Q & M Dental, Moderna, AstraZeneca: Serving people!

Q & M Dental Group - Asian health care player grows properly

Q & M Dental Group is a Singapore-based dental service provider with its main product Invisalign, which is also successfully used in Europe to correct misaligned teeth. In addition to Europe and the USA, the market is also growing strongly in Asia at around 12% per year. Together with its subsidiaries, the group is a leading private dental service provider in Singapore with a growth of over 20% per annum.

Expansion plans are already in place for Malaysia, the People's Republic of China and other ASEAN countries. Currently, they operate 114 dental clinics, 5 medical clinics and 3 dental supplies and equipment distribution companies. Supported by more than 230 experienced dentists and nearly 400 employees, the group has more than 300,000 patients in Singapore. In addition to general and specialized dental and medical care, the group has also invested in postgraduate training with the establishment of the Q & M School.

Since April this year, it has also been offering tools for Covid-19 testing centers together with its partner Acumen Diagnostics. As a result, revenue shortfalls during lockdown periods can be bridged in the best possible way. Revenue will reach about 128 million Singapore dollars (SGD) in 2020, with pre-tax profit adding up to SGD 20 million. The share price has already moved decently this year between SGD 0.30 and SGD 0.73. At the current price of SGD 0.46, the market capitalization is SGD 362 million. With these growth figures, Q & M is therefore not too expensive. Admittedly, it needs accessible practices to deliver services to patients unimpeded again, so one should expect the share price to pick up nicely by summer at the latest.

Moderna - vaccine in the approval phase

Moderna Inc. is a US biotech Company specializing in the research and development of drugs based on mRNA. mRNA drugs are designed to enable the body's cells to produce proteins with therapeutic or preventive effects that can help treat various diseases. Applications for mRNA products include therapeutics and vaccines for cancer immunotherapies, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases and inflammation. The Company's consistent progress in basic and applied mRNA research enables parallel new developments, both independently and with strategic partners.

In the US, the first people were administered the US Company Moderna's Corona vaccine on Monday. CNN television showed doses of the vaccine being administered at a hospital in Houston, Texas. On the short messaging service Twitter, hospitals in Ohio and Connecticut, among others, posted photos of doctors and nurses receiving the vaccine. The United States is the first country in the world to use the substance away from testing. Before the end of the year, 20 million units could be available in the US, according to the Company; in Europe, a meeting on possible approval is set for Jan. 6, 2021.

According to analyst estimates, Moderna Inc. is expected to climb from 2019 sales of USD 60 million to more than USD 500 million this year, and USD 7 billion in 2021 because of the pandemic. Profits could explode to about USD 2 billion next year, giving the Company a P/E ratio of just 22 on a capitalization of USD 44 billion. Currently, it is not yet making a profit. The share price has already risen by 600% in the last 12 months.

AstraZeneca - pharmaceutical giant may soon deliver

AstraZeneca plc is a Swedish-British Pharmaceutical Company engaged in the development, production and marketing of prescription drugs. AstraZeneca's research focuses primarily on respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic, cancer, inflammatory, infection and neurological disorders. The Company offers medicines for asthma, heart attacks, breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, and the treatment of depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. The Company was formed in 1999 through the Swedish group Astra's merger, founded back in 1913, with the British Company Zeneca.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has not yet decided whether to approve the Covid-19 vaccine. The review is ongoing to ensure that any approved vaccine meets the expected high safety standards, quality and efficacy. Previously, the Daily Telegraph reported that the vaccine, which AstraZeneca is developing in collaboration with the prestigious University of Oxford, should receive approval before the end of December. Unfortunately, we are not there yet. Meanwhile, a mutation of the Covid-19 virus has already emerged on the island, and the EU is responding with travel measures.

The European Union has already ordered several 100 million doses from AstraZeneca. In total, billions of doses have already been ordered worldwide. The promising active ingredient AZD1222 is based on an attenuated version of a cold virus from chimpanzees. It contains the genetic material of a surface protein with which the pathogen Sars-CoV-2 attaches to human cells. The drug has a twofold effect: it promotes the formation of both specific antibodies and T cells - both of which are important for immune defense.

AstraZeneca plc is among the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies globally, with a market capitalization of a whopping GBP 100 billion. The turnover is about GBP 22 billion, the bottom-line profit is GBP 3.5 per share, so the P/E ratio is about 20. In contrast to its industry peers, AstraZeneca lost about 5% over the year - but there is a 2.8% dividend.