Corporate: Eagle Health pounces on another coronavirus opportunity

Businesses will take any opportunity to cash in on a crisis and the latest move to profit from the coronavirus outbreak has been made by dietary supplement maker Eagle Health Holdings (ASX:EHH).

After announcing it was partnering up with Zoono (ASX:ZNO) to distribute the hand sanitiser maker’s products just two weeks ago, it has now told investors it plans to sell face masks and has expanded its factory in Xiamen to accomodate the new venture.

The factory can now produce 6,500 masks per hour, and orders have already started flooding in. The first order is for 3.2 million masks, which Eagle Health says it has started working on.

While there is no evidence that face masks actually prevent healthy people from catching the virus, they can prevent infected people from passing the disease on.

Eagle Health boasted the minimum bacterial filtration efficacy (effectiveness in capturing aerosol droplets from a person’s mouth and nose containing bacteria) of its product is greater than 95 per cent.

While much of China’s manufacturing industry has had to reduce operations or even shut up shop, Eagle Health has been allowed to carry on.

In fact the company’s factory could obtain ‘Green Channel’ status from the local government. This would reduce the red tape required to expand its facilities.

Shares rose by 19 per cent at market open this morning.

In other ASX corporate news today:

One of the hottest performing anti-cancer biotechs, Race Oncology (ASX:RAC), raised $1.8m from health investor Merchant Opportunities Fund. The company says it now has sufficient resources to last the year. Despite shares being issued at a 9 per cent discount, shares spiked 6 per cent.

Plant-based life sciences company Esense Lab (ASX:ESE) rose by as much as 71 per cent this morning after appointing a new CEO. Itzik Mizrahi is a 20-year industry veteran who has served as head of clinical and general manager at Israeli pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Actelion respectively.