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Child care provider Antonia Rivas leads children in yoga at her Reseda home on Feb. 13. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon is introducing a bill to fund child care and provider training, and set up a structure to facilitate collective bargaining for family child care workers.; Credit: File Photo: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon is introducing a new bill on Wednesday that aims to address the state's critical child care shortage and give providers the right to unionize.

The lack of sufficient child care has been statewide. In Los Angeles County, a recent study found only 2 percent of infants and toddlers have access to a licensed child care facility; for preschoolers, it's about 40 percent.

The shortage is most acute in low-income areas, and the bill aims to inject more child care vouchers into the system so poor families can have free child care.

A more controversial provision, however, would allow collective bargaining for those who provide child care in their homes whose earnings can fall near or below the minimum wage. Child advocates cite poor pay as a major reason why providers often leave the field.

“The turnover in the child care field is approaching 30 percent. So the lack of continuity and quality care is a major obstacle,” said El Cerrito Mayor Mark Friedman.

Friedman co-chairs a coalition of early childhood groups called Raising California Together. Preschool advocacy groups, anti-poverty and immigrant groups, NAACP, and the Santa Monica school district count among its members.

“I think one thing everybody agrees on as a high priority is getting more resources in the system, and if there is a strong union presence in the field that then there will be a stronger voice for those additional resources,” said Friedman. 

Under the bill,  a network of 32,000 home childcare providers statewide could unionize. Currently, providers operate as independent business owners and typically lack the right to organize and collectively bargain for wages.

Finding child care

For many families, having a quality child care option is their most pressing need.

Vicky Montoya, a Reseda mother of three, is desperate for a child care alternative to family members. Montoya’s 18-month-old son, Esteban, is a bright-eyed toddler who loves balls. He can fling one clear across a room, even a field. But all too often, when both his parents are at work, he’s not doing much.

“Sometimes he’s with an aunt, sometimes with my eldest daughter,” Montoya said in Spanish. “But he doesn’t really do anything, all he does is watch cartoons on TV. And he’s alone, there’s no other children around.”

Montoya works five hours a day at a solar company, where she makes $10 an hour. Her family depends on her income to supplement her husband’s low-wage, full-time job. Montoya applied for a child care voucher so Esteban could go to a properly licensed day care. She submitted two applications to a local agency over the last two months.

When she called the agency to find out the status of her applications, she said she wasn't given much information. “'You are on the waiting list,'” she said they told her, “'and there are people ahead of you.'”

Seeking unions as a solution

In Maryland, unionized providers reduced the wait list for poor families by 80 percent by securing state dollars to fund more free child care slots. According to a 2010 report by the National Women's Law Center, 14 states guarantee home-based child care workers the right to unionize.

SEIU Local 99 spokesperson Terry Carter said what local providers tell her is that they want a seat at the table where child care decisions are made.

“What collective bargaining would do for providers is it would let them sit down with the top decision makers in the state and say these are things that are simple to fix, they would vastly improve our ability to operate our businesses and they would give us the time to direct more of our attention and energies into raising California’s kids,” Carter said.  

Some of those issues include delayed government payments for subsidized child child and the low reimbursement rate from the state for serving low-income kids.

Antonia Rivas, a Reseda child care provider, knows well the struggle of providing care in her home. She infuses yoga and meditation into daily lessons, and buys organic food, her major expense.

But she also has to pay her assistants, buy toys, books, and supplies. After her costs, she said there is not much left.

“I just got my 2014 W-2 and it's $24,000,” Rivas said. Her W-2 comes from the agency that pays her for the low-income kids she serves. Add to that the $15,000 from her private paying families and Rivas pulled in about $40,000 last year. After expenses, she estimates she netted less than the minimum wage for her time.

Rivas said with her low wages and delays in receiving payments from government agencies for subsidized child care, she is constantly relying on credit to keep her business running.

“We need to get a contract [and] better pay,” Rivas said.

Even if the child care legislation passes, a contract with the state would be a long way down the road. All child care providers would need to vote on whether they want union representation. And, if all that is successful, child care providers could then negotiate a labor contract.

Similar bills granting child care providers the right to unionize have made it out of the legislature, but both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gov. Jerry Brown have vetoed them.

Opponents have called the effort to organize providers a move to empower labor unions, not fix a broken child care system. 

Recent legal rulings are also presenting challenges to unions seeking to organize both child care workers and health care workers. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in an Illinois case that home health workers could opt out of paying union dues, even though they are paid with state subsidies.

