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China Dynamics Launches Electric Buses in Davao, Philippines

Media Outreach

Expands SEA Markets Highlights its Technological Edge in New Energy Vehicles HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 11 December 2020 - China Dynamics (Holdings) Limited (the "Company"; (Stock Code: 476), together with its subsidiaries, collectively “China Dynamics” or the "Group"), a provider of new energy vehicles and technology integrated solutions, today launched its electric buses in Davao, the Philippines’ third largest city, marking the official use of the electric buses that it delivered earlier, as well as the expansion of the Group’s sales network in Southeast Asia and the implementation of its internationalization strategy. The Group also launched its electric buses in Pasay City in Metro Manila at the beginning of this month. Davao City Mayor Ms. Sara Z. Duterte, Mr. Rodger Velasco, President of Davao Light and Power, Mr. Freddie Tinga, President of Global Electric Transport (“GET Philippines”), the first electric bus operator in the Philippines, and Mr. Miguel Valldecabres Polop, CEO of China Dynamics, attended the launch ceremony and witnessed how China Dynamics pioneered public transportation in Davao with its electric buses that are tailor-made for the Philippine market, thus protecting the environment and helping improve traffic in the city. The electric bus, running on fast-charging lithium ion batteries, is equipped with full air-conditioning and a retractable ramp that has been specially designed to meet the needs of persons with disabilities and the elderly. Leveraging the Group’s advanced cloud-based software, which monitors the vehicle’s diagnostics to determine potential maintenance issue, thus significantly improving the vehicle safety and performance, the electric bus will be able to deliver efficient, reliable and comfortable transport service to the public. Mr. Miguel Valldecabres Polop, CEO of China Dynamics, said, “The comprehensive development blueprint formulated by the Philippine Government will present enormous opportunities to the new energy vehicles market. Given this, along with the rapid growth of our electric bus and electric vehicles business in other Southeast Asian countries, the Group is expected to obtain more orders for electric buses accordingly. We are accelerating the pace of the Group’s sales in other ASEAN countries in a bid to take our business to the next level.” Mr. Cheung Ngan, Chairman of China Dynamics, said, “Development of green transportation has become a global focus. China Dynamics will ride on the global trend in the continuing development of new energy industry and will respond to the needs of the international community by drawing on our technological advantages in new energy vehicles. We will also capture opportunities arising from the environmental protection market to further expand our business to overseas markets. After the launch of the first electric accessible minibus in Hong Kong and the introduction of our electric buses in the Philippines, we will soon deliver 12-metre complete chassis for electric buses to Latin America and logistics vehicles to Europe, thus fulfilling the Group’s commitment to contributing to environmental protection and to society.” About China Dynamics (Holdings) Limited (Stock Code: 476) China Dynamics (Holdings) Limited is a pioneer and practitioner in the field of new energy commercial vehicles in China and a whole vehicle manufacturer of specialty passenger vehicles and new energy passenger vehicles. It is an integrated driving and logistics solutions provider, with a solid technological foundation in areas including new energy platform power system and its key components, light structural design, fuel cell system integration technology and intelligent network technology. The Group has two production bases in Chongqing, one in Wulong and the other in Qijiang. Moreover, the Group will actively develop the Hong Kong and overseas bus markets. It has different models of new energy commercial vehicles launched to the market for sale as permitted and announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Contact Details Vicky Lee +852 2864 4834 vicky.lee@sprg.com.hk Phoebe Leung +852 2114 4172 phoebe.leung@sprg.com.hk Carrie Leung +852 2114 4912 carrie.leung@sprg.com.hk Company Website http://www.chinadynamics.hk/

December 11, 2020 05:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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Celebrating the Holidays Safely with Ereka Vetrini

