Novo valuation surpasses Tesla on experimental obesity drug data

Novo Nordisk on Thursday surpassed Tesla Inc in market valuation after the maker of the popular weight-loss drug Wegovy announced positive early trial data for a highly anticipated new obesity drug.

Shares surged more than 8% to record highs, shooting Novo Nordisk up in global rankings to the 12th most valuable company from 14 previously, after it told investors a Phase I trial of the pill version of experimental drug amycretin showed participants lost 13.1% of their weight after 12 weeks.

That compares to a weight loss of about 6% after 12 weeks and 15% after 68 weeks in trials for Wegovy, its blockbuster obesity drug.

Investors welcomed the news as indicating Novo had more in its pipeline beyond its hugely successful Wegovy. Its shares have soared since launching the weekly injections in the United States in 2021.

Novo's shares have risen more than three-fold since June 2021 when it launched Wegovy in the United States, last year becoming Europe's most valuable listed company, ahead of LVMH.

On Thursday, its market valuation reached $566 billion, ahead of Tesla and Visa, according to LSEG data.

"Novo has made clear that the amycretin molecule likely will form the foundation of the company's rapidly growing pipeline," said Guggenheim analyst Seamus Fernandez.

Nearly half of Novo's current valuation is based on the company's pipeline of new experimental drugs such as amycretin, according to calculations by Berenberg analysts last week.

Markus Manns, a portfolio manager at Union Investment in Germany and Novo shareholder, said the early read-out also compared favourably with other weight-loss pills in development, such as rival Eli Lilly's orforglipron.

Lilly's mid-stage trial showed its experimental pill led to 14.7% weight loss after 36 weeks for people who were obese or overweight.

The U.S. drugmaker's shares slipped on the upbeat Novo update while shares in Zealand Pharma , which is testing a similar treatment, jumped more than 9%.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/novo-nordisk-present-early-drug-071135073.html

Alabama IVF clinics resuming operations after governor signs law protecting industry

 Two Alabama in vitro fertilization clinics are resuming treatment after the governor signed into law a measure aimed at protecting IVF in light of a state Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos should be considered children.

In a statement on Wednesday night, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said IVF was "a complex issue, no doubt," and anticipated there would be more work to come. "But right now, I am confident that this legislation will provide the assurances our IVF clinics need and will lead them to resume services immediately," she said.

Republicans nationwide have scrambled to contain backlash from a Feb. 16 decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, whose elected judges are all Republican, that left unclear how to legally store, transport and use embryos, prompting some IVF patients to consider moving their frozen embryos out of Alabama.

Democrats have seized on the Alabama court ruling as evidence that reproductive rights are under assault.

Elizabeth Carr, who 42 years ago became the first U.S. baby born through in vitro fertilization, will attend U.S. President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech later on Thursday as a guest of Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who co-sponsored a U.S. bill meant to protect IVF access.

Hours after Ivey signed the Alabama law, Alabama Fertility, one of the three IVF providers in the state that halted treatments after the state supreme court's ruling, announced on social media that "transfers and IVF" would restart this week. Alabama Fertility thanked the law's sponsors in the state legislature for "finding a solution in a complex issue."

The University of Alabama at Birmingham, another IVF provider that had paused procedures after the court ruling, said in a statement on Thursday that it appreciated the swift passage of “legislation that provides some protections and will therefore allow UAB to restart in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.”

It said it was “moving to promptly resume treatments,” but did not specify when they would restart, adding that it would continue to “assess developments.”

Both chambers of the state's Republican-controlled legislature passed the proposal protecting IVF providers from both criminal charges and civil lawsuits after brief debates on Feb. 29.

IVF involves combining eggs and sperm in a laboratory dish to create an embryo for couples having difficulty conceiving. The process typically involves the creation of multiple embryos in order to maximize the chance of a successful pregnancy, leaving some unused.

The Alabama high court issued its ruling in response to three families' lawsuits against a fertility clinic and hospital for failing to properly safeguard their frozen embryos, resulting in their destruction when a patient improperly accessed them.

The ruling was based on the state's 2018 Sanctity of Unborn Life Amendment approved by voters, which supports "the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children."

Alabama's court ruling has raised concerns that those involved in IVF could face prosecution because embryos that are found to be nonviable are sometimes disposed of or used for research.

The bill that Ivey signed would not necessarily mean IVF providers could revert to business as usual, according to its sponsor, Republican state Senator Tim Melson.

Replying to another senator's question about what Alabama IVF providers could do with unused embryos under the proposed law, Melson said during a state Senate debate on Thursday that, as a result of the court ruling some providers told him they planned to start perpetually storing embryos that aren't implanted into a uterus.

