Canada OKs Cosmetic Botox Use; Hoag Doing Heart Treatment
Shares of PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., Santa Ana, got a bounce recently when the health maintenance organization said its first-quarter and full-year earnings would come in at the top of the range of analysts’ estimates. Those estimates are 35 cents a share for the first quarter and $2.94 for 2001. After the company’s guidance came out, PacifiCare stock rose 9% to 26.06 in that day’s trading.
Fourteen analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call had offered first-quarter estimates ranging from a loss of 60 cents a share to a profit of 36 cents a share for PacifiCare. For the year, their predictions ranged from a loss of $2.18 a share to a profit of $3 a share. Consensus estimates were 27 cents and $2.28 a share for the quarter and the year, respectively.
PacifiCare also is positioned to resume paying its debt in the second quarter, said Gregory Scott, chief financial officer. That’s because its daily balance of “free cash” averaged $186 million in March.
PacifiCare has wrestled with high medical costs because of a shift in its business landscape. Many of its pacts with doctors and hospitals have moved from fixed-payment contracts to shared-risk arrangements. But the company has slowed the rate of transition to the new contracts and has indicated that some of its providers still want PacifiCare’s traditional capitation contracts.
Company officials also said that overall membership was tracking with earlier projections, suggesting a planned member-month decline of 7% to 8% as a result of its exits from certain commercial and Medicare markets. PacifiCare’s Medicare Plus Choice membership totaled 1.05 million through February, down 1% from Dec. 31. Commercial membership was 2.7 million, a 7.5% drop from the end of 2001.
In other PacifiCare news, Cypress-based unit PacifiCare of California signed a new, three-year contract with Monarch HealthCare, a Mission Viejo-based medical group. Approximately 40,000 PacifiCare of California and Secure Horizons Medicare members are covered by the deal.
In a release, PacifiCare of California and Monarch officials said the contract is intended to improve overall healthcare quality and ensure stability for its patients.
Monarch HealthCare is made up of 250 primary-care physicians and more than 750 specialists. Monarch’s physician network serves more than 150,000 members. Besides PacifiCare, it has contracts with Health Net, Blue Cross of California, Blue Shield of California, Cigna, and Aetna.
Additionally, Monarch instituted an Internet-based referral system called Practice Connect intended to expedite its patients’ access to specialty healthcare.
Canada OKs Cosmetic Botox
Botox, the flagship drug of Allergan Inc., Irvine, recently received regulatory approval from Canadian health authorities for cosmetic treatment of glabellar lines, or brow furrow. Canadian officials specifically signed off on Botox for treating brow furrow associated with certain muscle activities.
Allergan received its approval based on a phase 3 clinical program, including a placebo-controlled study of 263 people ages 23 to 76 years of age. The study found a higher rate of response from the Botox-treated group.
Allergan, which sold $239.5 million worth of the neurotoxin last year, is awaiting word from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on its supplemental biologics license application for using Botox for brow furrow.
Hoag Launches Coronary Treatment
Hoag Heart Institute at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Newport Beach, said doctors there performed a new procedure called intra-coronary brachytherapy for people with recurring coronary artery disease following stent placement. Stents are small scaffolds commonly used to support heart arteries following angioplasty.
Brachytherapy works like this: Doctors deliver beta radiation to the blocked artery’s site by using radioactive seeds positioned via a catheter within the stent. The low-dose radiation is administered for about five minutes and then removed.
A study by the American Heart Association showed that brachytherapy reduced tissue growth by 50% and decreased the need for patients to undergo further revascularization by 56%.
Hoag also said its heart institute launched a voucher program aimed at getting more automated external defibrillators in OC. The program stands to make 200 discount vouchers available to organizations interested in obtaining the machines.
Bits and Pieces:
Cardiac Science Inc., Irvine, said it hired CIBC World Markets Corp. and Adams, Harkness and Hill to provide investment banking services ChromaVision Medical Systems Inc., San Juan Capistrano, said tissue microarray technology was validated for use in its automated cellular imaging system. Tissue microarray technology lets users analyze thousands of samples in a single experiment Nexell Therapeutics Inc., Irvine, said Epimmune Inc., San Diego, granted it a non-exclusive license to certain cancer antigens for use in Nexell’s dendritic cell vaccine program Latino Health Access, Santa Ana, launched a diabetes education program for Hispanics in conjunction with Universal Care, a Signal Hill-based managed care company Cogent Healthcare Inc., Laguna Hills, added an online continuing medical education course for hospital-based doctors SK & A; Information Services Inc., Irvine, released a list of 290,000 hospital-based physicians.
