Sanofi (SNY) is making strategic moves to enhance its position in the pharmaceutical market. In collaboration with AstraZeneca, the company is preparing for the early Q3 shipment of Beyfortus, its infant RSV protection therapy. This initiative is aimed at ensuring the treatment's widespread availability by the 2025-2026 RSV season. The companies have significantly ramped up their production capabilities to cater to the rising demand for this important therapy.
CollPlant Biotechnologies (NASDAQ: CLGN), a regenerative and aesthetics medicine company developing innovative technologies and products based on its plant-derived, Type I recombinant human collagen (rhCollagen) for tissue regeneration and medical aesthetics, today announced the expansion of its agreement with STEMCELL Technologies, a biotechnology company that develops and supplies specialized cell culture media, tools, and services to support research in stem cell biology, regenerative medicine, immunology, and related life sciences. The amended agreement broadens the use of CollPlant's rhCollagen, extending beyond research applications to include clinical development and commercial-scale manufacturing.
Shipping activity at major West Coast ports has plummeted, with the Port of Los Angeles averaging just five ships a day — down from a typical dozen — and job orders for dockworkers falling by nearly 50%, according to port officials.
On a typical June day, the Port of Los Angeles would be buzzing with activity — about a dozen ships arriving from Asia, containers being unloaded, and cargo moving quickly across the country.
Shipping activity at major West Coast ports has plummeted, with the Port of Los Angeles averaging just five ships a day — down from a typical dozen.Getty Images
“We’ve averaged about five ships a day,” Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, told Bloomberg News.
“Job orders for our dock workers are down nearly 50%.”
That drop isn’t just a temporary blip. It’s part of a larger slowdown linked to President Donald Trump’s trade war with China — a policy shift that’s been quietly wreaking havoc on West Coast port cities like Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma.
While most of the attention around tariffs has focused on rising prices and stock market swings, the economic damage to these cities has gone under the radar.
These ports depend heavily on trade with Asia, especially China.
Even a recent truce between the two countries has done little to reverse the trend. Data released Monday by the Chinese government showed that exports to the US tumbled 35% in May compared to the year before — the steepest drop since COVID lockdowns froze trade in early 2020.
A container ship is docked at the Port of Los Angeles. Job orders for dockworkers fell by nearly 50%, according to port officials.Getty Images
That followed a 21% drop in April. While China’s shipments to places like Southeast Asia and Europe are on the rise, they haven’t been enough to balance out the loss in US-bound cargo. All told, China’s overall exports rose just 4.8% last month, well below forecasts.
Long Beach — along with Los Angeles — operates the biggest port complex in the US. Roughly 60% of its trade is with China.
In 2022 alone, the ports pumped about $300 billion into the Los Angeles County economy and brought in $93 billion in tax revenue.
One in five jobs in the region — from truck drivers to warehouse workers — is tied to the ports. More than 70% of dockworkers live within 10 miles.
But with fewer ships arriving, the impact is spreading. The Port of Oakland saw cargo volumes fall 15% in April. Los Angeles has already had 17 ship cancellations in May, and another 10 were scrapped in June.
New government data also shows a sharp nationwide drop in imports.
Mayor Rex Richardson of Long Beach told Bloomberg News that his city, home to about 450,000 people, is especially vulnerable.
Meanwhile, West Coast leaders like Seroka say their attempts to engage with the federal government have gone nowhere. Despite serving on an advisory panel for the US Trade Representative’s Office, Seroka says his calls to the Trump administration have been ignored.
Instead, he’s been holding regular press conferences to sound the alarm.
On Wednesday, he stood alongside Los Angeles City Council member Tim McOsker, who represents the port district. McOsker didn’t hold back, saying: “This is a mistake for absolutely no reason. There’s no one who can describe why we’re going through this.”
Trump is seen left with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019. Chinese exports have plummeted.REUTERS
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was also critical of the tariffs, saying: “It’s a tax on individuals and their families.”
Seroka warned that the pain won’t stay confined to California.
Since ports are on the front line of the economy, they feel shocks early — before the ripple effects hit stores, factories and households across the country.
“As the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach go,” Seroka said, “so goes the US economy.”
Shares of Citius Oncology Inc (NASDAQ:CTOR) soared by 33% following the announcement of a distribution services agreement with Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH), a major player in pharmaceutical and specialty pharmaceutical distribution services in the United States. The partnership aims to facilitate the U.S. commercial launch of LYMPHIR™, an FDA-approved immunotherapy for the treatment of relapsed or refractory cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL).
Citius Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:CTXR), the parent company of Citius Oncology, also saw its shares climb by 6.7%.