D S Simon Media

The holidays aren’t canceled. We have to reimagine them for the pandemic era.There are still a few ways to keep family traditions at the holidays alive, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focus on the Traditions that we CAN Do It’s so easy to focus on what we can’t do right now. No matter how small the gathering, focus on keeping the traditions that bring you joy just as they have every year. Go all out with decorations. You can make grandmother’s pineapple bake for Thanksgiving or build gingerbread houses. And, you can even drive around town and look at everyone else’s holiday decorations. (Don’t forget the hot cocoa!) Stay positive by getting really excited about all the things you can still do and put your energy into them. Forget the Formal and Spend Time Together Safely Even though the size of your gathering may change, the tradition of eating a good meal and spending quality time together should not. As the 5X Thanksgiving host, Ereka suggests to keep safe and simple. In a recent Chinet® brand survey, 35% of respondents said they’ll be using disposable tableware for the holidays. Many said their focus is less on a formal setting and more on spending time together safely. In fact the CDC encourages using “single use items”. Fortunately, Chinet® Cut Crystal® collection allows us to get fancy without the fuss. Chinet® Cut Crystal® plates, cups and cutlery are so elegant and come in a completely coordinated collection perfect for holiday celebrations. They have the right combination of strength and style. Chinet® Cut Crystal® collection is the right call if you are looking to spend less time cleaning up and more time with loved ones. Hostess Tips for the Small Group Many are talking about ditching the turkey, but Ereka says go for it- either choose a smaller turkey or go big and enjoy leftovers for days! Another tip for those hosting… Target is here to save the day. You can now use their contactless services Drive Up, Order Pickup or same-day delivery with Shipt to get everything you need for your holiday meals and more, including fresh and frozen groceries nationwide – no membership required. Whether that be a whole frozen turkey, green beans, ready-made sides like garlic mashed potatoes, or apps like these Fig & Rosemary crackers with Brie cheese… Target’s ready to get you what you need, when you need it. This holiday, Target has enhanced their pickup and delivery services to make it even easier and safer to shop for holiday meals and more. They’ve added nearly 8,000 Drive Up spots to serve more guests quickly and 100,000 Shipt shoppers to make getting whatever you need to feed the family as easy as pie. Final Tips to Enjoy the Season Connect any way you can. Take your zoom parties up a notch with playlists, themes and virtual games. FaceTime family members and let them know you care. Enjoy the traditions you love. Bake plenty of goodies. Celebrate and find joy in the smaller moments and appreciate what you have. About Ereka Vetrini Ereka Vetrini is a TV Host, Lifestyle Expert, Brand Spokesperson, Producer, Blogger and proud mom of two who got her start on Donald Trump ‘s “The Apprentice” season 1. Ereka is currently the host of Lifetime’s Access Health. Access Health brings you the latest cutting-edge developments and innovations in medicine, nutrition and fitness, so women everywhere can take charge of their health starting today! She is also a regular contributor to NBC’s 1st Look and NY Live. As an on-air correspondent for NBC she covers the hottest spots to dine, travel and shop! Ereka was previously the host of TLC Sunday Brunch where she brought you the very best brunch & cocktail recipes, styling tips and so much more! As a mother of two, Ereka enjoys spending every spare minute running after her 9 and 7-year-old. About YourUpdateTV: YourUpdateTV is a social media video portal for organizations to share their content. It includes separate channels for Health and Wellness, Lifestyle, Media and Entertainment, Money and Finance, Social Responsibility, Sports and Technology. Contact Details YourUpdateTV +1 212-736-2727 yourupdatetv@gmail.com

November 25, 2020 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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CIPIO.ai completes a $1.25M pre-seed round in stealth mode to accelerate R&D for AI-Infused Customer Intelligence Platform

