Lenders to struggling private equity-owned companies have had a rough time of late, regularly getting whacked with heavy losses after fierce refinancing battles. But their compadres who binged in recent years on junk credit from Europe’s tycoon business builders won’t have much sympathy.
While buyout firms have had to keep at least one eye on future relations with the creditor community, individuals who’ve built their trouble-hit empires from scratch have been tougher adversaries, according to several market participants. In the words of one key lender to telecoms billionaire Patrick Drahi, who asked to stay anonymous discussing a sensitive matter, these owners are ready to burn a business to the ground rather than give it up.
Company aims to accelerate access to much-needed biosimilar to reference medicine Enbrel®* for US patients with disabling inflammatory diseases
Despite FDA approval nearly a decade ago, etanercept biosimilar continues to be blocked
Sandoz seeking damages in addition to clearing path for launch
Sandoz (SIX:SDZ/OTCQX:SDZNY), the global leader in generic and biosimilar medicines, today announced the filing of an antitrust lawsuit in the US against Amgen, Inc. (Amgen), for extending and entrenching the dominant market position of its blockbuster medicine, Enbrel® (etanercept), first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998.
Etanercept is a biologic medicine used to treat a range of disabling inflammatory diseases. Sandoz alleges that Amgen blocked competition from more cost-effective biosimilar competitors, including Sandoz etanercept biosimilar, Erelzi®+ (etanercept-szzs), by unlawfully purchasing and using certain patent rights to entrench its position in the market. In 2024, Enbrel® generated USD 3.3 billion in revenue in the US[1].
Sandoz received US FDA approval for Erelzi® in 2016, the same year the company launched the medicine in Europe. Today, Amgen is continuing to block entry of this important treatment option for approximately 7.5 million Americans living with chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis[2-6], many of whom could benefit from the cost savings and expanded access resulting from the introduction of high-quality, more-affordable biosimilar options.
Sandoz is seeking an injunction to prevent Amgen from using certain patent rights to block biosimilar competition and allow Sandoz to launch Erelzi® as soon as possible. The company is also seeking damages, which could be tripled under applicable laws. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
An estimated 530,000 tons of food and 45 million gallons of milk arewasted in our nation’s school cafeteriasannually — 31% of vegetables and 25% of milk purchased.
Taxpayers lay out $1.7 billion at the front end to buy and cook this squandered food, and more on the back end to truck it to landfills.
Taxpayers lay out $1.7 billion at the front end to buy and cook this squandered food, and more on the back end to truck it to landfills.AP
Blame it on our federal school lunch regulations.
I lead a network of 57 charter schools serving 22,000 students. At a school we’re building in The Bronx, we’re creating a restaurant-quality kitchen so we can cook high-quality food from scratch.
However, Washington’s many inane and wasteful requirements make that aim virtually impossible.
For example, we must serve fruits and vegetables to students who refuse to eat them.
Even if it’s the last day of school and a child has thrown out his apple for 179 days in a row, we have to give him another one.
But the biggest problem with federal school-lunch rules is their mind-blowing complexity.
The regulations run 47,920 words — nearly seven times that of the Constitution and all 27 amendments combined.
I’d like to hire a cook who can make affordable, healthy meals like roast chicken, scalloped potatoes and hearty soups, someone who keeps costs down by throwing leftover vegetables into a stew and using what’s in season or on sale.
They require us to use standardized recipes, tested to ensure they meet federal requirements, and to follow them religiously.
The rules are so complicated that any cook I hire would also need a law degree.
They specify five different categories of vegetables: dark green; red/orange; beans, peas and lentils; starch, and other. We must use minimum amounts of each of these five subgroups every week.
And not equal amounts, mind you. That would be too easy.
We must serve ¾ cups per week of red/orange vegetables but only ½ cup of dark green ones.
Unless the dark green vegetables are leafy greens, in which case you need a full cup.
And don’t make the mistake of thinking that bean sprouts, Brussels sprouts, green beans and green peppers count as dark green vegetables. For some reason they don’t, although mesclun, romaine and watercress do.
And suppose our cooks want to offer a vegetarian alternative to the meat requirement. No problem!
They just need to make sure it meets 2,563 words’ worth of requirements, including gems like this: “Each 100 grams of the product (on a 13% moisture basis) must contain protein in amounts which is equivalent to that provided by 20 grams of protein with a quality of not less than 95% casein. The equivalent grams of protein required per 100 grams of product (on a 13% moisture basis) would be determined by the following equation: x=ab/c.”
All these rules are so complex that only a large corporation can master them.
The bureaucrats also impose unnecessary bookkeeping burdens on schools, forcing us to record not only exactly how many lunches we serve each day, but which students eat.
The program could simply reimburse schools based on the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, and just use attendance records to figure out how many missed lunch due to absence.
Instead, the federal government requires states to maintain a bevy of bureaucrats to make us follow their rules — and then employs its own bureaucrats to police the state bureaucrats.
Up and down the line, from DC to the local school kitchen, the program forces vast resources to be spent on compliance that could go toward buying good ingredients and paying good cooks.
Congress passed the School Lunch Act in 1946 because the military found during World War II that recruits who had grown up during the Depression weren’t fit for service due to childhood malnourishment.
Things have changed since then. Nutrition is still important, but it’s not a national security issue.
