Ensysce Biosciences, Inc. ("Ensysce" or the "Company") (NASDAQ:ENSC), a clinical-stage company applying transformative chemistry to improve prescription drug safety, today announced the Company's CEO, Dr. Lynn Kirkpatrick will be participating in ‘Strategies for Achieving Regulatory Milestones Faster: An Ensysce Biosciences & Quotient Sciences Customer Case Study Demonstrating the Benefits of an Integrated Approach for Accelerating Development' today, April 19 2023, at 11:30am ET as a featured speaker.
Ensysce Biosciences' PF614-MPAR is a novel opioid combination product for the potential treatment of chronic pain that is designed to prevent both abuse and overdose. It is currently in clinical trials using Quotient Sciences integrated formulation, manufacturing and Phase I clinical units.
Dr. Kirkpatrick will speak about how MPAR may impact future pain treatment or other target diseases and will highlight the reasons Ensysce selected Quotient Sciences as their development partner.
[Fed forward guidance] was heavily used in the Pandemic, and quite possibly may ultimately prove to be very costly on both the micro and macro level. As of late 2021, the Fed was unequivocally advising that policy would be loose for longer, a tactic that undoubtedly led to overly aggressive risk taking by the bank, shadow bank, corporate and household sectors. The Fed’s forward guidance of late 2021 proved highly inaccurate.
Even more explicitly than Fisher, Charles Kindleberger wrote “Speculative manias gather speed through expansion of money and credit or perhaps, in some cases, get started because of an initial expansion of money and credit.” To paraphrase Kindleberger money and credit excesses lead to “manias, panics and crashes,” which is also the title of his famous 1978 book in which the above quote is found.
Another major breakthrough can be found in “Loose Monetary Policy and Financial Instability” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, February 2023 by Maximilian Grimm, Òscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor (referred to as GJST).
GJST provide strong empirical documentation that the posture of monetary policy affects the stability of the financial system. To quote the authors, “a loose stance over an extended period of time leads to increased financial fragility several years down the line.”
From one financial cycle to the next, the conditions described by GJST could bring a new array of policy actions but, in so doing, the Fed could eventually destabilize the economy even more than in the prior financial cycle
Outlook
The risk of a recession continues to rise, even though the economy grew in the first quarter. The Fed has neutralized the inflationary impact of the fastest modern era money growth in 2020-2021. Other deposit liabilities (ODL), in real terms, have registered a double-digit decline in the 12 months ended March, with the 24-month change at a negative 5%. Over the past 12 months, real bank credit had declined even before the recent, and highly visible, bank failures and is now unchanged for the past 24 months. Although monthly data is not available before World War II, the latest 12 month decline in M2 is undoubtedly the sharpest since 1934.
Two considerations suggest that the rise in velocity in 2022, and the first quarter of this year, which has thus far interfered with the Fed’s efforts to contain inflation, will reverse. By formula and statistical estimation, velocity lags the business cycle. Since V equals GDP (a coincident variable) divided by money (a leading variable), V must definitionally lag. Econometrically, velocity is determined by the marginal revenue product of debt and the loan to deposit (L/D) ratio, both of which are lagging indicators. The econometrics would be highly questionable if V were determined by leading indicators.
Accordingly, with low or declining economic activity, the inflation rate will continue to recede. Further progress will be made in terms of moving consumer inflation into the Fed's target zone in 2024. Therefore, with the historical pattern of the financial, GDP and price/ labor cycles proceeding on its well documented path, this year’s decline in long-term Treasury bond yields is expected to continue.
Anheuser-Busch’s controversial sponsorship of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney in an advertising campaign for its beer brand Bud Light is just the most recent example of corporations championing progressive causes—and then having to backpedal when they discover that the message proves divisive
In an attempt to quell a backlash among Bud Light drinkers, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth stated on Friday: “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.” Anonymous sources within the company claimed that “no one at a senior level” was aware of the promotional campaign.
Whitworth’s statement echoes the words of Disney CEO Bob Iger in November 2022, following Disney’s vow to fight a parents’ rights law in Florida that barred the teaching of sexual topics in school for children in third grade or younger. While speaking to employees shortly after taking the helm from fired CEO Bob Chapek, who made the decision to fight the Florida law, Iger said,“I was sorry to see us dragged into that battle, and I have no idea exactly what its ramifications are.”
