Healthcare
Dr. Evans is a 20 year industry veteran and leads the Healthcare practice at SSR. As a senior executive in the pharmaceuticals industry, Dr. Evans responsibilities ranged from corporate strategy to the pricing and distribution of the company’s products. His variety of assignments provided a comparable variety of vantage points on the industry. As an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, he was ranked #1 by both Bloomberg and Institutional Investor for his U.S. pharmaceuticals coverage – across all industries and coverage he was ranked one of the top 20 analysts worldwide. Dr. Evans is the author of “Health and Capital” published in August of 2009. He is a co-founder of Sector & Sovereign Research, LLC.
Coverage Universe
In order to understand dynamics at the sector, subsector and firm level, we monitor relative valuation and share price performance throughout healthcare. By tracking firms relative to their (cap-weighted) subsectors; subsectors relative to the healthcare sector; and the healthcare sector relative to the broader market we are able to highlight high and low outliers, track variability in relative performance and steer our analytic agenda to the most investable opportunities. The full review capturing data at the company level is available here and by e-mailing Hinds@sector-sovereign.com or calling (203) 901-1632.
Recent Blog Posts
May 4, 2012 – April “Employment Situation” Report Mixed on Healthcare Hours. A Flu Effect?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday published the April 2012 Employment Situation report, which includes payrolls and hours worked at the industry level through March 2012. While aggregate healthcare hours, and medical / surgical hospital hours were slightly up in March as compared to February, and had sequential improvement in y/y growth, physician office hours demonstrated some weakness…
See more at our Healthcare blog
Research Archive
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May 28, 2013 – PBM Bear Thesis Update: The AWP Alternatives Will Soon Be Here
May 20, 2013 – SSR Index of Current Quarter Growth, Initial 2Q13 Estimate
May 16, 2013 – Buckle Up! A Summary of Adverse Selection Pressures on Health Insurance Exchanges
May 7, 2013 – Cheap, Shy or Just Misbehaving? PFE Sells Viagra Direct to Consumers
April 29, 2013 – Why Smaller Employers Will Shift to Self-Funding; Who Wins and Loses
April 19, 2013 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Healthcare Demand Growth, Final 1Q13 Estimate
April 9, 2013 – SSR Index of Drug and Biotech Pipeline Values
April 2, 2013 - Private Health Exchanges: Why They’re Coming; What They Mean
March 20, 2013 – WAG/ABC – Quick Strategic Read-thru; Better for WAG than ABC
March 19, 2013 – The Razorback Alternative: Is Arkansas’ Medicaid Game Plan a Blueprint for Others?
March 18, 2013 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Healthcare Demand Growth, Interim 1Q13 Estimate
March 11, 2013 – Hedge Hospital Pricing Risks with Non-Rx Consumables
March 4, 2013 – The Medicaid Expansion & Why Hospital Pricing Peaks in 2013
February 26, 2013 – SSR Index of of Current Quarter Healthcare Demand Growth, Initial 1Q13 Estimate
February 11, 2013 -Investment Recommendations Across Healthcare, by Sub-Sector
January 16, 2013 – Flu Effects on US Health Demand
January 15, 2013 – The Incredibly Slow (But Very Nearly Certain) Death of AWP
December 17, 2012 – Why Medicaid Eligibility Will (Still) Level Off at 100 FPL
December 4, 2012 – A Simple Formula for Drug (and Biotech and Spec Pharma) Stock Selection – Updated
November 19, 2012 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Healthcare Demand Growth, Initial 4Q12 Estimate
November 8, 2012 – An Index of the Value in Large Cap PharmaCos’ Mid- to Early-Stage Pipelines
October 22, 2012 - SSR Index of Current-Quarter Healthcare Demand Growth, Final 3Q12 Estimate
October 15, 2012 – US Healthcare Demand Part 4: Cyclical Effects
October 1, 2012 – US Healthcare Demand Part 3: Reform Effects – ACA Looks Like a Headwind
September 17, 2012 – US Healthcare Demand Part 2: Secular Headwinds
September 4, 2012 – US Healthcare Demand, Part 1: ‘Baseline’ Growth
August 16, 2012 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Demand Growth: Initial 3Q12 Estimates
August 8, 2012 – Co-Pay Cards: A Bottle for the Drug Pricing Genie
July 27, 2012 – Medicaid Eligibility Capped at 100 FPL: The Logical Outcome of the SCOTUS ACA Ruling
July 18, 2012 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Demand Growth; Lowering Estimate Back to 3.1% from 3.3%
June 29, 2012 – ACA Post-SCOTUS – What Matters Now
June 18, 2012 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Demand Growth; Raising Estimate to 3.3% from 3.1%
June 14, 2012 – The Mechanics of Commercial HMOs’ Gross Profits: Why MLRs Should Remain Stable
May 31, 2012 – The Apparent Link Between Employment and Healthcare Demand
May 17, 2012 – Why HMOs are Cheap, Despite Rising Utilization
May 16, 2012 – SSR Index of Current-Quarter Healthcare Services Demand
February 26, 2012 – Large cap Pharma’s Dependence on US List Price Growth is Unsustainable
February 6, 2012 – The Pro-Cyclical US Healthcare Thesis – Impact of ROW Economic Risks
January 24, 2012 – Hospitals’ Stable to Improving Net Pricing Power
January 12, 2012 – US Healthcare Demand Slow for Cyclical (Temporary) Reasons
November 14, 2011 – PBM Pricing Post-AWP – An Estimate of Sustainable Earnings Power
October 24, 2011 – ACA at the Supreme Court
October 11, 2011 – Below Zero and Falling Fast: Productivity as an Enterprise-Wide Crisis
October 6, 2011 – President’s Budget Proposal Points to More Pressure on Innovators
October 3, 2011 – Detailed Comparison of the AWP Replacements – AMP v NADAC
September 26, 2011 – CMS Starts to (Kind of) Publish AMP
September 9, 2011 – A Simple Formula for Drug Stock Selection
August 18, 2011 – CMS Takes Concrete Steps Towards Replacing AWP
August 15, 2011 – Market Appears to Misprice Risks to Healthcare Earnings from BCA
August 3, 2011 – Healthcare and the Budget Control Act of 2011
July 25, 2011 – ESRX, MHS, and the PBM Bear Case
July 11, 2011 – Why Employer Are Likely to Drop Health Insurance: A Simplified View
June 10, 2011 – What Next for the MLR cycle?
