Amgen has launched a late-stage program to test the feasibility of switching patients from weekly GLP-1 injections to its own investigational obesity asset MariTide, which could open up monthly or more infrequent dosing schedules.
In the lucrative and increasingly competitive obesity arena, Amgen isn’t looking to play third fiddle to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Instead, the California–based pharma is looking to chart a new paradigm with its weight-loss candidate MariTide, providing patients with not just efficacy but also convenience.
“I think we are going to be the best monthly or less frequently dosed agent [in obesity],” Murdo Gordon, executive vice president of Amgen’s global commercial operations, told investors during the company’s first quarter earnings call Thursday afternoon.
To build the case for MariTide as a top monthly weight-loss option, Amgen launched the Phase 3 MARITIME-Switch study in the first quarter, focusing on patients that are already on weekly GLP-1 treatment, according to a company presentation. “In other words, we will evaluate switching from medicines which are injected 52 times a year to one which can be injected as few as four or six times a year,” CEO Robert Bradway explained on the call.
Amgen is also running late-stage programs for MariTide in type 2 diabetes, heart failure and obstructive sleep apnea.
These studies, according to Gordon, will position MariTide as an alternative obesity treatment for patients who want to try something new.
“Whether they are de novo patients who have yet to attempt a weight loss treatment and they will be new to MariTide, or whether they are on another therapy and they are not achieving the results they like, or they are not enjoying the frequency of injections, or they are having side effects and they want to try another treatment,” he said on the call.
“We will, across the business, across the company, be ready to go into that market and compete with all of the other companies that are already there,” Gordon said.
MariTide is a bispecific antibody-peptide that works by simultaneously activating the GLP-1 pathway while also disrupting GIP. Amgen has previously claimed that this mechanism not only triggers weight loss but also helps patients keep the pounds off after stopping treatment. Unlike the currently approved treatments, which are dosed weekly for injectables or taken daily for pills, MariTide is, at its most frequent schedule, a monthly injection.
In November 2024, Amgen unwrapped Phase 2 data for MariTide, touting an up to 20% reduction in body weight at 52 weeks, an effect that fell on the lower end of what investors had been expecting. Analysts were underwhelmed. Still, the pharma remains confident in the asset, with Gordon on Thursday playing up the “paradigm-changing opportunity” that MariTide presents in the obesity market.
Amgen management on the call also described high-level results from a Phase 1 study evaluating a three-step dose escalation of the drug, according to a Friday note from William Blair.
“We are encouraged by the additional tidbits on the call on MariTide,” the analysts said, “including the improved tolerability with three-step dose escalation and the initiation of a new switch study, which we believe would support uptake.”
Amgen clocked $8.6 billion in first quarter revenues, up 6% year-on-year. Based on first quarter sales, the pharma could have 17 blockbuster products this year and annual sales hitting at least $1 billion, according to a company release on Thursday. These include the lipid-lowering drug Repatha, which emerged as Amgen’s best-selling product at $876 million worldwide—a 34% year-on-year growth.
Other top-performing drugs included the osteoporosis drugs Evenity and Prolia, which brought in $562 million and $727 million, respectively.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized Revolution Medicines’ pill daraxonrasib for early access to patients with previously treated pancreatic cancer, the company said Friday.
The FDA’s early access program permits patients with serious or life-threatening conditions to receive experimental treatments outside clinical trials before regulatory approval.
Daraxonrasib is being studied in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, a form of pancreatic cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, who have already received other therapies.
In April, Revolution said daraxonrasib doubled the survival period in pancreatic cancer patients compared with chemotherapy in a late-stage trial. The announcement sent the company’s shares higher.
The pill is also being evaluated in other late-stage trials for non-small cell lung cancer.
Daraxonrasib has received an FDA priority review voucher, which is designed to speed the development and review of drugs that address unmet medical needs.
Revolution Medicines said it was working to open the early access program as quickly as possible in the U.S. while ensuring access is safe and equitable.
Two Chinese citizens were indicted on by the DOJ on charges of conspiring to flood the United States with methamphetaminethrough a sophisticated, factory-style production operation, federal prosecutors announced this week.