CIPIO.ai

CIPIO co-founders Growson Edwards (Ex-MicroPact CCO), Manoj Kumar Goyal ( Ex-Marketo CPO and Ex-Oracle GVP), and Dharm esh Trivedi ( Ex-Motionsoft SVP ) announced the completion of their pre-seed round of $1.25M, led by DX.Partners, a pre-seed Venture Studio, with participation from the co-founders and other angel investors. DX.Partners Founder & Managing Partner, Sundeep Sanghavi (ex-CEO & Founder of DataRPM, acquired by Progress Software (NASDAQ: PRGS)) is very bullish on the founders’ vision and focus on the B2C member/subscriber intelligence. “COVID-19 has accelerated the unprecedented changes in consumer behavior, causing massive disruption in the traditional brick & mortar industries like fitness, faith & spirituality, restaurants, live event venues, who now must transform digitally at an exponential pace,” said Sanghavi. Mr. Trivedi has scaled multiple startups from zero to $100M in revenue with two exits, Razorsight acquired by Synchronoss (NASDAQ: SNCR) and MotionSoft acquired by Daxco. “We have been heads down since the pandemic working on a minimum valuable product and have made tremendous progress,” said Trivedi. With our insights and industry expertise, early adopters like Crunch Fitness, World’s Gym, and the Xponential Fitness streaming platform called GO, which operates brands like Pure Barre, Club Pilates, AKT, YogaSix, Cyclebar, Row House, Stretch Lab, and Stride have seen significant ROI.” Mr. Trivedi reached out to Growson Edwards, an advisor at that time, to methodically launch CIPIO out of stealth mode. Mr. Edwards led MicroPact’s growth from $1M to $84M in revenue and has a knack for customer success resulting in a 106% net dollar retention. “I have launched and scaled five SaaS products across multiple markets. As an early advisor, I saw immense value in CIPIO’s IP, inspiring me to join Dharmesh and invest in the pre-seed round,” said Edwards. He quickly sought out San Francisco Bay area veteran MarTech platform executive Manoj Kumar Goyal to lead CIPIO’s R&D team. Mr. Goyal previously led Oracle’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) team and launched the platform in a record time of 12 months. Before Oracle, Mr. Goyal served as Marketo’s Chief Product Officer, meeting the performance and scalability needs of the most demanding CMOs (such as Google, AWS, and Microsoft), and driving annual revenue growth at a 25% pace to $300m+ revenue for 5000+ customers. “Whether you are a massive franchisor or the operator of a neighborhood corner gym, a church, a restaurant, or venue, the pandemic has impacted one and all like never before. All the idling forced by the novel coronavirus has necessitated that brick & mortar businesses go digital at warp speed. What’s lost in this rapid digital transformation is understanding the customer beyond the 360-degree intelligence that traditional CDPs provide. To understand the customer journey in this new hybrid world will require unparalleled intelligence that can only be produced by combining the power of AI & domain expertise,” said Mr. Goyal. “It’s very rare for a startup at a stealth stage to have such a strong customer validation along with a killer team,” said Sanghavi. CIPIO expects to launch commercially in Q1 of 2021 and expects to raise additional capital at that time. Contact Details Jennifer Isaac +1 315-398-9541 Jennifer@CIPIO.ai Company Website https://cipio.ai/

November 19, 2020 12:30 PM Eastern Standard Time

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Replicated Announces Troubleshoot As a Stand Alone Open Source Project

Replicated, Inc.

Replicated, which enables software vendors to ship on-prem, private cloud, and even air gapped versions of their software, today announced Troubleshoot as a stand alone open source project. Troubleshoot is a framework for application-level troubleshooting of Kubernetes apps that can eliminate the back-and-forth between vendors and customers when installing and managing software in customer environments. Software vendors and their customers spend countless hours iterating on on-prem software deployments and management. Customers identify installation errors and vendors reply with commands that customers can use to address the error. The process repeats itself for hours or days, is inefficient, and taxes the vendor’s relationship with the customer. Companies can now integrate Troubleshoot into their own processes and documentation. Troubleshoot is exposed as two distinct products: Preflight and Support-bundle, packaged as `kubectl` plugins and distributed via [krew](https://krew.dev). Preflight Preflight validates the customer's environment before an application is installed, to prevent common errors. For example, Preflight can check for insufficient memory capacity, the existence of a secret with a certain key to provide access to a database, or the lack of required Kubernetes add-ons; so customers don’t start an installation that may not work. Support-bundle Support-bundle collects logs and analyzes the customer’s environment and application configuration to detect and diagnose common problems in a running application. Support-bundle provides a reliable and quick way for an end-user to collect all the information necessary to debug an issue. And, if necessary, automatically redacts sensitive information so that it can be sent to the software vendor for further analysis, without violating security policies. Troubleshoot isn’t just for commercial software vendors. “Our vision is to see commercial and open source projects include preflight checks and support bundles in their projects,” said Mark Pundsack, CPO of Replicated. “We want to ease the burden of managing Kubernetes applications for everyone. That’s why we’re making it open source.” You can create your own Preflight checks and Troubleshoot your application or open source project. Get started: https://troubleshoot.sh/docs/ In other Replicated open source news: SchemaHero joins CNCF Sandbox ShemaHero, an open source project from Replicated, was accepted into the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a Sandbox project this month. SchemaHero is an open source project to address complex schema migrations in a Kubernetes-native way. Replicated created SchemaHero to make database schemas declarative and has been running it on its production environment and on-prem installations. For more information about SchemaHero visit https://schemahero.io/. About Replicated Replicated is the modern way to ship on-prem software. Replicated gives software vendors a container-based platform for easily deploying cloud native applications inside customers' environments to provide greater security and control. Learn more at Replicated.com. Contact Details Forrest Carman +1 206-859-3118 forrestc@owenmedia.com Company Website https://www.replicated.com/