While Vicky Montoya waits for a better solution for her son's care, she pays Esteban’s aunt or a neighbor $10 a day to watch him while she works.

“I know lots of families who have to leave their children with a babysitter, usually just a woman who watches the child. But they are not trained and even their homes are not suitable for childcare,” she said. 

Correction: A previous version of this story erroneously described a U.S. Supreme Court case as originating in Minnesota. 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Parents of students at Miramonte Elementary School escort children out of school on Feb. 6, 2012.; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

A lawyer representing 58 students who settled a lawsuit related to the Miramonte sex abuse scandal two years ago said his clients are owed more money because another group of students who settled their lawsuit last fall for $139 million may be paid more, and that violates the terms of the first group's settlement. 

A total of more than 100 students and parents sued the district after former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt was charged with 23 counts of committing lewd acts, including feeding students cookies laced with semen. Berndt is serving 25 years in prison. 

Attorney Paul Kiesel's clients were among the first group of students who settled in 2013 for $470,000 each, a total of $30 million. In a claim submitted to the district on Feb. 6, Keisel argues that settlement prohibits other students from receiving more than his clients.

The settlement for Kiesel's group states that it is the intent of the parties that any future Miramonte-related settlements pay less per plaintiff than the $470,000 figure.  In the case of the suit that was settled for $139 million, a judge is deciding how much each plaintiff will receive; it is expected that some of the students will receive more than $470,000.

Kiesel's complaint seeks the difference between what his clients were paid and the highest amount awarded to students in the second group.

The $139 million settlement was the largest of its kind in Los Angeles Unified School District history. 

If Kiesel's clients prevail, the district's overall tab for the Miramonte case could significantly increase from the $170 million in settlements awarded so far. 

The school district has yet to respond to the claim and declined to comment for this story. 

Kiesel would not discuss the claim in greater detail, but attorney Raymond Boucher, who also represented students in the initial settlement, characterized its language limiting the size of future settlements as a "fairness clause.

"We are talking about a number of young children and you want to make sure they are all treated fairly and equally," Boucher told KPCC. 

Attorney Vince William Finaldi, who represented some of the students in the group that settled for $139 million last November, argued that the earlier settlement would need to include a "most favored nation clause" to prevail in court. 

"It needs to have two elements," Finaldi said. "The first element is a statement by the settling party that 'we agree not to pay anyone else more than X amount.' It also needs a second clause which states, 'in the event we do pay someone more than X amount, then we'll pay you Y amount," Finaldi said. 

The settlement for Kiesel and Boucher's clients does not include language stipulating what would happen if a future settlement pays out more money per plaintiff.

If L.A. Unified rejects Kiesel's claim, then he could ask a mediator or a court to resolve the dispute.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

File photo: Lorne Street Elementary students had to grab books from a book bin after their library was closed during the recession.; Credit: Annie Gilbertson/KPCC

More than 200 Los Angeles Unified School District elementary school libraries have reopened in just two months, according to district officials.

Recession-era budget cuts had left many libraries without staffing. The cuts persisted even when the economy began to improve: a year ago half of the district's 650,000 students were still without a librarian or library aide.

Without library workers, state law prohibits students from browsing collections, pulling reference materials or checking out books. 

“We have been living without libraries and, no, we don’t want to because they are essential for academic achievement and learning for our students," said Mark Bobrosky, a librarian at Walter Reed Middle School.

School board member Monica Ratliff created a task force to recommend ways to expand libraries after KPCC reported that Lorne Street Elementary in Northridge had a library full of books collecting dust.

"This idea of equity — we are trying to make sure we don't have library deserts," Ratliff said at the board's curriculum, instruction and assessment committee meeting on Tuesday.

Even when the board committed funds for elementary school libraries, the district found it hard to fill openings. Library aides worked just three hours a day, five days a week.

Members of the task force suggested assigning library aides to two schools, doubling their hours and providing benefits.  Elementary school libraries began to quickly reopen. 

But while conditions have improved for elementary students, middle school libraries are still hard hit, with nearly 65 percent of their campus libraries shuttered.

Bobrosky said reopening the libraries is vital for L.A. Unified's success in implementing the Common Core state standards, which require research projects incorporating a variety of texts.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

File photo: LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines faces a suit brought by a school district employee, who has sued him twice before.; Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

A Los Angeles Unified School District employee filed suit Wednesday accusing Superintendent Ramon Cortines of sexual harassment and retaliation, and alleging officials failed to intervene when told of the situation.