"That's going to probably become their policy," he said. "That's not in effect, but that's what they're looking at doing."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-ivf-clinics-resuming-operations-170758186.html

Sexually transmitted infections surge in Europe, latest data show

 Sexually transmitted infections surged across Europe in 2022, with reported cases of gonorrhoea jumping by nearly a half, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said as it released its most recent data on Thursday.

Syphilis cases rose by 34% from the previous year, to more than 35,000, chlamydia cases by 16% to more than 216,000. Gonorrhoea cases jumped by 48% to more than 70,000.

"The numbers paint a stark picture, one that needs our immediate attention and action," said ECDC director Andrea Ammon in a press conference on the data.

Untreated STIs can lead to a range of health problems including chronic pain, infertility and, for syphilis, neurological and cardiovascular complications.

Cases of lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) and congenital syphilis, when the infection is transmitted from mother to foetus, also increased sharply, the ECDC said, although from lower levels.

Rates of STIs have been rising for years in many countries, including in Europe, although this was stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic as most governments imposed social isolation measures, people stayed home and reporting rates fell.

A number of reasons were behind the sustained rise, the ECDC said, including better surveillance and a rise in home-testing as well as an increase in riskier sexual behaviour.

A leap in infections among young heterosexual people in the latest data, and particularly young women, could be due to a change in sexual behaviour post-pandemic, the EU agency said.

It said there was no evidence yet that the rise in gonorrhoea infections was due to antimicrobial resistance, but said it would continue to monitor this. Ammon said the numbers were likely the "tip of the iceberg" as many infections go undetected.

European countries need to focus on testing, treating and prevention efforts, she said, and individuals need to take steps to protect themselves, particularly by using condoms, for example.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sexually-transmitted-infections-surge-europe-110459986.html

State of the Union: Biden to push wealth, company tax ideas

 U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday will escalate a crusade to tax wealthy Americans and large companies more in his State of the Union address, proposing to hike corporate minimum taxes and curb executive pay and corporate jet deductions.

White House officials said Biden will preview the steps that will be part of a proposed fiscal 2025 budget released next week that aims to decrease the federal deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years while cutting taxes for low-income Americans.

The tax plans are expected to form a core part of the Democratic president's re-election campaign, contrasting with Republican candidate Donald Trump, who signed a 2017 law that slashed taxes on companies and the wealthy.

"Congressional Republicans want to cut taxes even more for the wealthy and big corporations, all while adding more than $3 trillion to the debt," said Lael Brainard, director of the White House's National Economic Council. "President Biden has made clear whose side he's on."

Most of Biden's tax proposals have little chance of enactment unless Democrats win strong majorities in both chambers of Congress in November, a sweep that polls suggest is unlikely.

These proposals include Biden's previous calls to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from the current 21%, recouping half of Republicans' 2017 cut.

Biden also now wants to increase to 21% a 15% corporate minimum tax on companies reporting over $1 billion in profit that he won as part of 2022 clean energy legislation.

TAX BREAK CURBS

Biden also will call for Congress to approve far stricter limits on business income deductions for executive pay, limiting them to $1 million for any given employee.

Current law prohibits deductions on compensation for chief executive officers, chief financial officers and other key positions. White House officials said the new proposal would cover all employees paid more than $1 million, and raise more than $250 billion in new corporate tax revenue over 10 years.

Biden will also go after business income deductions for the use of corporate jets, an area already targeted for audits by the Internal Revenue Service. This includes extending the depreciation period for corporate jets to seven years, the same as commercial aircraft, from five years currently, reducing annual deductions, an administration official said.

Biden will renew his "billionaire tax" proposal, which is actually significantly below that level. It imposes a 25% minimum tax on income for those Americans with wealth of more than $100 million.

The average American worker paid about a 25% tax rate in 2022, the OECD reported. White House research found the wealthiest individuals paid about 8% from 2010 to 2018.

Biden will pledge to extend Trump-era tax cuts for those earning under $400,000, call for restoring a COVID-era expansion of the Child Tax Credit that paid eligible families up to $3,600 a year per child, and increase a tax credit for low-wage workers.

As consumers continue to face high prices, Biden also will outline steps that his administration is taking to cut "corporate rip-offs" including added "junk" fees, price gouging and reduced package sizes to hide price hikes. So-called "shrinkflation" was bemoaned on Monday by Sesame Street muppet Cookie Monster in a widely reported X social media post.

After a move this week to cap credit card late fees at $8, Biden also will call for crackdowns on "exploitative" practices with branded credit cards, including devaluing air miles and points.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/state-union-biden-push-wealth-100308200.html

Is it long COVID or long vax? Does the government want to know?

 Millions of Americans are still suffering months or even years after they were infected with COVID. Long COVID as it’s commonly known is a serious and poorly understood problem. But there is also growing evidence that the COVID vaccine could cause a similar disease. 

