While I am still wearing a mask in public to reassure others, my husband and I have now had a Moderna (MRNA) COVID-19 inoculation and will follow up with a 2^nd in 4 week's time. That means we can go to Boston for our youngest grandson's Bar-Mitzvah and visit our new grand-niece in London. Of course, the process was slow and inefficient but we are grateful to have been among the earliest New Yorkers jabbed.

Since the market is still open even though we stopped for sushi on a nearly deserted Flatiron street, I am giving you the hot news for Wednesday now. I am still locked out of my bluehost account and am preparing to sue them for a refund of the fees paid, $2175, not a small amount for my company.

*Nio Inc. priced its $1.3 bn convertible notes today with so much finesse that I am struggling to figure out how to say chutzpah (gall) in Chinese. Two issues each for $650 mn were issued, unsecured ones due in 2026 and senior notes coming due in 2027. The first round notes will not pay interest and there will be no additions to the principal amount. They can be converted after Aug. 1, 2025, into cash or ADRs or a combination. The ADRs will cost $93.06 per, a 50% rise on the level NIO closed at yesterday (NIO).  

The 2027 ones will pay interest at a miserable 0.5% annually and may be converted by holders on Aug. 1 2026 into cash or ADRs, also at $93.06 each. Nio shares gained 187% in the last quarter year to Tuesday, well ahead of the MSCI iShares Chine ETF, up 8%, and the S&P 500 up 8.2%. Is NIO going to be able to deliver a 50% rise? I have no idea. We own the common shares and we sold 2/3 of our positions. While NIO fell at the opening today it is now up 0.29% to $62.12.

*Teva is the other stock in the news after CEO Kåre Schultz held forth at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference today to some extent giving us a hint on how its Q4 went last year, coming officially on Feb. 10 with a conference call at 8 a.m which I will miss because I get my 2^nd jab that day. Seekingalpha posted the interview which was conducted by Chris Schott of JP Morgan, the 2^nd time this week that stock was boosted this way. The CEO said Ajovy, against migraines, was doing well in the US and Europe now that TEVA has enabled an auto-injector for sufferers to treat themselves, necessitated by COVID-19. The rival migraine offerings which have other defects were earlier in the self-treatment side than Teva but there are side-effects like constipation which favor the Israeli jab. It also prevents migraines for longer that the rival jabs so Teva is winning market share. In Europe where drugs are negotiated by government reimbursement bodies, Schultz says that without much price cutting it has about 80% market access. This matters because until now European regulators demanded bigger price cuts for reimbursement than the USA, but not this time.

He also was bullish about Austedo in a secondary application against tardive dyskinesia as well as for Huntington's chorea for which it was initially launched. It has won success in South Korea against the rare disease. But the tardive dyskinesia use is more significant because there is more of it and so far no other treatment. A half-million people in the USA have the condition and few have been treated. So marketing will pick up, according to the CEO.

Schultz also talked up biosimilars which Teva (TEVA) is launching with success because of its long experience with generics, which have similar legal restraints, notably Truxima. It has another 10 programs in licensing stage half from Alvotech, which are going off-patent in the next decade.

The Danish CEO also repeated his target of 28% operating margins by the end of 2023, and added that “we are firmly on track for that.” He expects that this will produce revenue of low to mid-single-digit growth by that data and improved EPS.

As for old stars, Schultz said that Copaxone, the former TEVA winner, was already negligible in 2020, last year. I am paraphrasing the interview because it was copyrighted by seekingalpha.com.