November 17, 2020 09:03 AM Eastern Standard Time

Replicated Raises $25M Series B To Modernize On-Prem Software Delivery

Owen Media

Replicated, which enables software vendors to ship an on-prem, air gapped, or self-hosted version of their software with Day 2 enterprise operations management, today announced closing a Series B funding round totaling $25 million. The round was led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from existing investors. The total amount raised to date, including a $1.5 million seed round (led by BoldStart) and a $5 million Series A round (led by Amplify), is $31.5 million. The funds will be used to expand the capabilities of the current product and grow the team. “The on-prem software market is four times larger than the SaaS market,” said Grant Miller, Replicated co-founder and CEO. “Replicated lets software vendors unlock the opportunity of the on-prem software category with lower engineering overhead and faster time to market. This is a market change made possible by the convergence of cloud native computing and Kubernetes.” Replicated enables software vendors to use modern cloud native technologies and Kubernetes to deliver enterprise grade applications and install their software in on-prem or self-hosted environments. The technology reduces the engineering workload and accelerates time to market for software vendors. For enterprise customers, Replicated provides a simple interface to manage software deployments, licensing, and Day 2 operations. Replicated’s customers include HashiCorp, Puppet, and UiPath. Half of the Fortune 100 uses Replicated to manage applications. According to Synergy Research, the on-prem software market is four times greater than that of the SaaS market. The on-prem market was inaccessible to many software vendors because engineering costs and long lead times made it impractical. Replicated has helped dozens of software vendors and thousands of enterprise organizations benefit from faster and easier deployments and simplified application management. Replicated was the first company to deliver a container-based service for deployment of applications inside corporate firewalls. Kubernetes has become the substrate of how modern software is delivered and makes widespread delivery of software to on-prem environments possible. Replicated’s Kubernetes Off The Shelf (KOTS) product, is a kubectl plugin and admin console to help manage KOTS software. Traditional on-prem software deployments required software vendors to spend months packaging and delivering applications on disks or servers to the customer. It was hard to build reliable, scalable, and distributed systems. The software was received by operations technicians who had to pour over manuals for days to deploy, update, and maintain every service. Replicated reduces the engineering overhead from months to days and accelerates time to market, streamlining Day 1 and Day 2 operations so that a single person can manage 10,000 applications. "Replicated makes it easy to reliably deliver our AI platform to highly-secure customer environments, without needing our customers to become experts on our stack or architecture," said Kyle Owens, Labelbox Engineering Manager. Replicated’s Series B round was well subscribed due to company and category growth, attracting the participation of Two Sigma Ventures as well as existing investors. Replicated has more than doubled its customer base in the past 12 months. Replicated’s customers cite easier access to large enterprise accounts as the primary reason for adopting the technology. “Replicated has pioneered the way to operationalize and scale the distribution of modern on‑prem applications to enterprise customers,” said Villi Iltchev, Two Sigma Ventures partner. “Their technology makes on-prem or self-hosted software deployments fast, seamless, and easy to manage in an era where companies are increasingly deploying applications in their cloud and on-prem environments.” Replicated was founded in 2015 by Miller and Marc Campbell, CTO, who previously founded Look IO, a mobile live-chat program that was acquired by LivePerson. About Replicated Replicated is the modern way to ship on-prem software. Replicated gives software vendors a container-based platform for easily deploying cloud native applications inside customers' environments to provide greater security and control. Learn more at Replicated.com. Contact Details Forrest Carman +1 206-859-3118 forrestc@owenmedia.com

October 27, 2020 09:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Hankook Tire Gauge Index: COVID-19 Redefines the Rules of the Holiday Road

Hankook Tire America Corp.