The lawsuit is the third one filed by Scot Graham, LAUSD's real estate director, who has made similar charges in previous complaints. The suit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

LAUSD General Counsel David Holmquist issued a statement Tuesday saying the courts have previously ruled on the case and the district is not aware of any new charges. "This is simply a frivolous refiling of the same allegations," he stated.

The latest suit alleges Cortines made sexual advances to Graham in 2000 soon after Cortines helped Graham get a job with the school district’s real estate leasing operations. Cortines left the school district that same year and Graham didn’t report what allegedly happened, according to the suit.

Graham claims that Cortines made additional sexual advances in 2010, the year the school board hired Cortines a second time to run the school district. The sexual advances were made at Cortines’ second home in Kern County, the suit alleges.

“Cortines’ advance shocked and disturbed Graham, who feared that declining Cortines’ request for sex would lead to unwarranted retaliatory consequences,” according to the lawsuit.

Graham said he notified his boss John Creer, and his boss’ boss James Sohn, but the school district conducted no investigation. Then in an October 2010 meeting, the suit claims General Counsel Holmquist “discouraged Graham from pursuing his claims, and suggested, in an intimidating and patronizing manner, that the incidents at the Ranch and Cortines’ unsolicited phone call were better left unreported.”

In May 2012, the district announced that it would pay $200,000 to Graham to settle his sexual harassment claims against Cortines, who by then had left the post. In the announcement, the district said Cortines denied sexually harassing Graham, but acknowledged they had a consensual relationship.

Graham later declined to sign off on the settlement. He filed one lawsuit in 2013 that was dismissed on a legal technicality and then a second one that was withdrawn in May 2014.

Five months later, the LAUSD school board rehired Cortines as an interim superintendent after the resignation of his predecessor, John Deasy. Cortines is expected to serve until a permanent replacement is chosen by the board later this year.

“What makes this different and new is the school board has rehired Ramon Cortines despite documented history of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Scot Graham,” said Rob Hennig, Graham’s lawyer.

By failing to investigate whether there was any merit to Graham’s allegations, the lawsuit argues, the school district failed in its duty to protect an employee from potential sexual harassment.

“Cortines shouldn’t have been rehired by the school board,” Hennig said.

In his statement, Holmquist said the district intends to "seek reimbursement for the taxpayers' dollars that are having to be expended in attorney's fees and costs" in dealing with Graham's allegations. The district said it spent about $240,000 defending itself against Graham's first two lawsuits.

Graham said in an interview Tuesday that he has been on leave since late last year because he’s developed a type of seizure disorder that prevents him from driving long distances.

He said he filed the latest lawsuit after the school board rehired Cortines and he was running into him in the workplace. Graham also said he felt his allegations were swept under the rug.

“No one came to talk to me…it was like being in a fraternity house,” he said.

The suit does not say how much in damages Graham is seeking, but it asks among other items for back pay, future pay, benefits, and compensation for medical treatment. It also seeks an investigation into Graham's accusations against the superintendent.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Elisa Reimer
Apr 23, 2020; 134:jcs246421-jcs246421
Articles

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Björn Eismann
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TOOLS AND RESOURCES

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National Science Foundation-funded engineers have developed a mathematical framework that can turn any sheet of material into any prescribed shape, inspired by the paper craft kirigami (from the Japanese, kiri, meaning to cut and kami, meaning paper). Unlike its better-known cousin origami, which uses folds to shape paper, kirigami relies on a pattern of cuts in a flat paper sheet to change its flexibility and allow it to morph into 3D shapes. Artists have long used this artform to create everything from pop-up cards to castles and dragons. This research follows previous work by the researchers that characterized how origami-based patterns could be used as building blocks to create almost any three-dimensional curved shape. Next the researchers aim to explore how to combine cuts and folds to achieve any shape with a given set of properties, thus linking origami and kirigami.