May 24, 2011 – Can Shuffling the Deck Create Growth?
May 5, 2011 – The Thread Holding Generic Dispensing Margins
April 27, 2011 – The (Unfortunate) Irrelevance of ACOs
April 6, 2011 – CMS says AMP is Coming; Why Ortho Demand May Slow
March 22, 2011 – Medicaid Cost Pressures Intensify on the States
March 2, 2011 – Post-2014 Reform Related Volume Gains are Modest
February 11, 2011 – PFE Decides to Shrink; HHS ends AWP; and Drug Pricing Hits a Speedtrap
January 26, 2011 – Ranked Preferences Across Healthcare (Sub-sector by Sub-sector)
January 5, 2011 – Copay Cards and the Stalling of Drug Rebate Growth
December 1, 2010 – Demand Trend Improves Starting 4q; Why HDLC Drugs May be Bigger Than You Think
November 10, 2010 – Uncertainty and Motive in Pharmacy Dispensing Markups
October 29, 2010 – Why Generic Dispensing Margins (Eventually) Must Fall
October 4, 2010 – What a Republican House Means for Health Reform
September 22, 2010 – Skeptic’s Guide to Drug Stock Selection
September 7, 2010 – Why US Healthcare Demand Appears to be Falling
August 24, 2010 – Single-payor (read European) Governments and Your Healthcare Portfolio
July 29, 2010 – Consumers Add Risk; Insurers Add Power; Consequences for Providers and Suppliers
July 8, 2010 – Big Pharma’s Tenuous Grip on the Emerging Markets
June 15, 2010 – Why UNH and WLP Are Better Positioned for Reform Than AET or CI
May 26, 2010 – Why the Average Employer Will Drop Health Insurance in 2014
April 26, 2010 – Practical Boundaries of Health Insurance Regulation
March 29, 2010 – 3 Reform Realities That Aren’t Priced In
March 18, 2010 – Handicapping the Whip Count: Odds Still Against Passage
March 10, 2010 – PBM GMs: This Looks Like the End of the Cycle
March 4, 2010 – Last Chance: Betting the Ranch on a Weak Hand
February 26, 2010 – Post-Summit: Why Large Reforms Almost Certainly Can’t Pass
February 17, 2010 – Introducing our Healthcare Demand Model
February 3, 2010 – Health Insurers Antitrust Exemption
February 1, 2010 – Residual Reform Risks; Subsector Estimates Do Not Add Up
January 20, 2010 – The Political (As Opposed to Procedural) Death of Health Reform
January 12, 2010 – GMs Too High for Pharma, Too Low for HMOs; Why the House Won’t Roll Over
December 2, 2009 – Biggest Reform Worry No One is Watching, Labor, and Massachusetts
November 17, 2009 – Why Health Reform Legislation Won’t Pass; More About Insurers’ 2010 Margins
November 2, 2009 – HMO & PBM Margins Expand; Public Option Has the Blues
October 20, 2009 – Health Insurers 40% Undervalued
October 6, 2009 – The New Abnormal: Health Costs Derail Fiscal Recovery
September 21, 2009 – Why the Senate Finance Healthcare Bill Doesn’t Work
September 8, 2009 – Reform Unlikely to be Large; Risk to Insurers Falls
August 18, 2009 – Political Economics and Investment Relevance of American Health Reform
Audio Archive
June 28, 2012 – Opportunities in light of the SCOTUS Decision (conference call audio available here)
February 26, 2012 – Pharma’s dependence on list price growth
February 6, 2012 – Impact of ROW economic risks
January 26, 2012 – Hospitals’ stable to improving net pricing power
January 12, 2012 – US Healthcare demand
Health and Capital
Health 
and Capital is the inaugural publication of Sector & Sovereign, LLC the parent of Sector & Sovereign Research, LLC and is in keeping with the firm’s focus on industries and asset classes that are heavily influenced by government policy.
The American health system is a conflict of ideological extremes: free markets v. central planning and individual v. collective responsibility are prominent examples. These extremes fail in health care for moral and mechanical reasons: patients cannot time or scale their needs to an ability to pay, requisite conditions for market efficiency are missing, and planners cannot match the system’s pace and complexity.
Health and Capital begins as an empiric review of the present health system’s moral and economic costs, the scale and accelerating growth of which are linked to their structural origins. The tendency of both free and planned markets to fail in health settings is shown through examples; as, more constructively, is the existence of a continuum of workable alternatives bounded by these extremes. Recommendations are provided in two forms: loosely, as a list of essential reforms that logically must feature in any health system having moral and economic efficiency, whatever it’s broader structure and finer details; and more completely, as a comprehensive health system design that demonstrates the feasibility of effective reforms.