We need our government health agencies to take a serious look at this condition and stop stigmatizing doctors and patients who report these findings so we can get people the help they need. 

We are critical care physicians with the FLCCC Alliance (the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance) who have treated COVID patients throughout the pandemic. One of us recently opened a private practice focused on patients with long COVID.

In two years, the practice has evaluated and treated over 1,000 individuals. Approximately 70 percent of these patients said their reported symptoms occurred in the minutes, hours, days and weeks after COVID vaccination, as opposed to after COVID infection. This could be tied to a new condition that’s flown under the radar until recently.

This syndrome, dubbed “long vax,” is just starting to make its way into the medical literature. Dr. Harlan Krumholz at the Yale School of Medicine published a survey of 241 patients who described post-COVID vaccination symptoms of exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, numbness, brain fog and neuropathy, a nervous system disorder that can cause pain, tingling sensations, numbness or weakness. Long COVID patients were excluded from the study, which is now undergoing peer review. 

The concern is that our findings, Krumholz’s study, and any reports of adverse events from COVID-19 vaccination, will be subject to the same institutional censorship we saw throughout the pandemic. Suppressing this information risks creating an even bigger disaster.

There is widespread alarm about autoimmune diseases reaching “epidemic levels.” Much of this is attributable to COVID, and there is mounting evidence that COVID vaccinations may have contributed to this trend as well. Similarly, autoimmune diseases, particularly autoimmune rheumatic diseases, can increase a person’s chance of developing long COVID. This means we could see an explosion of long COVID — and long vax — in the months and years ahead.

America’s health agencies need to snap into action to help study this problem so we can better understand and treat these conditions. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much hope of this happening. The National Institutes of Health is fixated on studying the effect of Paxlovid, an antiviral COVID treatment, to treat long COVID and long vax, despite it having no proven effect on autoimmune disease.

At the same time, court cases such as Murthy v. Missouri are challenging the pressure the Biden administration put on social media companies to suppress discussion of alternative COVID treatments while they pushed the mass vaccination campaign. 

As physicians who have dedicated our lives to healing people, we find it hard to stomach that the government has abused its power in this way. Our health agencies have been coopted by industry and political forces, leaving millions of people vulnerable to injury, suffering and death, in many cases without any recourse. Until our leaders in Washington step up and take these problems seriously, it’s up to physicians and affected patients to share our knowledge and forge solutions.

To be sure, the Senate HELP Committee recently took up the issue of long COVID, but it simply was not a serious effort. Without an honest accounting of what went wrong, the last thing we should do is give the government more power over our healthcare decisions.

Pierre Kory, MD is president and chief medical officer and Paul Marik, MD is chief scientific officer at the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.  

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4512451-is-it-long-covid-or-long-vax-does-the-government-want-to-know/

'National Guard Deployed to New York Subways Raises Questions'

 The New York governor's plan to send hundreds of National Guard members to patrol New York City's subway system has drawn sharp criticism.

Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that she would deploy 750 members of the National Guard and 250 state troopers, along with officers from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to assist city police with bag searches.

It follows a series of high-profile crimes on city trains in recent years, including an attack last week on a train conductor, who was slashed in the neck by an unknown assailant.

Announcing the plan, Hochul said: "No one heading to their job or to visit family or to go to a doctor appointment should worry that the person sitting next to them possesses a deadly weapon... They shouldn't worry about whether someone's going to brandish a knife or gun.

"For people who are thinking about bringing a gun or knife on the subway, at least this creates a deterrent effect. They might be thinking, 'You know what, it just may not be worth it because I listened to the mayor and I listened to the governor and they have a lot more people who are going to be checking my bags.'"

However Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the announcement was "another unfortunate example of policymaking through overreaction and overreach."

"Sound policy making will not come from overreacting to incidents that, while horrible and tragic, should not be misrepresented as a crime wave and certainly don't call for a reversion to failed broken windows policies of the past," Lieberman said.

John Miller, a former NYPD deputy commissioner, told CNN that the National Guard are not police and have been deployed to provide a visible presence for commuters.

But he added: "The real question is whether the visible presence of National Guard, people in uniform with machine guns, is going to make riders feel safer or more ill at ease?"

Kathy Hochul, the New York Governor, said that "no one heading to their job... should worry that the person sitting next to them possesses a deadly weapon."ADAM GRAY/GETTY IMAGES

Riders Alliance, a New York commuter advocacy group, added that the deployment would have the opposite psychological impact to that intended.

"While well-intentioned, deploying troops to the subway is more likely to increase the perception of crime among people who don't ride public transit than to protect the millions of people on platforms and trains," Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman, said.

Meanwhile, many commentators online have questioned why National Guard members have been deployed to the New York subway system amid the migrant crisis at the Texas-Mexico border.