The distribution agreement is a strategic move for Citius Oncology as it prepares to introduce LYMPHIR™ to the market. Leonard Mazur, Chairman and CEO of Citius Oncology and Citius Pharmaceuticals, expressed confidence in the partnership, stating, "This agreement marks a key step forward in our launch readiness efforts." He emphasized that Cardinal Health’s distribution expertise will ensure efficient and reliable access to LYMPHIR™ for healthcare providers and patients, as the company aims to establish a strong commercial distribution network.
Axsome Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AXSM) received a Refusal to File (RTF) letter from the FDA regarding their New Drug Application for AXS-14 (esreboxetine) for fibromyalgia management. The FDA found the application incomplete, specifically citing issues with the second placebo-controlled trial's 8-week primary endpoint and flexible-dose paradigm. The first trial, using a 12-week endpoint and fixed-dose paradigm, was deemed adequate. Notably, both trials met their primary endpoints, and the FDA didn't question the positive results. In response, Axsome will conduct an additional controlled trial with a fixed-dose paradigm and 12-week primary endpoint, planned to start in Q4 2025. The drug aims to address approximately 17 million U.S. fibromyalgia patients' needs, having shown promising results in improving pain, function, and fatigue symptoms.
After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple will try to regain its footing Monday at its annualWorldwide Developers Conference.
The pre-summer rite, which attracts thousands of developers to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, is expected to be more subdued than the feverish anticipation that surrounded the event during the previous two years.
In 2023, Apple unveiled a mixed-reality headset that has been little more than a niche product, and last year WWDC trumpeted its first major foray into the AI craze with an array of new features highlighted by the promise of a smarter and more versatile version of its virtual assistant, Siri.
But heading into this year’s showcase, Apple faces nagging questions about whether the nearly 50-year-old company has lost some of the mystique and innovative drive that turned it into a tech trendsetter. Instead of making a big splash as it did with the Vision Pro headset, Apple this year is expected to focus on an overhaul of its software that may include a new, more tactile look for the iPhone’s native apps and a new nomenclature for identifying its operating system updates.
Even though it might look like Apple is becoming a technological laggard, Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson contends the company still has ample time to catch up in an AI race that’s “more of a marathon, than a sprint. It will force Apple to evolve its operating systems.”
If reports about its iOS naming scheme pan out, Apple will switch to a method that automakers have used to telegraph their latest car models by linking them to the year after they first arrive at dealerships. That would mean the next version of the iPhone operating system due out this autumn will be known as iOS 26 instead of iOS 19 — as it would be under the current sequential naming approach.
Whatever it’s named, the next iOS will likely be released as a free update in September, around the same time as the next iPhone models if Apple follows its usual road map.
Meanwhile, Apple’s references to AI may be less frequent than last year when the technology was the main attraction.
While some of the new AI tricks compatible with the latest iPhones began rolling out late last year as part of free software updates, Apple still hasn’t been able to soup up Siri in the ways that it touted at last year’s conference. The delays became so glaring that a chastened Apple retreated from promoting Siri in its AI marketing campaigns earlier this year.
“It’s just taking a bit longer than we thought,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts last month when asked about the company’s headaches with Siri. “But we are making progress, and we’re extremely excited to get the more personal Siri features out there.”
While Apple has been struggling to make AI that meets its standards, the gap separating it from other tech powerhouses is widening. Google keeps packing more AI into its Pixel smartphone lineup while introducing more of the technology into its search engine to dramatically change the way it works. Samsung, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is also leaning heavily into AI. Meanwhile, ChatGPT recently struck a deal that will bring former Apple design guru Jony Ive into the fold to work on a new device expected to compete against the iPhone.
“While much of WWDC will be about what the next great thing is for the iPhone, the unspoken question is: What’s the next great thing after the iPhone?” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, another analyst for Forrester Research.
Besides facing innovation challenges, Apple also faces regulatory threats that could siphon away billions of dollars in revenue that help finance its research and development. A federal judge is currently weighing whether proposed countermeasures to Google’s illegal monopoly in search should include a ban on long-running deals worth $20 billion annually to Apple while another federal judge recently banned the company from collecting commission on in-app transactions processed outside its once-exclusive payment system.
On top of all that, Apple has been caught in the cross-hairs of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, a key manufacturing hub for the Cupertino, California, company. Cook successfully persuaded Trump to exempt the iPhone from tariffs during the president’s first administration, but he has had less success during Trump’s second term, which seems more determined to prod Apple to make its products in the U.S..
“The trade war and uncertainty linked to the tariff policy is of much more concern today for Apple’s business than the perception that Apple is lagging behind on AI innovation,” Husson said.
The multi-dimensional gauntlet facing Apple is spooking investors, causing the company’s stock price to plunge by nearly 20% so far this year — a decline that has erased $750 billion in shareholder wealth. After beginning the year as the most valuable company in the world, Apple now ranks third behind long-time rival Microsoft, another AI leader, and AI chipmaker Nvidia.