Image credit: Harvard SEAS

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The molecular mechanism used by many bacteria to kill neighboring cells has redundancy built into its genetic makeup, which could allow for the mechanism to be expressed in different environments, say researchers at Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their new study provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of competition among bacteria. "Many organisms, including humans, acquire bacteria from their environment," said Tim Miyashiro, a biochemist and molecular biologist at Penn State and the leader of the research team. "These bacteria can contribute to functions within the host organism, like how our gut bacteria help us digest food. We're interested in the interactions among bacteria cells, and between bacteria and their hosts, to better understand these mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships." Cells of the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fisheri take up residence in the light organ of newly hatched bobtail squid. At night, the bacteria produce a blue glow that researchers believe obscures a squid's silhouette and helps protect it from predators. The light organ has pockets, or crypts, in the squid's skin that provide nutrients and a safe environment for the bacteria. "When the squid hatches, it doesn't yet have any bacteria in its light organ," said Miyashiro. "But bacteria in the environment quickly colonize the squid's light organ." Some of these different bacteria strains can coexist, but others can't. "Microbial symbioses are essentially universal in animals, and are crucial to the health and development of both partners," says Irwin Forseth, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, which funded the research. "The results from this study highlight the role small genetic changes can play in microbe interactions. Increased understanding will allow us to better predict organisms' performance in changing environments."

Image credit: Andrew Cecere

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Machine learning algorithms can sometimes do a great job with a little help from human expertise, at least in the field of materials science. In many specialized areas of science, engineering and medicine, researchers are turning to machine learning algorithms to analyze data sets that have grown too large for humans to understand. In materials science, success with this effort could accelerate the design of next-generation advanced functional materials, where development now usually depends on old-fashioned trial and error. By themselves, however, data analytics techniques borrowed from other research areas often fail to provide the insights needed to help materials scientists and engineers choose which of many variables to adjust -- and the techniques can't account for dramatic changes such as the introduction of a new chemical compound into the process. In a new study, researchers explain a technique known as dimensional stacking, which shows that human experience still has a role to play in the age of machine intelligence. The machines gain an edge at solving a challenge when the data to be analyzed are intelligently organized based on human knowledge of what factors are likely to be important and related. "When your machine accepts strings of data, it really does matter how you are putting those strings together," said Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, the paper's corresponding author and a scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We must be mindful that the organization of data before it goes to the algorithm makes a difference. If you don't plug the information in correctly, you will get a result that isn't necessarily correlated with the reality of the physics and chemistry that govern the materials."

Image credit: Rob Felt/Georgia Tech

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A new study shows that the West Antarctic Peninsula is experiencing some of the most rapid climate change on Earth, featuring dramatic increases in temperatures, retreats in glaciers and declines in sea ice. The Southern Ocean absorbs nearly half of the carbon dioxide -- the key greenhouse gas linked to climate change -- that is absorbed by all the world's oceans. The study tapped an unprecedented 25 years of oceanographic measurements in the Southern Ocean and highlights the need for more monitoring in the region. The research revealed that carbon dioxide absorption by surface waters off the West Antarctic Peninsula is linked to the stability of the upper ocean, along with the amount and type of algae present. A stable upper ocean provides algae with ideal growing conditions. During photosynthesis, algae remove carbon dioxide from the surface ocean, which in turn draws carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. From 1993 to 2017, changes in sea ice dynamics off the West Antarctic Peninsula stabilized the upper ocean, resulting in greater algal concentrations and a shift in the mix of algal species. That's led to a nearly five-fold increase in carbon dioxide absorption during the summertime. The research also found a strong north-south difference in the trend of carbon dioxide absorption. The southern portion of the peninsula, which to date has been less impacted by climate change, experienced the most dramatic increase in carbon dioxide absorption, demonstrating the poleward progression of climate change in the region.

Image credit: Drew Spacht/The Ohio State University

Source: Michael Ballanger for Streetwise Reports   05/04/2020

In March 1967, for most of the adult population in North America, the most popular comedians were almost all television series personalities, such as Carol Burnett, Buddy Ebsen and Dick Van Dyke. These stars were the softcore comics enjoyed by the parents of the Boomer generation, whose appetite for laughter was sated by inoffensive gags, slapstick and one-liners.

For my crowd, however, the sanitized, Wonder Bread content of the '60s could not survive the onslaught of underground, drug-fueled witticisms of people like Lenny Bruce, whose outrageous anti-establishment rants resulted in him being blacklisted from Hollywood and banned from television.

As the '60s wore on, the underground mantle was passed on to comedians like George Carlin and Richard Pryor, who were able to present two completely different acts, with the heavily censored TV versions violently contrasted with their nightclub acts, which were obscene, politically charged and outright raw. Sitting in the high school cafeteria every Monday morning, my friends and I would always get into a critique of whichever corny stand-up comedian wound up as filler on the Ed Sullivan Show, where such notables as Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge would appear regularly until their careers took off.

