NewsBite

Michael Smith

This Month

The Northern Beaches Hospital is administered through a public-private partnership between NSW Health and Healthscope.

NSW says Northern Beaches deal depends on Healthscope sale process

The government said it needed to know who was in charge at the private hospital giant, which is currently owned by Brookfield Asset Management but up for sale.

Northern Beaches Hospital in Frenchs Forest has been controversial since before it was built.

Healthscope asks to hand over Sydney hospital as it kicks off auction

The Brookfield-owned company is the country’s second-largest private hospital operator and says it cannot run the Northern Beaches Hospital any longer.

Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to markets.

Pharmaceuticals to be hit by ‘major’ Trump tariff, CSL slumps 5pc

Investors are in panic as Australian drug companies could be the next victims in an expansion of the US trade war.

Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler has warned that Australian pharmaceutical companies could be US targets.

Butler expects tariff pain on medicines and healthcare giants

The Health Minister says briefings from US officials suggest foreign pharmaceuticals could soon be targeted by a separate US trade investigation.

Health Minister Mark Butler at the Financial Review Health Summit. He said earnings at insurers had risen compared to private hospitals.

Labor’s hospital funding push to cost health funds $1b a year

The health minister said there had been a “shift up in profitability and management expenses of insurers” as he urged them to negotiate with care providers.

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Healthscope boss Greg Horan wrote to HMC Capital in early January asking for rent relief.

Tensions build between David Di Pilla’s HMC Capital and Healthscope

When the hospitals group ran out of money to pay its rent this year, its landlord responded with a bid to buy the company.

Novo Nordisk argues government subsidies for its weight loss drugs will help Australia tackle obesity.

Cheaper weight loss drugs would boost economy: study

The growing number of Australians with obesity is causing economic damage but should the taxpayer fund weight-loss drugs?

HMC Capital boss David Di Pilla is eyeing a Helathscope bid after the hopsital group failed to meet its rent payments.

Di Pilla spruiks Healthscope bid, says he’ll keep hospitals running

The veteran dealmaker’s HMC Capital has been eyeing the country’s second-largest operator of private hospitals, and says his proposal is “a serious one”.

March

Healthscope CEO Tino La Spina will meet lenders on Tuesday to try and buy the hospital operator more time.

Hedge fund interest in Healthscope triggers break-up concerns

The country’s second-largest private hospital operator is negotiating with lenders to stave off insolvency in the middle of a federal election campaign.

TPG has held clinical trial research organisation Novotech since 2017.

TPG Capital seals $3b-plus Novotech sale with Singapore’s GIC, Temasek

The two sovereign wealth funds have taken a “significant stake” in the clinical research business owned by the private equity giant for eight years.

HCF chief executive Sheena Jack is retiring, and has a warning about the healthcare system.

HCF chief Sheena Jack resigns with a warning about healthcare’s future

The head of one of the country’s biggest health insurers says she’s not convinced private equity should be allowed to invest in hospitals.

The clinical trial result from hell has biotech investors on edge

From Phil King’s Regal Partners to Russel Pillemer’s Pengana Capital, fund managers loved vision treatment hopeful Opthea. Now they risk being wiped out.

Concept weight loss drugs image for AFR Magazine feature.

How Ozempic and other GLP-1s are transforming much more than just waistlines

We don’t yet know how many Australians are taking the jab, but we’re certainly seeing the effects.

Here’s a sector breakdown of Jim Chalmers’ budget.

Foreign investors banned: What else is in it for you

From a ban on foreign investors buying existing houses to pork-barrelling road projects in marginal electorates, here’s a sector breakdown of the budget.

11 curious things you may have missed

What was in the budget for the Maugean skate, live music and St George Illawarra? We’ve found the budget’s new ideas and unlikely assumptions.

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Shares in Phil King’s Regal Partners plunged on Monday with the future of one of its key investments under a cloud.

Investors fret over clinical trial failure’s hit on Regal funds

Phil King’s investment firm was the largest shareholder in Opthea, the eye treatment play that could become insolvent after a poor medical result.

Health Minister Mark Butler wants private health insurers to do better on this year’s premium increases.

The healthcare policies rising at more than double the average

Many Australians and scaling down their private health insurance because of the cost, which is helping to drive premium increases to between 7 and 9 per cent.

Small business say they are being slugged extra payroll tax in NSW.

Interest rates, doctors’ bills to rise to pay backdated payroll tax

Industry groups warn of “contagion” from Revenue NSW’s aggressive interpretation of payroll tax law.

US drugmakers want changes to Australia’s subsidies medicines system.

Why US drug giants are so angry about Australia’s PBS

US pharmaceutical giants hope the protectionist Trump administration will force Australia to increase the price it pays for their drugs.

Medicines will be cheaper after pledges from the government and opposition.

Dutton promises to match Labor’s $25 prescription drugs pledge

The opposition has moved swiftly to match the government’s commitment to cut the cost of medicines by $6.60 per script.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/michael-smith-j7geb