Pages

Sunday, June 24, 2007

While You Were at ADA

Here are a few of the stories that IN VIVO Blog picked up on over the weekend ...

  • Not technically a weekend event, but late on Friday Congress introduced legislation that would change the tax treatment of carried interest from a capital gain to regular income, effectively jacking up the tax rate on VCs, hedge funds and private equity shops from 15% to 35%. Spirited discussion continues over at PE Hub, but comments encouraged here too. Will this truly hurt the pace of innovation in the US, as has been and will be argued? Or are undertaxed investors only looking out for #1? Both?

  • The American Diabetes Association's annual meeting kicked off in Chicago. Among the companies presenting data was Merck. Reuters reports on some new Januvia data that suggests the drug added to standard therapies (study 1: metformin, study 2: metformin plus sulfonylureas) improves blood sugar better than those therapies alone. The incidence of hypoglycaemia, however, was up in the Januvia groups in each study when compared to the control.

  • In other ADA news, Lilly and Amylin presented solid data from a long-term study of Byetta, including progressive weight loss over a three and a half year period. Novo Nordisk's liraglutide is no slouch either. See this June IN VIVO story for the low down on Novo's diabetes prowess.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am so sorry that taxes also have to be paid by people earning money with other peoples money (OPM). Logically, capital gains tax should only apply to that PART of carry which was generated through putting up his own money (and risk). Only then the "taking risk therefore should get rewarded" argument brought forward really makes sense.
Every blue collar worker nowadays takes proportionally more risk in his life EVERYDAY when he shows up for work, i.e. spends a min of 8 hours with no assurance that his job and life is still there the next day (or maybe rationalized by the dear private equity investor taking out his employer).
CGT should apply to gains created through one owns capital, everything else is income. Just follow the logic...