Wenfeng Cui, 41, also known as “Vincen,” (no "t') and Fan Pang, 26, also known as “Jerry,” both nationals of the People’s Republic of China, were arrested in New York City on February 2, 2026, after allegedly meeting with undercover sources and providing detailed instructions on the chemical synthesis of methamphetamine and the operation of custom-built industrial machinery designed to mass-produce the drug.
The unsealed indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton and DEA Special Agent in Charge Cindy Marx of the Special Operations Division, charges the pair with one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine (maximum penalty: life in prison), one count of conspiracy to import methamphetamine precursor chemicals with intent to manufacture narcotics (maximum 20 years), and one count of importation of methamphetamine precursor chemicals (maximum 20 years).
"Terrifying in its ambition"
According to the indictment and related court filings, over roughly eight months the defendants worked with chemists and engineers to research, design, and fabricate a technologically advanced methamphetamine production facility. Prosecutors allege the operation was capable of producing 400 kilograms of methamphetamine per day - or as much as 800 kilograms per production cycle - using automated industrial equipment.
“As alleged, the defendants worked with chemists and engineers to develop and deploy a sophisticated technology for the industrial production of methamphetamine capable of producing 400 kilograms of ‘meth’ every day,” Clayton said. “Their goal was terrifying in its ambition. The potential harm of this scale of methamphetamine on our streets should give all New Yorkers and all Americans pause. This Office will find and prosecute not only the dealers distributing poison to New Yorkers, but also the people behind those operations. Working with our international law enforcement partners, we will bring narcotics traffickers to justice — no matter where they are in the world, and no matter whether they commit their crimes in laboratories or on street corners.”
DEA Special Agent in Charge Cindy Marx added: “This indictment underscores the evolving threat posed by the synthetic drug market, in particular the increase we are seeing in methamphetamine. The level of technical expertise, industrial-scale machinery, and international reach revealed in this case is a stark reminder that today’s illicit drug trade is driven by innovation and relentless adaptation. The cartels are adapting, and so are we.”
Detailed blueprints and a “complete set of automated equipment”
Court documents describe an elaborate scheme in which confidential sources, acting at the direction of the DEA and posing as narcotics traffickers, communicated regularly with Cui and Pang to broker chemical and equipment deals.
In recorded conversations and meetings in June 2025, Cui claimed he could manufacture customized machinery within several months and produce refined versions in as little as 30 days. He offered training in assembly, installation, and operation, plus ongoing technical support on-site in Central America. Pang stated that a completed machine could be ready by July 2025 and would yield up to 800 kilograms of methamphetamine per cycle. The defendants also offered to sell approximately 40 kilograms of methylamine hydrochloride — a key List I precursor chemical — for $4,000, to be shipped from China to New York.
Cui later provided the sources with extensive technical materials, including:
A spreadsheet listing dozens of industrial components (stainless-steel reactors, condensers, storage tanks, explosion-proof pumps, refrigeration and hydrogenation systems, centrifuges, and compressors);
A nearly 5,000-word instruction manual specifying chemical proportions, pressure levels, and temperature controls;
Production flowcharts and laboratory renderings.
By December 2025 the full-scale factory had been fabricated in China. Freight records show the equipment - weighing more than 21,120 kilograms and occupying nearly 200 cubic meters - was packed into multiple shipping containers and dispatched from a port in Shanghai. Cui sent sources photographs of workers loading the machinery, with one worker boasting that the “complete set of automated equipment” represented “the future of the global chemical industry.”
In January 2026, Cui forwarded additional photos and videos of the machinery nearing completion. The containers were later seized by law enforcement in a European country. The seizure was conducted with the assistance of the Polish Provincial Police of Wrocław, the Lower Silesian Branch of the National Prosecutors Office, and the German Zentrale Kriminalinspektion (ZKI) Osnabrück.
US Treasury goes after Hormuz payment fees, sanctioning three Iranian foreign currency exchange houses. Bessent issues pressure points against Iranian 'rats'.
White House officials argue the current absence of fighting between Iranian & US forces means the 60-day timeline for Congressional approval (or US forces must leave) doesn't apply due to the ceasefire.
Trump on Friday rejects Iran's latest revised proposal to Pakistan mediators. Nuclear issue not included: a non-starter, and focus is on ending the war. Israeli officials balk.