Despite anxiety and uncertainty spurred by COVID-19, a majority of Americans still plan to travel this holiday season, according to the Hankook Tire Gauge Index. Three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) plan to travel for the holidays, however they’re changing how and when they venture out. At the same time, apprehension about planning travel far in advance is on the rise as only 16 percent of Americans are willing to commit to personal travel more than six months out. Among those planning to travel for the holidays, 78 percent say they will travel by car with many choosing to drive as a safety precaution. With safety being a high priority, many travelers are also planning around some form of quarantine. The majority of travelers (70 percent) plan to quarantine in some way upon returning home, while 64 percent plan to do so leading up to their trip and then again once they arrive at their destination (61 percent). Americans are also adjusting when they travel, as three-quarters are planning to travel early to avoid typical peak travel times. “As with so much this year, it’s difficult to predict exactly how holiday travel will pan out, but our latest survey finds that the rules of the road are changing for the holidays,” said Peter Jung, SVP and COO, Hankook Tire America Corp. “More people will hit the road this year as a way to see family and friends. To stay safe, they’re modifying plans to beat the traffic and allow time to quarantine. At the same time, home for the holidays is taking on new meaning as more Americans plan to stay closer to home.” On The Road Again While one-in-four (26 percent) will stay home for the holidays, up from 9 percent prior to the onset of COVID-19, overall Americans are feeling more confident about getting behind the wheel. The Gauge revealed that daily driving is returning to more normal levels than reported in the spring. Currently 60 percent of Americans are driving daily, compared to April when only 20 percent hit the road every day, and road trips are a significant part of that. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of those surveyed said they have taken a road trip since the onset of the pandemic, either out of necessity or for leisure. Road trips are also rising in popularity compared to air travel, as Americans are currently two times more comfortable traveling long distances by car (46 percent) than by plane (24 percent). However, Hankook found that while 93 percent of millennials have already taken a road trip this year, the majority of boomers (54 percent) and the Silent Generation (70 percent) said that they are not comfortable traveling long distance, no matter the form of transportation. “The Gauge revealed signs of daily driving returning to a more normal cadence, but even still, there is uncertainty about hitting the road,” Jung added. “No matter when you feel comfortable getting back behind the wheel or where you’re headed once you do, Hankook looks forward to helping you and your family get there safely.” The Hankook Tire Gauge Index is a survey of Americans' attitudes and opinions about driving. The latest installment of the survey, conducted September 24-27, 2020, polled 1,044 randomly selected Americans age 18+ who have a valid U.S. driver’s license. About Hankook Tire America Corp. Hankook Tire America Corp. is a growing leader in the U.S. tire market, leveraging investments in technology, manufacturing and marketing to deliver high-quality, reliable products that are safer for consumers and the environment. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, Hankook America markets and distributes a complete line of high-performance and ultra-high-performance passenger tires, light truck and SUV tires as well as medium truck and bus tires in the United States. Hankook Tire America is a subsidiary of Hankook Tire Co., Ltd., a Forbes Global 2000 company headquartered in Seoul, Korea. Contact Details Mollie Holman +1 646-746-5611 mholman@brodeur.com Company Website https://www.hankooktire.com/us/

October 27, 2020 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Applied Insight Honored for Second Year by Government Innovation Awards, Wins in 2020 for SHIFT, Its Cloud Emulation and Testing Platform

