NVIDIA Partners With Novo Nordisk and DCAI to Advance Drug Discovery

 NVIDIA GTC Paris at VivaTech — NVIDIA today announced a collaboration with Novo Nordisk to accelerate drug discovery efforts through innovative AI use cases. The work supports Novo Nordisk’s agreement with DCAI to use the Gefion sovereign AI supercomputer.

The companies aim to create customized AI models and agents that Novo Nordisk can use for early research and clinical development and to apply advanced simulation and physical AI technologies.

“AI is essential for every industry, and there’s no other field that will benefit more from acceleration than drug discovery,” said Rory Kelleher, senior director of business development for life sciences at NVIDIA. “Working with Novo Nordisk, we’re advancing critical R&D applications with fundamental tools that can harness the full potential of generative and agentic AI to improve pharmaceutical development.”

Novo Nordisk Taps Advanced AI to Accelerate Innovation
DCAI’s Gefion supercomputer, powered by NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD™, provides Novo Nordisk an AI factory for running drug discovery and agentic AI workloads. Novo Nordisk will use NVIDIA BioNeMo™ for generative AI-powered drug discovery, NVIDIA NIM™ and NVIDIA NeMo™ microservices for building customized agentic workflows, and the NVIDIA Omniverse™ platform to create physically accurate simulation environments for developing physical AI applications.

Novo Nordisk researchers will focus on several AI research programs, including using single-cell models to predict cellular responses to drug candidates and structures, as well as designing models to build molecules with drug-like properties. The companies will also collaborate on tapping Novo Nordisk’s vast global scientific literature to build biomedical large language models, enabling researchers to uncover correlations between genes, proteins and diseases.

https://www.biospace.com/press-releases/nvidia-partners-with-novo-nordisk-and-dcai-to-advance-drug-discovery

Starbucks accelerates new staffing model to all North American stores

 Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol told Reuters on Tuesday that he would accelerate the rollout of the coffeehouse chain's new staffing and service model, aiming for all 18,000 North American stores by summer's end, rather than the initial plan for just a third of U.S. stores by year-end.

Niccol says the model is a foundational element of his turnaround strategy for the company, as he bets on an improved in-store customer experience to reclaim the sales growth that has eluded Starbucks in recent quarters. 

Niccol said early tests of the model have sped up service times and grown sales, without providing specifics. "We've learned, and now we know what we need to do, so let's scale it," he told Reuters at the company's three-day leadership summit in Las Vegas on Tuesday. 

The Green Apron model includes in-store technology to more efficiently sequence orders, as well as a dedicated barista for drive-through orders. Starbucks rolled out the service changes to 700 stores initially. During the company's April 29 quarterly earnings call, Niccol said it would be introduced in a third of U.S. stores by year-end. 

Niccol took over as Starbucks CEO in September with a plan to return the chain to its coffeehouse roots, focusing on the in-store experience and away from a reliance on mobile and to-go orders, in what the company calls "Back to Starbucks." The goal is to get baristas to get customers their orders in four minutes or less. 

He did not share any financial figures about the cost of the Green Apron model's deployment, but said the company would host an investor day in 2026. The Las Vegas summit, the company's first since 2019, is hosting more than 14,000 managers and other company leaders. 

Analysts and investors have wondered how long Niccol will need to turn the company around. Shares have gained 11% over the last five years, compared with an 88% rise in the broad-market S&P 500. TD Cowen recently downgraded its rating of Starbucks to "hold" from "buy", saying in part that it believed Niccol's turnaround would take longer than expected to deliver results. 

Niccol said the transition will take time. Starbucks has not issued annual guidance, and Niccol told investors in an earnings call earlier this year that earnings-per-share "shouldn't be used as a measure of our success" at this stage, instead pointing to in-store metrics like average wait times for orders. He said the transition's effect on earnings would be temporary. 

On Tuesday, he emphasized his goal isn't to achieve short-term performance solely through cost reduction. As Starbucks increases investments in its labor and elsewhere, Niccol said he would be "ruthless" in cutting expenses not related to the company's turnaround. "We have to be critical of where we're spending if it's not driving toward the Back to Starbucks strategy and growth programs."

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/STARBUCKS-CORPORATION-4905/news/Starbucks-accelerates-new-staffing-model-to-all-North-American-stores-50206825/

Novavax's COVID-flu combo and standalone flu shots improve immunity in late-stage study

 Novavax's experimental COVID-19-influenza combination and standalone influenza vaccines showed strong immune responses in some patients tested in a late-stage study, the company said on Wednesday.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/NOVAVAX-INC-58256108/news/Novavax-s-COVID-flu-combo-and-standalone-flu-shots-improve-immunity-in-late-stage-study-50213371/

General Mills mulls sale of China Haagen-Dazs stores

 General Mills is considering selling its Haagen-Dazs ice-cream stores in China, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company may seek several hundred million dollars for the assets in a sale process that could begin this year, the report added.

The discussions are in early stages and the company may not pursue a sale, the report said, adding that General Mills (NYSE:GIS) intends to continue selling Haagen-Dazs in places such as supermarkets and convenience stores in China.

General Mills has been undergoing a restructuring and said last month that it would record a charge of about $70 million in its current quarter. The restructuring efforts, estimated at around $130 million, are expected to be completed by the end of its fiscal year 2028.