Iran economically squeezed, signs of divided response among leadership, but surviving: "Weeks of conflict have aggravated Iran's dire economic problems, risking calamity after the war, but the Islamic Republic looks able to survive a standoff in the Gulf for now." (Rtrs)
Alternative routes emerge: "Iran cannot be besieged; We have different ways to export and import," Iranian official says.
In fresh Friday words to reporters, President Trump says he is not satisfied with the latest proposal from Iran. He further stated that these negotiations "are not getting there right now." His main points via Newsquawk:
Iran wants a deal, but i am not satisfied.
Iran has no military left.
Talks with Iran are by phone.
Made strides in talks with Iran.
Not sure we are going to get to a deal.
Not happy with Italy or Spain on Iran.
Iran leaders do not get along with each other.
Bessent Lists 5 Pressures Iranian 'Rats' Facing
US Treasury Secretary Bessent takes to X on Friday to again call Iranian leaders "rats" - which won't bode well for restarting stalled negotiations. He's busy boasting on the economic damage unleashed by the ongoing US naval blockade, writing: "It is very difficult for rats in a sewer pipe to know what's going on in the outside world. Some color for the Iranian Leadership as they literally sit in the dark." He then lists out the following:
1. The United States has complete control of the Strait of Hormuz.
2. There is a hard currency, i.e. U.S. dollar, shortage.
3. Food and gasoline rationing are in place.
4. The entire international community has turned against you.
5. The BLOCKADE will continue, until there is pre-February 27 Freedom of Navigation.
He also shared a WSJ article proclaiming that the Iranians have 'failed' to roll back the US military blockade, and that supposedly the clock is ticking on the government's ability to rule...
Israel To Renew Bombing if Nuclear Issue Not Dealt With
The Netanyahu government is signaling that it will restart the bombing campaign if the nuclear issue is not resolved. It should also not be forgotten that 'denuclearizing' Iran by force has been a multi-decade priority of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the hardliners of Israel. These are the latest warnings out of the Israeli military establishment on Friday:
An Israeli military official says that if Iran's stockpile of more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% is not removed from the Islamic Republic, the entire latest war will be considered “one big failure.”
Israeli officials have said that this stockpile is sufficient for 11 nuclear bombs.
And the Times of Israel underscores further, "The senior officer says that if, as part of negotiations between the United States and Iran, no agreement is reached to remove the uranium stockpile and halt enrichment in the country, the achievements in the 40 days of fighting will have been for nothing." So this means that "If the nuclear objective is not achieved, then everything we did in Iran will be one big failure. The evil Iranian regime can pounce on the nuclear program," the official emphasized. And then the threat...
The officer adds that "if the uranium is removed from Iran through diplomatic means, we have done our part." However, if that does not happen, Israel would need to launch another operation in Iran to achieve the objective, they say.
Already Israel has demonstrated its immense influence over the decision to go to war in the first place.
US Treasury Hits Back Against Hormuz Tolls
The OFAC notice on Hormuz payment sanctions: Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating three Iranian foreign currency exchange houses and their associated front companies as part of Economic Fury and Treasury’s ongoing efforts to disrupt the Iranian regime’s financial lifelines that sustain its war effort. Collectively, Iranian exchange houses facilitate billions of dollars in foreign currency transactions each year. Because Iran primarily settles its oil sales in Chinese yuan, these exchange houses play a critical role in converting oil revenues into currencies that are more readily useable by the Iranian military and its partners and proxies.
"Iran is the head of the snake for global terrorism, and under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury is moving aggressively, through Economic Fury, to sever the Iranian military’s financial lifelines," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. "We will relentlessly target the regime’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds, and pursue anyone enabling Tehran’s attempts to evade sanctions."
War Powers: 60 Days
There's common agreement that today: Friday, May 1st, constitutes the 60-day mark on Operation Epic Fury. But President Trump and his administration are trying to sidestep the 1973 law which requires a president to withdraw troops within 60 days of notifying Congress of their deployment unless lawmakers formally authorize the military action as a declaration of war. Of course, thus far there's been no Congressional authorization, amid some six failed attempts to push through War Powers resolutions.
The administration is now arguing that the extended ceasefire itself, reached three weeks ago and then recently unilaterally extended by Trump, buys more time and allows the White House to avoid Congressional approval. Admin officials argue the absence in exchanges of fire between Iranian and US forces means the 60-day timeline doesn't apply.