One such morning, after doubling over with laughter the previous evening for a solid 8-10 minutes, I asked if anyone had seen "this guy from New York called Rodney Dangerfield," to which they all said "No." I raved about his self-deprecating "schtick," filled with one-liners like "I don't get no respect. My son takes his mother to a father-and-son banquet!" or "My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night it was to time an egg!" or my absolute favorite: "I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it." All were followed, at one time or another, with two words "No respect."

Dangerfield's show-stealing routine that night on Ed Sullivan was repeated again a month later, and on the following morning, my classmates absolutely chastised me, using descriptives for Rodney like "ridiculous," "so unhip," and "outright disgusting." But to no one's surprise, it could not deter me. For the next two decades, I never missed a chance to see him perform, his live show insanely off-color and riddled with four-letter words, but never with one shred of political satire or innuendo. The crescendo performance of Dangerfield's career was as nouveau-riche businessman Al Czervik in "Caddyshack," where he dominated every scene with lines like, "He called me a baboon; he thinks I'm his wife!" and "Last time a saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it!" He got a lot of respect in that film and deserved it.

Whenever I look at the gold market these days, the only words that come to mind are "no respect." Trillions of international currency units created out of thin air to rescue the global bull market in stocks, with Wall Street and Main Street the main recipients. What is interesting is that since the Fear-Greed Index hit the famous "1" mark in mid-March, when the Fed announced intentions to buy every single security found in all hedge fund portfolios regardless of name or location, including junk bonds, stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the evidence shows that they actually have not purchased any of the said securities, as the chart below would confirm.

Once again, the brain surgeons over at the Fed talked a good game but that is all it was—a game designed to stem the panic that was threatening to (and did) derail the bull market. I believe that what happened by the end of the week was that Wall Street suddenly woke up to the realization that the Fed had shifted loyalties from Wall Street to Main Street, largely due to the public perception that they were, once again, exactly as happened in 2008, being picked over by the bailout kings in favor of foreign banks and elitist-owned corporate America.

Whether or not the Fed was "politicized" after mid-March is a moot point; the S&P 500 stopped dead in its tracks a hair below the 200 daily moving average (dma) at 297.47. It also reversed just after the April 29 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) testimony by newly appointed hero and soon-to-be-announced "Man of the Year" for 2020, Jerome Powell, the "serial printer of last resort," whose remarks were focused primarily on Main Street as opposed to Wall Street. This, in an important election year, is good for the incumbent and not so good for political donations from the white gloves gang in New York.

As for gold, I have the distinct impression that after the normal first-of-month institutional flows are spent with a distinctly newfound bullish bias toward gold and the miners, a more meaningful correction, not unlike 2009, could get rolling. On Friday morning (May 1), the flows have taken gold and the miners from deeply negative on the opening to positive on the session, which suggests that the generalists have made the move to own precious metals. Since the generalists tend to be late to the party, it is bearish near term but undoubtedly bullish longer term, as global allocations are less than 0.5% and at the end of 2011, they were nearly 5%.

Having navigated through numerous bull and bear markets with varying degrees of success (and failure), the key to survival is once again found in the preaching of the late Richard Russell, who always claimed that "the winner in a bear market is he or she that loses the least." In bull markets, the victory lap specialists always make the mistake of confusing bull markets with brains, and it is this misplaced complacency that arrives as your arch enemy. Hubris is the harbinger of failure and one way to sidestep that trap is to keep preservation of capital as your primary objective in times like these.

I always keep a large cash position in place, and certainly until the evidence clearly indicates that the global economy can recover. Even the gold and silver markets, as ridiculously undervalued in U.S. dollar terms as they are, cannot withstand the impact of a deflationary wave that totally swamps the efforts of the Fed and its money-printing brethren around the globe. Safety over stardust; caution over calamity; modesty over hubris. . .

Speaking of "no respect," I always know when gold is in trouble because my trusty canine compadre "Fido" is usually not to be found within a hundred feet of me and my sailing quote monitors and Jim Cramer dartboards. The only dog in history truly clairvoyant, he gives me a hint that gold is due to bottom when I see him peering into the den to see if it is "safe," sniffing the floor in search of broken shards of wine bottle glass and or ill-targeted beer tankards.