One person wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "New York can put National Guard searching people like maniacs in the subway, but Texas can't on the border. Got it. Blue privilege."

Another commentator wrote: "Two years ago I escaped a shooting attack in New York's subway (luckily no one was hurt), so I know well how dangerous it can get. But to send the National Guard to bring more security is another symptom of the societal collapse of the 'Land of the Free'."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams sent in an additional 1,000 police officers to the subway system in February after an uptick in crime.SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

Crimes on the New York subway system were down 15 percent in February compared to last year, according to police data. Crime has also dropped overall in New York City since a spike during the COVID pandemic.

But Hochul said that "rattling off" crime statistics was not reassuring for commuters. "Saying things are getting better doesn't make you feel better, especially when you've just heard about someone being stabbed in the throat or thrown onto the subway tracks. There's a psychological impact," she said.

Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, also announced recently that he had sent in an additional 1,000 police officers to the subway system in February after an uptick in crime in January.

https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-national-guard-deployed-subway-backlash-kathy-hochul-1876773

Andrew Cuomo Subpoenaed In GOP-Led Probe Of Nursing Home COVID Deaths

  by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

More than two years after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, a House subcommittee on Tuesday issued a subpoena for him to testify about COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes across the state during his tenure.

In a letter to the former governor, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic demanded that he testify about his March 2020 directive that ordered long-term care facilities to take in patients infected with COVID.

“This misguided decision effectively admitted thousands of COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes, causing predictable but deadly consequences for New York’s most vulnerable,” the Republican-led subcommittee told Mr. Cuomo, who was hailed by Democrats and members of the mainstream media for his leadership during the early days of the pandemic.

In addition to the March 2020 order itself, the subcommittee said they have found “troubling evidence” suggesting the Cuomo administration “at best downplayed” the order’s impact and “at worst covered them up.”

Death Numbers

One example the subcommittee cited is a January 2021 report complied by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who recently gained national attention for initiating a civil lawsuit that led to a historic $454 million fine on former President Donald Trump.

In that 76-page report, Ms. James rebuked the Cuomo administration’s official tally of about 8,700 nursing home residents who died from COVID-19, accusing the state of depressing the death toll by only counting those that occurred in the facilities while leaving out anyone who had died after being transferred to a hospital.

Extrapolating from a survey of about 10 percent of New York’s nursing homes, Ms. James estimated that the actual number of COVID deaths related to such facilities “may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent.” Just hours after the report’s release, the state’s Department of Health (DOH) added some 3,800 hospital deaths, bringing the official number up to 12,473.

In the week following the report, the state DOH website updated the number again, which was then 13,163. A week after that, a group of Senate Democrats released a letter the Cuomo administration gave them. That letter raised the total COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes and other adult-care facilities to 15,049, apparently underscoring Ms. James’ estimate.

‘Unwillingness to Cooperate’

The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), said they have been contacting Mr. Cuomo to schedule a voluntary interview since last March. However, the former governor “repeatedly and consistently dismissed, deflected, or ignored all questions or requests” from the lawmakers, leaving them no choice but to issue a subpoena compelling his testimony.

“Your unwillingness to seriously cooperate with our requests and to negotiate a reasonable date to participate in a transcribed interview has unjustifiably delayed our investigation,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “This is unacceptable.”

Rita Galvin, an attorney for Mr. Cuomo, disputed such characterization, saying that she had previously provided the subcommittee with multiple dates for an August interview but never got any response until Tuesday.

“To be clear, Governor Cuomo has been and remains cooperative,” Ms. Glavin wrote in a letter to the subcommittee, urging the lawmakers to “reconsider issuing a subpoena.”

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Mr. Cuomo, called the subpoena an “obvious press charade.” The former governor’s pandemic response, he said, has been reviewed by the Justice Department of both Trump and Biden administrations, as well as Congress and the Manhattan District Attorney, but none resulted in any charges.

“New York followed the guidance put forth by the Trump administration in March of 2020—as did other Democratic and Republican states,” Mr. Azzopardi said in a statement. “If they have a problem with that, they should look in the mirror. Congress knows this, but it’s not about the facts, this is about politics.”

A three-term governor and celebrated Democrat superstar who won an Emmy for his daily COVID briefings, Mr. Cuomo stepped down in August 2021, about a year after he reached the heights of his political career.

Although Mr. Cuomo’s downfall began with the scandal surrounding COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes, it was a series of allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate workplace behavior that dealt a fatal blow to his political future. His resignation announcement came just one week after Ms. James released a separate report that gave credence to his accusers, paying the way for then-Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul to become the first woman to be elected to the Empire State’s top political office.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/andrew-cuomo-subpoenaed-gop-led-probe-nursing-home-covid-deaths