Latest news with #CURE
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
CURE Childhood Cancer talks with WSAV about Catie's Gathering
BLUFFTON, S.C. (WSAV) — Catie's Gathering is an inspiring event benefiting Catie's Fund of CURE Childhood Cancer. Founded in memory of Catie Wilkins, this special dinner features unique table decorations, silent and live auctions, and focuses on raising important funds to support CURE's mission. The funds raised are invested in CURE's research initiatives – specifically, our Precision Medicine Program, which focuses on individualized treatments based on each child's genetic makeup and is used to support patients and their families in their fight against childhood cancer. Jenny Wilkins, development director of events for CURE and Kellie Lee, a committee member, talked with WSAV News 3's Andrew Davis about their organization and the event. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Forbes
15-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Time To Buy First Solar Stock?
First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) has recorded a 9% year-to-date increase (May 13), considerably outperforming the S&P 500′s growth, drawing renewed attention from investors focused on renewable energy. Although the company's Q1 earnings did not meet expectations, reporting earnings per share of $1.95 compared to the expected $2.50, and revenue of $844.57 million relative to a forecast of $866.19 million, First Solar increased its gross margin to 41%, up from 37% in the previous quarter. The company is continuing to focus on domestic manufacturing expansion and the advancement of its proprietary CURE technology. Its competitive advantage is further enhanced by its utilization of cadmium telluride thin-film solar modules and a fully integrated supply chain. In spite of short-term challenges, First Solar remains assured of its long-term prospects, especially in the U.S. market, where the demand for electricity is anticipated to increase notably. TAFT, CA - JULY 8: Night settles over solar panals at Solarmine, the first solar photovoltaic ... More facility in California to help power oil field operations, on July 8, 2003 near Taft, California, 40 miles west of Bakersfield. Solarmine is a new six-acre demonstration project installed by the ChevronTexaco subsidiary, Chevron Energy Solutions, (Chevron ES) in collaboration with United Solar Systems Corp. (Uni-Solar), a subsidiary of Michigan-based Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD). Producing 500 kilowatts of electricity, it is one of the largest photovoltaic installations in the United States and the largest array of flexible, amorphous-silicon solar technology in the world. Unlike glass-based photovoltaic systems, the amorphous-silicon technology-based panels can withstand direct impact and puncture without compromising their ability to generate power. The 4,800 flexible, current-producing solar panels are about 1.3 feet wide by 18 feet long and are mounted on metal frames that resemble car ports. (Photo by) First Solar seems to be very attractive at its current price of approximately $190. We think there is little reason for concern with FSLR stock, which makes it highly appealing given that its current valuation appears very low. We arrive at this conclusion by evaluating the current valuation of FSLR stock against its operating performance over the last few years, along with its present and historical financial status. Our analysis of FSLR concerning key metrics of Growth, Profitability, Financial Stability, and Downturn Resilience illustrates that the company demonstrates a very strong operating performance and financial health, as outlined below. However, if you are looking for growth opportunities with lower volatility compared to individual stocks, the Trefis High Quality portfolio offers an alternative – having outperformed the S&P 500 and achieved returns over 91% since its inception. When considering what you pay per dollar of sales or profit, FSLR stock appears inexpensive in comparison to the wider market. • First Solar has a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 3.5 compared to a figure of 2.8 for the S&P 500 • Moreover, the company's price-to-free cash flow (P/FCF) ratio stands at 12.1 versus 17.6 for the S&P 500 • Additionally, it has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 16.4 while the benchmark's is 24.5 First Solar's Revenues have significantly increased in recent years. • First Solar has experienced its top line grow at an average rate of 14.3% over the past 3 years (compared to an increase of 6.2% for the S&P 500) • Its revenues have increased 26.7% from $3.3 billion to $4.2 billion in the last 12 months (compared to a growth of 5.3% for the S&P 500) • Furthermore, its quarterly revenues rose 6% to $855 million in the latest quarter from $794 million a year ago (compared to a 4.9% rise for the S&P 500) First Solar's profit margins are significantly higher than those of most companies in the Trefis coverage universe. • First Solar's Operating Income over the last four quarters was $1.4 billion, which represents a high Operating Margin of 33.1% (versus 13.1% for the S&P 500) • First Solar's Operating Cash Flow (OCF) over this period was $1.2 billion, indicating a high OCF Margin of 29.0% (versus 15.7% for the S&P 500) • For the last four-quarter period, First Solar's Net Income was $1.3 billion – reflecting a considerably high Net Income Margin of 30.7% (versus 11.3% for the S&P 500) First Solar's balance sheet appears very robust. • First Solar's Debt was $719 million at the conclusion of the