Other corporations who have gone down this path include fashion brands company Balenciaga, which published ads showing pre-school-age girls posed alongside sexual tools and messages in November 2022. In response to a public backlash, Balenciaga issued this statement: “We would like to address the controversies surrounding our recent ad campaigns. We strongly condemn child abuse; it was never our intent to include it in the narrative.”
Bud Light beer cans sit on a table in right field during the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Md., on Sept. 19, 2019. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)
These companies followed in the political footsteps of Major League Baseball, Delta Airlines, and Coca-Cola, who in 2021 fought a voter-ID law in Georgia, alleging that it amounted to racist voter suppression. In the wake of the controversy, a Rasmussen poll found that 37 percent of responders said they were less likely to buy Coca-Cola products, while 25 percent said they were more likely, because of the company’s political stance, which caused the nickname “Woke-a-Cola” to go viral. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 79 percent of voters, including a majority of both Democrats and Republicans, support voter ID laws.
“At this point, it’s clear that corporations are going to be risking customers, employee engagement, and relationships with shareholders if they decide to drive a particular political agenda with their brand and resources,” Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), told The Epoch Times. “There are definitely negative consequences to businesses continuing to go down this path of choosing one side or another in these political debates.”
A 360-Degree Pressure Campaign
Progressives often pressure CEOs to steer companies into the political arena through a system of internal and external pressure. Activist campaigns from employees and outside nonprofits ultimately swayed Chapek to oppose the Florida parents’ rights law, despite his initial hesitation.
Elsewhere, employee and nonprofit campaigns at Netflix attempted to pressure its executives to cancel comedian Dave Chapelle’s show, “The Closer,” claiming that his jokes offended transgender people.
The nonprofit organization Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) stated: “Netflix has a policy that content ‘designed to incite hate or violence’ is not allowed on the platform, but we all know that anti-LGBTQ content does exactly that. While Netflix is home to groundbreaking LGBTQ stories, now is the time for Netflix executives to listen to LGBTQ employees, industry leaders, and audiences and commit to living up to their own standards.”
Virax Biolabs Group Limited ("Virax" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: VRAX), an innovative biotech company focused on the detection of immune responses to and diagnosis of viral diseases, announced today that it has entered into an agreement for the distribution of Marburg Virus PCR testing kits.
The Marburg Virus Real Time PCR Kit is an in-vitro diagnostic test, based on real-time PCR technology, for the detection of ribonucleic acid (better known as RNA) from the Marburg Virus. The Company intends to launch the kit into areas accepting a CE mark.
Abbott Laboratories reported quarterly profit above expectations on Wednesday, underpinned by sales of its diabetes care devices and an improved demand for other devices due to a resumption in non-urgent medical procedures.
Shares of Abbott jumped nearly 3% to $107 in premarket trading.
An improvement in staffing levels at hospitals across the United States, and the easing of pandemic restrictions fueled demand recovery for elective procedures, helping medical device makers generate strong sales this quarter.
Abbott's medical device sales recovery mirrored a trend seen by rival Johnson & Johnson, which posted better-than-expected sales on Tuesday.
Sales of medical devices - Abbott's largest segment - grew 8.5% to $3.90 billion, of which $1.2 billion revenue was clocked in by glucose monitoring device Freestyle Libre. Analysts had estimated the unit's sales to touch $3.77 billion.
Excluding one-off items, the company reported a profit of $1.03 per share for the first quarter ended March 31, higher than analysts' average estimate of 99 cents per share, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
The healthcare giant retained its adjusted profit forecast for this year at $4.30-$4.50 per share, as it expects growth of its non-COVID-testing-related revenue to offset a decline in its test kit sales.
The stronger outlook for its non-COVID business was the main takeaway as investors had priced in a fall in COVID testing sales, J.P. Morgan analyst Robbie Marcus said in a note.
Despite an upbeat view for the rest of its businesses, Abbott lowered its outlook for COVID testing sales and now expects annual revenue of $1.5 billion, down from the $2 billion it forecast in January.
The U.S. government will end the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency on May 11, which is likely to further drag down sales of COVID test kits as people on Medicare or private insurance will face out-of-pocket costs.