Applied Insight

Applied Insight , a market leader in solving complex technology challenges for federal government customers, announced today that it has received the Industry Innovator Award for its SaaS/PaaS emulation and testing platform SHIFT™ as part of the 2020 Government Innovation Awards presented by PublicSector360, including Washington Technology, FCW, GCN and Defense Systems. The award recognizes the groundbreaking nature of SHIFT, which is used by government and commercial customers to develop, test and remediate software prior to deploying it in the classified regions of government clouds. This is the second consecutive year that Applied Insight has won this prestigious award. Last year, the company was recognized for its innovative cloud management platform, Altitude™ . “We are pleased that SHIFT has been recognized as an Industry Innovator,” said Dede Dascalu, CEO of Applied Insight . “There has long been a shortage of software engineers who have the right clearances for national security missions. SHIFT is not only addressing this problem by enabling low-side development, it is also speeding the delivery of modern, mission-critical software to our customers.” Air-gapped and restricted regions of government clouds come with multiple technical nuances that require additional configuration to software products built for commercial use. When commercial software is brought into these special cloud regions, these technical differences result in numerous errors and require several additional deployment cycles. SHIFT is a SaaS/PaaS platform that emulates restricted cloud regions and their systems, so development and implementation teams can configure and test their software prior to deployment. In doing so, SHIFT greatly reduces time and costs by nearly eliminating rework and reconfigurations. In just the first six months of 2020, SHIFT helped identify and remediate more than 5.5 million errors for its customers. “The development of differentiated intellectual property has always been a central pillar of Acacia’s investment approach,” said Gavin Long , partner of The Acacia Group , the sponsor of Applied Insight as a unique, technology-focused, government market platform established in 2017. “Our federal businesses continue to create game-changing technologies that are having a massive impact on the success of customer missions. That Applied Insight now has two award-winning technologies in its product portfolio is great recognition for the team’s technical brilliance. We couldn’t be more proud of what they’ve achieved and will continue to invest in their product development capabilities.” The Government Innovation Awards celebrate the transformative government projects, individual change agents and industry partners that are reimagining public-sector IT. The Industry Innovator awards recognize private-sector companies' vital role in the government IT community. Due to COVID-19, there will be no in-person awards gala this year. Instead, winners and innovations can be found online . About Applied Insight At Applied Insight, we deliver pragmatic solutions for federal missions that cannot wait. We work closely with agencies and industry to overcome technical and cultural hurdles to innovation, empowering them with the latest cloud, data and cyber capabilities. Our solutions help people work better, faster and more securely – no matter where they are. To learn more about us, visit applied-insight.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter . About The Acacia Group The Acacia Group is a team of operational investors with a long track record in the U.S. technology and services markets. We see value in technologies that enable people to collaborate in sustaining our society, from our security and economy, to our institutions and infrastructure. We invest in entrepreneurs who share that mission, bringing the capital, experience and relationships to enable them to take their business to new heights. For more information, please visit The Acacia Group or follow us on LinkedIn . Media Contact : Kristina Messner ( Focused Image for Applied Insight) 703-678-6023 kmessner@focusedimage.com At Applied Insight, we deliver pragmatic solutions for federal missions that cannot wait. We work closely with agencies and industry to overcome technical and cultural hurdles to innovation, empowering them with the latest cloud, data and cyber capabilities. Our solutions help people work better, faster and more securely – no matter where they are. Contact Details Kristina Messner +1 703-678-6023 kmessner@focusedimage.com Company Website https://www.applied-insight.com/

October 26, 2020 09:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time

“We Will Follow Him to the Ends of the Earth”

Miracle Flights

After years of improper medical treatment for clubfoot, 8-year-old Lucy Arnold was finally on the road to recovery. Then her doctor moved a thousand miles away. For Lucy’s parents, the question was never if they would follow Dr. Matthew Dobbs, who relocated his specialty practice from St. Louis to West Palm Beach last month. The question was how this family of 12 from Benton, Arkansas, could manage the significant cost of travel to make it work. “It used to be an easy six-hour drive to get to St. Louis, but the move added an extra burden,” says Lucy’s mother, Amy. “You have airfare, hotel and transportation on top of deductibles and co-pays.” Then a Facebook post from Miracle Flights caught Amy’s eye. The national charity provides free plane tickets to families who need access to specialized medical care far from home. Lucy and her parents took their first Miracle Flight on September 19 for surgery to correct Lucy’s left leg. The family leaves today on their second flight for follow-up casting. “Miracle Flights has taken such a burden off our family financially,” says Amy. “They also took all of the planning off our plate. They found us the best flight options and even lined up ground transportation from the airport to the hospital. It saved us so much time, we could just focus on Lucy.” The clubfoot that affects Lucy’s left leg presents with another rare condition: spina bifida. While only 0.05% of Americans have spina bifida, between 30 and 50% of those affected also have clubfoot. The condition can nearly always be corrected with proper treatment. For Lucy, that proper treatment has been difficult to find. Lucy’s medical journey began in her native China and continued with serial casting treatments in the United States. After three failed procedures, her parents knew it was time to seek yet another medical opinion. Research led them to nationally renowned clubfoot specialist Dr. Dobbs. “We are so thankful we found Dr. Dobbs,” says Amy. “We will follow him to the ends of the earth.” And Miracle Flights will pay for every flight to get there. To lend your support to Lucy’s journey—or to request a flight for your own family—visit miracleflights.org. About Miracle Flights Miracle Flights is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides free air transportation to children and adults who need help reaching specialty medical care only available far from home. The organization, founded in 1985, has provided 132,482 flights and typically books more than 600 flights per month on commercial airlines across the United States. To request a flight, learn more or donate, call 800-359-1711 or visit miracleflights.org . Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram . Contact Details Erika Koff +1 702-251-9783 ekoff@miracleflights.org Company Website https://miracleflights.org/

