“ WellSpring has developed a unique approach to healthcare finance,” said Daniel Carrigan, vice president of new products at the PHLX. “By assembling portfolios and indexes of companies focused on specific diseases and specific and innovative technologies, these indexes will provide a unique way to hedge risk in a dynamic and fast growing sector of the global economy,” Carrigan said. The PHLX provides deep, liquid and transparent markets for the options that will be listed for each WellSpring index on PHLX XL, the Exchange’s electronic trading platform, added Carrigan.
Sam Katz, CEO of WellSpring BioCapital Partners said: "Developing these indexes with the PHLX made enormous sense to us. Melding PHLX’s indexing and options expertise with our unique investment approach of disease and technology centric investment in the life sciences offers a unique opportunity for U.S. and international investors to understand a biotechnology industry that is at the forefront of life changing science and therapies."
Although final index structuring will be announced shortly, WellSpring expects to offer indexes in major diseases, including cancer, depression and mental health, stroke and hypertension, heart and cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders. Disease centric indexes will be branded as ORCHIDsTM, Options Representing Categorical Healthcare Indexes by Disease. In addition, indexes will be created to track companies in clinical trials with the most promising drugs, devices and therapies, and in other promising technologies including stem cell therapies, vaccines and bioinformatics. Each index will include a portfolio of companies that are focusing on that disease or technology platform that have the potential for commercially successful products and/or services in that area.
According to Katz, “the WellSpring healthcare indexes will be part of an evolving financial infrastructure in healthcare/biotechnology and will be an ideal tool for investors to track the progress of fighting diseases and moving new technologies into commercialization. We are delighted that the PHLX has expressed so much enthusiasm for options on these indexes.”
Carrigan noted: “Wellspring healthcare indexes provides more evidence of the clear leadership role that this region is playing in the field of life sciences. Having the PHLX and WellSpring working together on these financial instruments should bring more attention to the prominent role played by industry, research and finance here in the Philadelphia area.”
The Philadelphia Stock Exchange was founded in 1790. The PHLX trades 2,000 stocks, 1,650 equity options, 22 sectors index options and currency options and futures. For more information about the PHLX and its products, visit www.phlx.com.
WellSpring BioCapital Partners is an investment firm offering innovative investment products focused on the next generation of treatments, therapies and cures for diseases. Currently, the company has created a disease centric unit investment trust products called Vertical Investments of Life Sciences Trusts (VIOLTs) that is being distributed through brokers. For more information about WellSpring BioCapital, visit www.wellspringbiocapital.com.