The federal government has plenty of work that only it can do: fighting terrorism, regulating the stock market, approving pharmaceuticals and more.
Figuring out how to feed our children nutritious meals is something that can and should be left to local communities — or better yet, to the schools themselves.
But once a federal program has been established, the people who run it find it impossible to imagine that their jobs shouldn’t exist.
I don’t blame them. It’s human nature.
But that’s why it’s so refreshing to see a new president bring inoutsiders from the private sectorto take a hard look at where government can be pared away.
The school lunch bureaucracy is a good place to start.
Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.
A bombshell Politico investigation reveals that1199 SEIUboss George Gresham has used the union as his personal “piggy bank” to benefit himself, his family and his allies — information exposed only as the leader of the powerful health-care workers union is embroiled in a hotly contested election.
1199 SEIU President George Gresham speaking at the National Action Network’s annual convention at the Sheraton Hotel in New York, NY on April 2, 2025.Christopher Sadowski
His rivals accuse the chronically ill Gresham (who draws a $300,000 salary) of numerous misappropriations, including:
$60,000 to cover his daughter’s room, board and transportation to accompany him on business trips as his caregiver.
Over $300,000 on a “get out the vote” concert series that coincided with Gresham family reunions.
$17,000 on a hotel next to Montefiore Medical Center when he was receiving dialysis treatment.
$86,000 for flights to South Africa in 2014 and 2018.
A no-show union job that’s paid a Grisham ally over $1 million since 2009.
Grisham loyalists at the top of 1199 insist it’s all kosher; the dissidents challenging him in this month’s election cite the “pattern of financial misappropriation” as why they’re running to unseat him . . . though the apparent abuse goes back two decades, suggesting that any abuse wasn’t too objectionable until flagging it served their own ambitions.
With 450,000 members across four states and DC, 1199 is the nation’s largest health-care union and a huge force in New York politics.
That likely makes it too potent a power in Democratic politics for NY Attorney General Tish James to investigate, but that’s no reason the Trump administration can’t start digging — no matter which side comes out on top.
Goldman Sachs expects oil prices to decline through the end of this year and next year because of the rising risk of a recession and higher supply from the OPEC+ group.
The bank expects Brent and WTI oil prices to edge down, averaging $63 and $59 a barrel, respectively, for the remainder of 2025, and $58 and $55 in 2026.
Given the weak growth outlook amid a global trade war, the bank expects that oil demand will rise by only 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) between the end of last year and the end of 2025.
The bank has cut its global demand growth forecasts for the fourth quarter of 2026 by 900,000 barrels-per-day since mid-March due to an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China.
Beijing increased its tariffs on U.S. imports to 125% on Friday, hitting back against President Donald Trump’s decision to raise duties on Chinese goods and raising the stakes in a trade war that threatens to upend global supply chains.
The Wall Street brokerage forecasts that despite the market already accounting for some future inventory builds, large surpluses of 800,000 bpd in 2025 and 1.4 million bpd in 2026 will continue to exert downward pressure on oil prices.
In a scenario of a global economic slowdown or a complete reversal of the 2.2 million bpd of voluntary cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, together called OPEC+, Brent oil prices could likely fall into the $40 range in 2026, and potentially drop below $40 in an extreme combined scenario, the bank said.
Brent crude futures slipped to trade around $64.72 a barrel as of 0155 GMT on Monday, while WTI futures were at $61.44. [O/R]
Goldman Sachs also lowered its U.S. shale supply forecast for the fourth quarter of 2026 by 500,000 bpd.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was pressed on stage at TED this weekend in a pointed and, at times, tense exchange with TED’s Chris Anderson, as questions about AI safety, openness, and corporate responsibility took center stage.
The session took a dramatic turn when Anderson revealed—seemingly by accident—that OpenAI’s user base had doubled in mere weeks. “Ten percent of the world now uses our systems a lot,” Altman admitted.
Altman confirmed the figure, noting 500 million weekly active users, but was visibly surprised by the disclosure. “I said that privately,” he replied, prompting a mix of laughter and raised eyebrows from the audience.
The conversation shifted swiftly from usage scale to safety risks. Altman described experiencing no "scary moments" yet, only awe, and rejected suggestions that OpenAI is concealing a conscious or self-improving model.
He acknowledged that the stakes are rising. “Agentic AI is the most interesting and consequential safety problem we’ve faced,” he said, calling it a far more serious challenge than past developments.
Pressed on OpenAI’s evolving societal role, Altman framed its products as extensions of self—tools that will soon “proactively push things to you.” Critics warn this raises profound privacy and autonomy concerns.
In a candid moment, Altman walked back his 2023 call for a federal licensing body to regulate large AI models. “I’ve since learned more about how government works,” he said. “It’s not the right framework.”
Altman also hinted at OpenAI’s pivot toward open source, citing competitor DeepSeek’s influence. “We were late to act, but we’re going to do really well now,” he said, teasing a powerful open-source release “near the frontier.”
Strategists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut their targets for key Chinese stock indexes for a second time this month, citing heightened trade tensions with the US.
“US-China trade tensions have soared to unprecedented levels, prompting concerns about global recession, and decoupling risks between the two largest economies globally in other strategic cohorts, notably capital markets, technology, and geopolitics,” a team led by Kinger Lau wrote in a note Monday.
