects of multiple expansion. Gonzalez said on the call, "Our model is more conservative than what the Allergan current performance is and certainly more conservative than their longer-range forecast, but it still does project growth for Botox going forward." Thus, this multiple expansion should be led by reduced fears around competition, realized cost synergies, and potential for increased earnings guidance.

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AbbVie Shareholders Have a Lot to Look Forward To With Allergan - The Motley Fool

by Alex Kekauoha on November 24, 2019 10:31 am

Dorothy Tovar, PhD student in microbiology and immunology, is among those selected to be an IF/THEN ambassador. (Courtesy Dorothy Tovar)

Three Stanford students and one postdoctoral scholar have been selected to the first class of IF/THEN ambassadors for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Each will provide support and mentorship to young girls interested in pursuing STEM fields.

Catie Cuan

Graduate students CATIE CUAN and DOROTHY TOVAR, postdoctoral scholar HELEN TRAN and undergraduate ERIN SMITHare among 125 women selected to serve as ambassadors.

The ambassadors recently attended the IF/THEN Summit in Dallas, Texas, where they participated in a full-body scan that produced life-sized 3D-printed statues of the ambassadors the largest collection of statues of women. Ambassadors will also work with Bay Area Girl Scout troops, appear on the network television series Mission Unstoppable about women working on cutting-edge STEM projects and participate in media campaigns.

The IF/THEN initiative is based on the idea that if women in STEM fields are supported, then they can change the world. The program is supported by a $25 million commitment from Dallas-based Lyda Hill Philanthropies. It is also a partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which works to advance science, engineering and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.

Catie Cuan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Growing up in Berkeley, California, she loved math and science, but had few female role models in those fields.

Helen Tran

This resulted in a self-imposed narrowing of what my future possibilities were, she said.

Cuan earned a bachelors degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and has had a career as a dancer and choreographer. After making performances and art installations with robots, she decided to pursue a graduate degree in mechanical engineering.Cuan is currently designing physical interactions between humans and robots, as well as haptic devices to tele-operate robots.

Helen Tran is the Intelligence Community postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Professor Zhenan Bao in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

A native of San Jose, California, science was not on Trans radar until college. She earned a bachelors degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University. She joined Stanford in 2016 and is currently researching biodegradable stretchable electronics.

Through the IF/THEN program, Tran has enjoyed learning about the quantitative studies on the importance of media representation of women in media.

Dorothy Tovar is a PhD student studying microbiology and immunology.

Erin Smith

Growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Tovar became interested in science at a young age. She frequently read science books and encyclopedias and watched countless hours of the Discovery Channel. She also spent some of her childhood in Haiti, where she became fascinated by the way microscopic organisms could cause diseases that devastate entire countries.

Tovar earned a BS in microbiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she was awarded the universitys 21st Century Leader Award. She joined Stanford Medicine in 2015.

Erin Smith, a first-year student and native of Kansas, is the founder ofFacePrint, an AI tool to detect and monitor Parkinsons disease and commonly misidentified neurological disorders using video technology and early-stage facial expression indicators. She is currently off campus pursuing a Thiel Internship.

Smiths research interest was spurred when she watched a video by the Michael J. Fox Foundation and noticed that Parkinsons patients smiles and laughter often appeared emotionally distant years before diagnosis. She talked to clinicians and caretakers, who reported similar observations. As she read through past medical papers. she found that the often-overlooked parts of the brain that experience some of the earliest changes in Parkinsons patients are the same parts involved in the formation of facial expressions. Smith became captivated by the idea of using facial expressions to monitor changes in the brain like Parkinsons and objectively detect its onset.

Mentors have had a pivotal impact on my life, said Smith. I am looking forward to the opportunity to engage with young students and help shape their futures.

Read more in the Roundabout.

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Stanford postdoc and students cited as example to girls interested in STEM fields | The Dish - Stanford University News