most recent quarter, while its market capitalization stands at $17 billion (as of 5/12/2025). This indicates a very strong Debt-to-Equity Ratio of 4.9% (versus 21.5% for the S&P 500). [Note: A low Debt-to-Equity Ratio is favorable] • Cash (including cash equivalents) constitutes $1.8 billion of the $12 billion in Total Assets for First Solar. This results in a strong Cash-to-Assets Ratio of 14.8% (versus 15.0% for the S&P 500) FSLR stock has performed worse than the benchmark S&P 500 index during some of the recent downturns. While investors hope for a soft landing in the U.S. economy, how severe could the situation become in the event of another recession? Our dashboard How Low Can Stocks Go During A Market Crash outlines the performance of key stocks during and after the last six market crashes. • FSLR stock dropped 43.5% from a peak of $116.31 on November 5, 2021, to $65.70 on May 20, 2022, versus a peak-to-trough decline of 25.4% for the S&P 500 • The stock fully bounced back to its pre-Crisis high by August 25, 2022 • Since that time, the stock has risen to a peak of $300.71 on June 12, 2024, and currently trades around $190 • FSLR stock fell 49.1% from a high of $59.32 on February 20, 2020, to $30.20 on March 18, 2020, compared to a peak-to-trough decline of 33.9% for the S&P 500 • The stock entirely recovered to its pre-Crisis high by July 14, 2020 • FSLR stock decreased 72.0% from a high of $311.14 on May 16, 2008, to $87.23 on November 20, 2008, compared to a peak-to-trough drop of 56.8% for the S&P 500 • The stock has not yet returned to its pre-Crisis zenith In summary, First Solar's performance across the aforementioned parameters is as follows: • Growth: Extremely Robust • Profitability: Very Strong • Financial Stability: Extremely Solid • Downturn Resilience: Weak • Overall: Very Strong Taken together with its exceptionally low valuation, this renders the stock appear very appealing, reinforcing our assertion that FSLR is an excellent stock to purchase. Although FSLR stock seems promising, investing in a single stock can be perilous. You might consider the Trefis Reinforced Value (RV) Portfolio, which has outperformed its all-cap stocks benchmark (a combination of the S&P 500, S&P mid-cap, and Russell 2000 benchmark indices) to yield significant returns for investors. Why is that? The quarterly rebalanced mix of large-, mid-, and small-cap RV Portfolio stocks provided an adaptable approach to capitalize on positive market conditions while minimizing losses when markets decline, as detailed in RV Portfolio performance metrics. Investing in a single stock like FSLR can be risky. Conversely, the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio, comprising 30 stocks, has a history of consistently outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 4-year period. Why is that? As a group, HQ Portfolio stocks have yielded better returns with lower risk compared to the benchmark index, offering less volatility as demonstrated in HQ Portfolio performance metrics.
Medscape
12-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Is a Year of DAPT Magical Thinking?
Christopher Labos, MDCM, MSc It's hard to accept that babies born in the year 2000 now have kids of their own. It's even harder to accept that there never was much evidence for 12 months of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after coronary stenting. In a recent commentary, lead author Marco Valgimigli, MD, PhD, likened the routine use of 1 year of DAPT to a myth that has become entrenched in our collective culture. Though recent trials suggest shorter durations are feasible and possibly better, untangling truth from myth is proving to be a Gordian knot. Enter the DAPT Era The era of DAPT began with the publication of the CURE study in 2001. Patients with non-ST elevation myocardial infarction were randomized to aspirin plus clopidogrel or aspirin plus placebo. Despite the increased bleeding seen with the addition of clopidogrel, the trial's positive primary outcome prompted many, myself included, to start putting patients on both drugs. As more potent anti-platelets such as prasugrel and ticagrelor came to market, on the basis of TRITON-TIMI 38 and PLATO , respectively, the idea of yearlong double therapy was reinforced. But in TRITON-TIMI 38, median treatment duration was 14.5 months and in PLATO it was just over 9 months. Neither study provided 12 months of DAPT nor tested a specific duration of therapy. The subject grew more complicated as the field evolved. Bare metal stents improved and then gave way to drug eluting stents which in turn evolved to newer iterations with better scaffolds, polymers, and anti-proliferative agents. In the early 2000's, the risk of stent thrombosis with the first generation of drug-eluting stents prompted a science advisory stressing the importance of 12 months of DAPT. Even though the risk of late stent thrombosis is much reduced with the newer generation of drug eluting stents, a confluence of factors made 12 months of DAPT the standard of care. But a blanket 1-year recommendation ignores the past quarter century's dizzying evolution in stents, angiography techniques, and background medical therapy. We can justifiably question if studies from 20 or even 10 years ago are still relevant and if the particular risk and medication profile of the patient sitting in front of you has been adequately represented in the clinical trials. Balancing Ischemic Benefit and Bleeding Risk Multiple trials have tested alternatives to 12 months of DAPT. The DAPT trial tested 12 months vs 30 months of DAPT and found fewer stent thromboses