Samuel Isaly’s New Healthcare Positions: Community Health Systems (CYH), Glaukos Corp (GKOS), More

Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors is a healthcare fund with $15 billion worth of assets under management. The investment advisory firm has experience of over two decades of investing in biopharmaceuticals, healthcare services, medical devices, and firms specializing in medical diagnostics. According to its website, the healthcare fund has been active in private healthcare investing since 1993 and its latest SEC 13F filing acknowledges a public equity portfolio with holdings tallying $11.96 billion. The healthcare fund has 95% of its equity investments in the healthcare industry, with its top ten stock holdings accounting for 36.54% of its overall portfolio. While looking at the equity portfolio of OrbiMed Advisors, we identified Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH), Glaukos Corp (NYSE:GKOS), and Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC – ADR (NASDAQ:ADAP) as the top new stock positions of the fund during the second quarter.

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Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH) is the top new stock position of OrbiMed Advisors, with the fund holding 1.53 million shares valued at $96.34 million. Community Health Systems is a hospital company with a chain of acute care hospitals throughout the country. The firm operates under two different segments: hospital operations and home care services. Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH) is planning to spin-off Quorum Health Resources, which provides management and consulting services to hospitals. The spin-off is likely to be completed in the first quarter of 2016. Wayne T. Smith, CEO and chairman of Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH), said, “This significant transaction will realign our portfolio into two strong and focused companies that can respond to market demands with greater agility and that are better positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities, while creating additional value for our stockholders.” The company was able to outperform Wall Street’s earnings estimates for the second quarter of 2015 with its EPS of $1.14 beating the expectations of $0.91. Its revenue was a little shy of the markets’ estimate however, with reported revenues of $4.90 billion. Larry Robbins’ of Glenview Capital is the largest shareholder of Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH) in our database, owning 12.09 million shares valued at $761.55 million at the end of the second quarter.

Orbimed Advisors had a stake in Glaukos Corp (NYSE:GKOS) even before its IPO. Its recent 13F filing indicates a large new public position in the ophthalmic medical technology company of 2.90 million shares valued at $83.98 million. Orbimed Advisors holds nearly 10% of the outstanding common shares of the company through this holding. The shares of Glaukos Corp (NYSE:GKOS) are trading 1.86% above their IPO price at $31.80, giving it a market cap of $1.02 billion. The medical technology company is engaged in the development of a glaucoma treatment with iStent Trabecular Micro-Bypass Stent as its main portfolio drug. It is used for the treatment of mild-to-moderate open-angle glaucoma in adult cataract patients. Glaukos Corp (NYSE:GKOS) is working on an advanced version of iStent Trabecular Micro-Bypass Stent called iStent inject Trabecular Micro-Bypass Stent, which is one-third the size of the previous device. The medical technology company has completed patient enrollment for the FDA’s pivotal Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) trial for the device. Thomas Burns, CEO of Glaukos Corp, said, “Our completion of the iStent inject U.S. pivotal trial patient enrollment and the achievement of our patient randomization goal marks another milestone towards introducing breakthrough technologies that can advance glaucoma patient care.” The medical technology company has attracted investments from several firms, including Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, which had 196,176 shares valued at $5.69 million in its portfolio.

Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC – ADR (NASDAQ:ADAP) is another new addition in the healthcare portfolio of Samuel Isaly. The investment firm had 4.41 million shares valued at $80.86 million of the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in its portfolio. The medical technology company works in the cancer immunotherapy sector, developing targeted treatments based on the T-cell receptor platform. Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC – ADR (NASDAQ:ADAP) announced the FDA’s acceptance of its investigational new drug (IND) application for its MAGE-A10 T therapeutic candidate. The MAGE-A10 antigens are common in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. James Noble, CEO of the company, said, “The FDA’s acceptance of this IND represents an important step in our strategy to identify and develop new T-cell-based immunotherapeutics to combat non-small cell lung cancer and other cancers…”  Adaptimmune Therapeutics PLC – ADR (NASDAQ:ADAP) has received investments from money managers such as Arrowgrass Capital Partners, led by Nick Niell, which had 478,854 shares of the company valued at $8.78 million as of June 30, 2015.

Disclosure: None