October 06, 2020 08:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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PBM INDUSTRY REGULATION TO BE ARGUED BY SUPREME COURT

Alliance for Transparent & Affordable Prescriptions

As policy makers in Washington, DC debate the next appointee to the United States Supreme Court, patient advocate groups are optimistic existing Justices and the nominee will support rights of states to impose regulations on the Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) industry. The case, Rutledge v. the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association , will argued before the Supreme Court on October 6, 2020. The Alliance for Transparent and Affordable Prescriptions (ATAP), a coalition of patient and provider groups concerned about the role PBMs play in the rising cost of drugs and reduced patient access to affordable treatment, filed an Amicus Brief with the United States Supreme Court in an effort to support the rights of states to impose regulations on the PBM industry. ATAP’s Amicus Brief argues in part that PBMs are engaged in abusive practices with serious practical and policy consequences – including upward pressure on prescription drug pricing. “The relationship that really matters is the doctor-patient relationship, not the relationship with the middlemen” stated Dr. Robert Levin, ATAP’s President. “Every day, we witness first-hand how the PBM industry drives up costs and interferes with patient access to the medications they need. Doctors, patients, and legislators are saying ‘enough is enough’ and are fighting back. We welcome the opportunity to lend our voice and arguments on behalf of patients as the Supreme Court weighs in on regulating this industry.” The debate over the PBM industry is gaining traction in Washington as additional regulations are proposed, and even Presidential Executive Orders crafted in part to reign in PBM activity in the prescription drug marketplace. “PBMs construct formularies and utilization management tools not based on science but on profit, often leading to higher drug prices,” Dr. Madeline Feldman of the Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations (an ATAP member organization) stated. “The Supreme Court should agree to allow states to protect ALL patients from the machinations of PBMs – whose only fiduciary responsibility is to shareholders. Perhaps if the federal government demanded transparency and regulated PBMs appropriately, the states wouldn’t have to step up to do the job.” "Countless healthcare stakeholders have waited eagerly for this day to come and will be closely watching the proceedings since this is the first case involving a PBM before the United States Supreme Court," stated Kathleen A. Arntsen, President & CEO of Lupus and Allied Diseases Association (an ATAP member organization). "As a patient-led organization who represents people that deal with serious health conditions on a daily basis, we have firsthand experience with the frustration in struggling to access affordable and appropriate treatments due to the existence of the unnecessary middleman industry. We are thrilled that the Justices will finally weigh in on these momentous issues and hopeful that they will stand with patients and rule in favor of fair drug pricing." In an earlier statement on the matter, the plaintiff, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge stated, “Our fight to protect Arkansans’ access to affordable prescription drugs will finally have its day before the Supreme Court. With arguments to be aired live, Americans will hear how we are protecting local pharmacists who play the vital role as frontline healthcare providers in rural Arkansas and across the country every day and particularly during this pandemic.” ATAP has been an active advocate for patients in a variety of federal and state battles to amplify the voices of patients and physicians. ### For more information, or to schedule an interview with an ATAP spokesperson please contact Dan Rene at 202-329-8357. ATAP's mission is to address prescription drugs costs and patient access to affordable treatment by regulating PBM practices and reforming the drug industry through educational outreach and grassroots advocacy initiatives at both the state and federal level. Contact Details Dan Rene +1 202-329-8357 daniel.rene@kglobal.com Company Website http://www.atapadvocates.com

October 05, 2020 05:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time

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