Stockwinners Market Radar for May 16, 2021 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

19:58 EDT Oxford University, Oracle partner to speed identification of COVID variants - To help governments and medical communities identify and act on COVID-19 variants faster, Oxford University and Oracle have created a Global Pathogen Analysis System combining Oxford's Scalable Pathogen Pipeline Platform with the power of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. This initiative builds on the work of a Wellcome Trust-funded consortium including Public Health Wales, the University of Cardiff, and Public Health England. First used for tuberculosis, SP3 has been repurposed to unify, standardize, analyze, and compare sequence data of SARS-CoV-2, yielding annotated genomic sequences and identifying new variants and those of concern. SP3's processing capability has been enhanced with extensive new development work from Oracle, enabling high performance and security plus 7 by 24 worldwide availability of the SP3 system in the Oracle Cloud. The SP3 system will now deliver comprehensive and standardized results of COVID-19 analyses within minutes of submission on an international scale. The results will be shared with countries around the globe in a secure environment.

10:44 EDT Dillard's announces new $500M share repurchase program, 15c cash dividend - Dillard's announced that the Board of Directors has approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the company to repurchase up to $500M of its Class A Common Stock. The new open-ended authorization permits the company to repurchase its Class A Common Stock in the open market, pursuant to preset trading plans meeting the requirements of Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or through privately negotiated transactions. At May 1, 2021, authorization of $114.3 million remained under the Company's March 2018 share repurchase plan. The Board of Directors also declared a cash dividend of 15c per share on the Class A and Class B Common Stock of the company payable August 2, 2021 to shareholders of record as of June 30, 2021. This marks the company's 209th consecutive quarterly dividend since becoming a public company in 1969.

10:39 EDT Esperion presents simulation model based on pooled Phase 3 data - Esperion announced the poster presentation of an analysis applying the validated Second Manifestations of ARTerial disease model and Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' coefficient to pooled Phase 3 data to assess the potential of NEXLETOL Tablet to reduce cardiovascular event risk at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session. In the poster presentation, among the group of patients taking maximally tolerated statins, baseline 10-year cardiovascular event risk based on the SMART model was estimated at 25.9% for those treated with bempedoic acid and 26.6% for those who received placebo. In the statin intolerant group, baseline 10-year cardiovascular event risk based on the SMART model was estimated at 31.9% for those treated with bempedoic acid and 30.9% for those who received placebo. The simulation predicted that patients treated with bempedoic acid on top of maximally tolerated statins would experience a 3.3% further absolute reduction in 10-year cardiovascular event risk compared with statins alone. For statin-intolerant patients, defined as patients receiving no more than low-dose statin including no statin, the simulation predicted a further 6.0% absolute reduction in 10-year cardiovascular event risk with bempedoic acid compared with placebo. Based on readily available baseline characteristics, the SMART risk calculation estimates an individual ASCVD patient's 10-year risk of cardiovascular death, stroke, or myocardial infarction, also known as three-point MACE. The SMART risk score was developed based on data from a population of 5,788 patients who were part of the SMART study in the Netherlands during a 14-year period. The model was validated and updated based on pooled data from more than 18,000 patients across four continents.8 Because cardiovascular event risk can vary greatly across patients with previous cardiovascular disease, the SMART risk score allows physicians and patients to better estimate individual risk to tailor treatment and follow up. The impact of NEXLETOL on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has not been determined is currently being investigated as part of the ongoing CLEAR Outcomes study in more than 14,000 statin-intolerant patients with or at high risk for ASCVD. The 2020 approval of NEXLETOL in the U.S. was supported by a global pivotal Phase 3 LDL-C-lowering program conducted in more than 3,000 patients with ASCVD and/or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia on maximally tolerated statins. In these studies, NEXLETOL provided an average of 18% placebo-corrected LDL-C lowering at week 12 when used with moderate or high-intensity statins. The most common adverse reactions were upper respiratory tract infection, muscle spasms, hyperuricemia, back pain, abdominal pain or discomfort, bronchitis, pain in extremity, anemia and elevated liver enzymes. NEXLETOL is indicated as an adjunct to diet and maximally tolerated statin therapy for the treatment of adults with HeFH or established ASCVD who require additional lowering of LDL-C.