Packaged food companies including McCormick (NYSE:MKC), General Mills and Conagra Brands (NYSE:CAG) have faced slowing demand as sticky inflation has compelled budget-conscious customers to hunt for value even for essential items such as groceries.

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/general-mills-mulls-sale-of-china-haagendazs-stores-bloomberg-news-reports-4090230

'U.S. economy to avoid recession even after tariff hike - Wells Fargo'

 The U.S. economy is expected to avoid recession, even though the tariff “tax hike” was among the top three of the past 60 years, according to the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. 

"U.S. tariff increases have been unexpectedly aggressive and, in our view, should be seen as a substantial tax increase," Wells Fargo said in a note.

Economic policy has taken center stage in Wells Fargo's 2025 outlook.

However, key supports will help the U.S. economy to avoid a recession and also see a mild recovery from late 2025 through 2026, Jennifer Timmerman, investment strategy analyst at Wells Fargo, said.

"We also expect more positive forces to kick in late in 2025, including tax cuts, lower short-term interest rates, and improved purchasing power from oil-price declines and solid real (inflation-adjusted) income growth," Timmerman added. 

 

Wells Fargo Investment Institute
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/u-s-economy-to-avoid-recession-even-after-tariff-hike-wells-fargo/ar-AA1GuJ9i?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds

OpenAI's Sam Altman Says Going To Take More Time With Open-Weights Model

 The release of OpenAI's first open model in years will be delayed until later this summer, CEO Sam Altman announced in a post on X on Tuesday. Altman said the open model would be released sometime after June.

"[W]e are going to take a little more time with our open-weights model, i.e. expect it later this summer but not [J]une," he wrote. "[O]ur research team did something unexpected and quite amazing and we think it will be very very worth the wait, but needs a bit longer."

OpenAI was targeting an early summer release date for its open model, which is slated to have similar "reasoning" capabilities to OpenAI's o-series of models. OpenAI aims for its open model to top the performance of other open reasoning models, such as DeepSeek's R1.

In the months since OpenAI first announced its intent to release an open model, the space has become more competitive. On Tuesday, Mistral — another AI lab that often releases open models — released its first family of AI reasoning models, called Magistral. In April, the Chinese AI lab Qwen released a family of hybrid AI reasoning models that can switch off between taking time to "reason" through problems and also giving traditional, quick responses.

Beyond increasing its performance on benchmarks, OpenAI has also considered adding several complex features to its open AI model to make it more competitive. TechCrunch previously reported that OpenAI leaders have discussed enabling the open AI model to connect to the company's cloud-hosted AI models for complex queries. However, it's unclear if these features will make it into the final open model.

The release of OpenAI's open model seems to be important for the company's relationship with researchers and developers. Altman has previously said that OpenAI has landed on the "wrong side of history" when it comes to open sourcing its models. To rectify that image, the company faces immense pressure to release an open model that is competitive with the industry's best open offerings.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openais-open-model-delayed-233422549.html

NewAmsterdam links lipid-lowering drug to improvement in Alzheimer's cognition biomarker

 NewAmsterdam Pharma’s push to show a cholesterol drug can prevent Alzheimer’s disease has passed another test. The phase 3 sub-study tracked significant changes in an Alzheimer’s biomarker, adding to evidence that CETP inhibition may cut the risk of developing the neurodegenerative disease.

Transatlantic biotech NewAmsterdam primarily licensed obicetrapib from Amgen to restart the industry’s stalled attempt to establish CETP inhibitors in cardiovascular disease. However, the biotech also spotted chances to expand beyond its core indications, leading it to enroll 1,727 people with Alzheimer’s risk factors in sub-study of its phase 3 obicetrapib.

The sub-study participants were carriers of ApoE3/4 or 4/4. Patients who took obicetrapib for 12 months had significant reductions in the biomarker p-tau217 compared to their counterparts on placebo. The result was statistically significant in the full Alzheimer’s population and in the 367 ApoE4 carriers.

Other researchers have found p-tau217 predicts cognitive decline, but NewAmsterdam is yet to show its drug candidate improves outcomes in people at risk of Alzheimer’s. The sub-study looked at a range of biomarkers beyond p-tau217. NewAmsterdam’s press release lacks data on the secondary endpoints.

NewAmsterdam CEO Michael Davidson, M.D., said in a statement that the “findings strongly support a potential preventive strategy for Alzheimer's disease.” Shares in the biotech rose 9% to $22 in premarket trading.

Interest in using obicetrapib in Alzheimer’s is mostly built on preclinical and genetic data. Rodents that lack the CETP gene are resistant to Alzheimer’s. Mice with the human CETP gene have more cholesterol in their brains. 

Cholesterol is part of a healthy brain—which contains more of the substance than other organs—and is cleared by ApoE. Yet, excess cholesterol in cell membranes may fuel development of amyloid plaques. There is evidence that ApoE4, an Alzheimer’s risk factor, is less effective at clearing cholesterol. As such, NewAmsterdam has proposed that using obicetrapib to remove cholesterol could prevent Alzheimer’s.

The sub-study data add to the results of a phase 2a trial NewAmsterdam ran in 13 patients with early Alzheimer’s and at least one copy of ApoE4. The biotech tracked reductions in cholesterol in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/newamsterdam-links-lipid-lowering-drug-improvement-alzheimers-cognition-biomarker