and cardiovascular events with longer treatment but at the cost of more bleeding. This trade-off has been replicated many times and a meta-analysis of five trials of longer term DAPT showed that extending treatment beyond 12 months reduced cardiovascular events but resulted in more bleeds. This balance between cardiovascular benefit and bleeding risk prompted the question of shorter durations than 12 months. A summary of this body of evidence suggests that 3-6 months had no major impact on either stent thrombosis and paradoxically bleeding risk compared with 12 months. While those de-escalation trials usually left patients on aspirin alone, an alternative would be to stop the aspirin and leave them on a P2Y12 inhibitor. Multiple trials have tested a variety of permutations. The SMART-CHOICE trial de-escalated to clopidogrel in most patients after 3 months of DAPT, STOPDAPT-2 de-escalated to clopidogrel after 1 month of DAPT, while TWILIGHT tested ticagrelor monotherapy after 3 months of DAPT in a high-risk population. Keeping this heterogeneity in mind, meta-analyzing these trials suggests that ticagrelor alone after 1-3 months of DAPT reduces the bleeding risk without increasing cardiovascular events. Whether we can say the same for prasugrel is less clear. The STOPDAPT-3 trial tried an 'aspirin free' strategy with prasugrel monotherapy at 3.75 mg daily rather than the standard 10 mg dose. This strategy did not improve bleeding rates or worsen the primary endpoint, suggesting that prasugrel monotherapy may be feasible. But the atypical dosing and general unpopularity of prasugrel does make it a challenging trial to put into practice. But Wait There's More De-escalation Trials At the recent American College of Cardiology scientific sessions in Chicago, there were even more data to add to the mix. The HOST-BR trial tested two different regimens based on the patient's bleeding risk. High risk patients were randomized to 1 vs 3 months of DAPT and low risk patients were randomized to 3 vs 12 months, with clopidogrel being the most common second anti-platelet. In high bleeding risk patients, limiting DAPT to 1 month increased major adverse cardiac and cerebral events (MAACE) at 1 year by 4.0% on the absolute scale with a non-significant trend towards less bleeding. By contrast, in the low-bleeding-risk patients, limiting DAPT to 3 months instead of 1 year had no major effect on MAACE but reduced bleeding by 9.5% on the absolute scale. In both the high and low risk patients, 3 months of DAPT seemed to be the sweet spot. SMART-CHOICE 3 took a different tack and evaluated patients that had already completed their 'standard' duration DAPT (12 months post myocardial infarction and 6 months overwise) and randomized them to monotherapy with aspirin vs clopidogrel. At 3 years, clopidogrel reduced MAACE by 2.2% with no effect on bleeding. Both of these Korean trials were open label studies. In East Asian populations, differences in bleeding risk suggest that clopidogrel might be superior to ticagrelor, hence the decision to use it in the study. However, in other ethnic groups the same might not hold true, and whether the results would replicate with ticagrelor is anyone's guess. Guidelines Nudge but Don't Fully Budge Depending on your point of view, the accumulated data is either dizzyingly complex and impossible to parse through or too limited to make any firm recommendations. Admittedly, we have to consider not just length of DAPT but also which anti-platelets to use as monotherapy and the clinical context of the patient. A high-ischemic-risk cardiac patient at low bleeding risk is very different from a high bleeding risk patient going for an elective PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention). We shouldn't blithely assume that what's true for clopidogrel is true for ticagrelor or that one antiplatelet is universally better in all populations. Also, most trials fail to consider one important consideration: cost. Given all the new data from the last few years, you might think that clinical guidelines have evolved to incorporate or at least acknowledge the growing equipoise of how and when to inhibit platelets in cardiac patients. But the recent 2025 ACS guidelines still suggest a minimum 12 months of DAPT and give it a class 1A indication if the patient isn't at high bleeding risk. If they are, bleeding reduction strategies include transitioning to ticagrelor monotherapy after 1 month (Class 1A) and switching from ticagrelor or prasugrel to clopidogrel as part of the DAPT regimen (Class 2B). Monotherapy with any agent after 1 month also gets a 2b recommendation. Although the guidelines are starting to budge on the issue, we seem to be perpetually locked into a 12-month DAPT mindset. The why is a fascinating question. It's partly because we are often more tolerant of bleeding than of cardiovascular events. We think we can manage bleeds whereas a stent thrombosis or a recurrent myocardial infarction feels like a failure. Who follows up on the patient will also affect the duration of antiplatelet therapy. It's asking a lot of primary care providers to overrule the angiographer's recommendation of 12 months of DAPT post stent on the cath report. A combination of uncertainty and inertia is keeping 12 months of DAPT alive. I'm as guilty as everyone else of falling into long established patterns. Habits are hard to break, but 24 years after CURE, we should acknowledge that 1 year of DAPT was never shown to be clinically superior to any other interval. Most of the contemporary data suggests that shorter durations are just as good if not better.