Well, this week I went out to his tool shed "hiding hole," forgetting that I was wearing my virus-preventing surgical mask (made from an old hockey sock and some tie-downs) and when he saw me approaching, he went into full "attack mode," chasing me to within one arse-bite of an outcome as I scampered through the garage door to the sounds of primal growls and gnashing fangs.

No respect, indeed.

Originally published May 1, 2020.

Follow Michael Ballanger on Twitter @MiningJunkie.

Originally trained during the inflationary 1970s, Michael Ballanger is a graduate of Saint Louis University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in finance and a Bachelor of Art in marketing before completing post-graduate work at the Wharton School of Finance. With more than 30 years of experience as a junior mining and exploration specialist, as well as a solid background in corporate finance, Ballanger's adherence to the concept of "Hard Assets" allows him to focus the practice on selecting opportunities in the global resource sector with emphasis on the precious metals exploration and development sector. Ballanger takes great pleasure in visiting mineral properties around the globe in the never-ending hunt for early-stage opportunities.

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This letter makes no guarantee or warranty on the accuracy or completeness of the data provided. Nothing contained herein is intended or shall be deemed to be investment advice, implied or otherwise. This letter represents my views and replicates trades that I am making but nothing more than that. Always consult your registered advisor to assist you with your investments. I accept no liability for any loss arising from the use of the data contained on this letter. Options and junior mining stocks contain a high level of risk that may result in the loss of part or all invested capital and therefore are suitable for experienced and professional investors and traders only. One should be familiar with the risks involved in junior mining and options trading and we recommend consulting a financial adviser if you feel you do not understand the risks involved.

Source: Streetwise Reports   05/06/2020

Biopharmaceutical company Horizon Therapeutics Inc. (HZNP:NASDAQ), which focuses on developing and commercializing medicines for treatment of rare and rheumatic diseases, today announced its Q1/20 financial results for the period ending March 31, 2020. The firm began by advising that it is raising its FY/20 net sales guidance and revised its adjusted EBITDA guidance.

For Q1/20 the company reported that net sales increased by 27% to $355.9 million over Q1/19. The firm provided a breakdown of revenue by business unit and listed that in Q1/20 compared with Q1/19, its Orphan segment net sales increased 47% to $245.4 Million, KRYSTEXXA® net sales rose by 78% to $93.3 million and TEPEZZA (teprotumumab-trbw) net sales were $23.5 million, which exceeded expectations.

The firm advised that it is increasing FY/20 net sales guidance to $1.40-1.45 billion driven primarily by significantly higher TEPEZZA net sales and reflecting anticipated impacts from COVID-19. The company also presented revised FY/20 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $450-500 million, which reflects increased TEPEZZA program investment to support higher-than-expected demand.

The firm indicated that in Q1/20 it posted a GAAP net loss of $13.6 million with adjusted EBITDA of $107.2 million and non-GAAP net income of $83.2 million.

The company's Chairman, President and CEO Timothy Walbert commented, "We had a very strong start to 2020, highlighted by the early approval and rapid uptake of TEPEZZA, which significantly exceeded expectations, excellent KRYSTEXXA growth and our recent acquisition of HZN-825...We are increasing our full-year net sales guidance to account for significantly higher TEPEZZA net sales that more than offset the expected impact from COVID-19 this year, and we are widening both our net sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges to account for future uncertainty. The fundamentals of our business are strong, including a robust cash position, and we continue to be very well positioned for the long term."

The company noted that it received FDA approval for TEPEZZA for the treatment of thyroid eye disease (TED) earlier this year in January. The firm described TED as "a rare, serious, progressive and vision-threatening autoimmune disease, and is associated with proptosis (eye bulging), diplopia (double vision), blurred vision, pain and facial disfigurement." The company further s explained that "TEPEZZA, a fully human monoclonal antibody insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) inhibitor, is the first and only FDA-approved medicine for the treatment of TED."

Horizon Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The firm researches, develops and commercializes medicines for treatment of rare and rheumatic diseases.

Horizon has a market capitalization of around $7.1 billion with approximately 190.2 million shares outstanding and a short interest of about 4.9%. HZNP shares opened 10% higher today at $44.19 (+$3.81, +10.19%) over yesterday's $37.38 closing price and reached a new 52-week high price this morning of $43.57. The stock has traded today between $40.00 and $43.90 per share and is currently trading at $42.95 (+$5.57, +14.90%).

Disclosure:
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