Chicago Tribune
08-04-2025
- Health
- Chicago Tribune
IU Northwest provides new space for CURE
A program that connects the community to a wide-reaching partnership with Indiana University Northwest now has its own place where senior citizens can learn how to use their iPhones and middle school kids can learn college and career skills. Led by IU President Pamela Whitten, officials snipped a ribbon Monday outside of CURE's new headquarters just outside the south lobby entrance in the Library Conference Center. 'This is exciting and it took us so long to get here,' said interim chancellor Vicki Román-Lagunas. 'It's a deeply rooted commitment to our community… we dedicate every resource to that partnership.' Launched in 2004, CURE aims to engage the university and the community to create sustainable programs and initiatives, led by its director Ellen Szarleta. CURE's activities support the development of positive and sustainable collaborations between the university and the community, officials said. Its program offerings and partnerships include Senior University, Kids College, adult education, a community garden, police candidate training, the Indiana Civic Health Index, an annual Forum on Child Abuse and Neglect, and Partners-In Conversation, recorded conversations between students, faculty and community members to stay connected during the Covid-19 pandemic. 'We were in a very sense created by the community with CURE as the permanent gateway,' said former IU Northwest chancellor Ken Iwama, who's now director of IU's regional campuses and online education. Before it gained its new space in the Library Conference Center, Szarleta said its ages 55-and-over Senior University courses were held at various classroom sites across the campus. With the new single location, Szarleta said it's easier for seniors to foster relationships and settle into a course. She said CURE also is assisting the City of Gary with its Love Your Block mini-grant program application for community residents. Tiara Williams, Gary's Love Your Block project manager said the application deadline closed Monday. Williams praised CURE's involvement. 'It's like a fire is ignited to get the word out,' she said. The Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation funds Love Your Block. 'Any time there is a CURE issue, Ellen is the doctor,' said Melton. 'Her team has been instrumental for us every year.' Whitten cited the 2023 efforts by IU-Northwest students who worked with Lake County officials to examine and document more than 7,000 'churner' properties that are offered again and again at tax sales. Their effort led to a 2023 law transferring the ownership of properties that fail to sell twice at tax sales to the county or a municipality for redevelopment. 'This space will undoubtedly enhance the ability to serve the region,' she said.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Atlanta nonprofit caring for families while battling childhood cancer
New research shows that more children are being diagnosed with cancer each year, and one Atlanta nonprofit is hoping to put a stop to that. But CURE Childhood Cancer isn't only thinking about the child fighting the disease, they're also looking out for the families fighting alongside them. For 50 years, they have been working to advance research and treatment for cancers affecting children. While survival rates are above 80%, cancer is still the leading cause of death by disease for children. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Channel 2′s Karyn Greer spoke with the mother of a childhood cancer survivor who said CURE supported her and her family. 'I remember looking over at my daughter, who was 15 at the time, and I just looked at her. We locked eyes and I was like, 'Do you understand what the doctor just said?' You know, we're, you know, tears and just stunned and shock and surreal,' Karen Rutherford said of the moment she learned her daughter had cancer. Rutherford says she was determined to get through her daughter Katie's diagnosis of rabdomysacoma, a rare solid cancerous tumor on her face. 'We were referred to Emory and they finally were able to do a biopsy. But it probably was a four month period of not really knowing, and it looked like it was growing before our eyes. Every day, this little, tiny little finally got to the size of like a quarter before we figured out what was going on,' she remembered. That's when Rutherford says they were introduced to CURE. 'When you have a child in cancer, you don't want to leave their room, so to be able to just hop down to the family room real quick and grab a sandwich and come right back and be with my daughter, that was huge,' she said. Mark Myers with CURE Childhood Cancer says there are between 500 and 600 children in Georgia diagnosed with cancer each year. 'An overwhelming majority are treated in Atlanta,' Myers said. TRENDING STORIES: Atlanta bagpiper killed while scuba diving; son who vanished 4 years ago found dead at home Federal agents raid manufacturing plant in Bartow County in labor trafficking investigation 4 Georgia soldiers have died after being reported missing in Lithuania On Wednesday, donating to CURE Childhood Cancer and raising money for cancer research was as easy as grabbing a bite to eat. All of the proceeds from all purchases at Jersey Mike's Subs' locations in metro Atlanta, Columbus, Athens and Macon are going directly to CURE Childhood Cancer. Channel 2 Action News stopped by a restaurant in Atlanta and found it packed with supporters. 'It's been huge,' manager Travis Joyner said. 'Customers coming in, one of our biggest days for a good cause.' Last year's Day of Giving resulted in CURE receiving more than $500,000 for emergency financial assistance. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