"For War Powers Resolution purposes, the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated," a Trump official has been cited broadly in US media as saying. The same perspective had first been put forward by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth during his hearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday:
Answering questions from senators on Thursday, Hegseth said: "We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire."
The questioner, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, responded: "I do not believe the statute would support that. I think the 60 days runs maybe tomorrow, and it's going to pose a really important legal question for the administration there."
The debate over mainstream airwaves is also about to grow fiercer as the war slides with no clear articulated grand US strategy...
Talks Back at Square One
Iran has reportedly submitted its latest revised proposal to Pakistan mediators as of Thursday night. It is a response to the latest US amendments to end the war, per Axios. So the conflict is two-months deep, talks are completely stalled, global energy transit through the Hormuz Strait is at a bare trickle to non-existent as the US naval blockade is enforced and while international vessels are still under looming threat of attack by Iran, and there's still no sign of an offramp coming anytime soon.
To review, and as we wrote previously, next fall's midterms staring Congressional Republicans in the face, there this increasingly uncomfortable trend: "The average price of one gallon (3.8 litres) of gasoline in the United States has reached $4.30, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), up from less than $3 before the February 28 start of the US-Israel war on Iran."President Trump's response to this in fielding questions in the Oval Office on Thursday was to tell reporters that gas prices would "drop like a rock" as soon as the Iran war ended. He said: "The [price of] gasoline and the oil will go down rapidly once the war’s over," and at one point emphasized prices would go down "like a rock."
Important development via Al Jazeera confirming that nuclear issue is a non-starter for Iran:
Proposals resurface: Tehran presented a new proposal to the Pakistani mediator yesterday, a diplomatic source told me. He added that nuclear negotiations will not succeed under these circumstances and that the focus will likely shift to ending the war.
Fresh activity on X:
Iran Squeezed But Surviving
We've been reporting on the collapsing Iranian rial and US officials' hopes that the engineered crisis and economic warfare would force Iranians into the streets to overthrow their own government - which is a plan that already failed to produce enough momentum previously, and even under heavy US-Israeli bombs.
Reuters on Friday describes, "Weeks of conflict have aggravated Iran's dire economic problems, risking calamity after the war, but the Islamic Republic looks able to survive a standoff in the Gulf for now, despite a U.S. blockade that has cut off energy exports." It's an enduring stalemate, with the Iran war and Hormuz closure now being a game of geopolitical chicken, where each side believes it can inflict more pain on the other while being the one to outlast.
There's been talk of Pakistan having opened up its border, as well as increased use of Caspian trade routes - especially for vital goods like food, medicines, and factory or other parts. But WSJ freshly explains that "Alternative trade routes won’t be sufficient. Iran has been working to send some of its oil by rail to China and to import foodstuff by road from the Caucasus and Pakistan. Only 40% of Iran’s trade can be redirected away from blockaded ports, the Iranian Shipping Association said Thursday via the Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s security services."
The report then speculates on what's going on internally in Iran's government and leadership, and calculations on how much economic pain Iranian society can take as renewed fighting looms, also as Israel is said to be preparing for more rounds of attack:
The risk of a spiraling crisis has split Iran’s political system between moderates such as President Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-liners including Saeed Jalili, a former presidential candidate who leads Iran’s most conservative faction.
The moderates believe in holding fire and negotiating a favorable deal with President Trump, whom they view as eager to get out of the messy war as soon as possible. They worry Iranians are growing tired of the conflict after an initial nationalist uptick.
“The regime has to do something to break this deadlock,” Saeid Golkar, who studies Iran at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. “Moderates want a deal because they think more destruction is political suicide,” he said.
While some Iranian officials have touted the country has more of its air force left than what the Pentagon asserts, it remains that Tehran doesn't appear capable of inflicting serious damage on the significant US naval blockade, other than through asymmetric or drone warfare.
Caspian Sea alternative...
More Latest Developments
via Newsquawk
US President Trump is expected to make a decision on the path forward [on Iran] in the coming days, NBC reported citing a US official.
US President Trump said would not have approved enriched Uranium for Iran; needs guarantees Iran will not have a nuclear weapon ever. Hormuz blockade is 100% effective.
A senior Trump administration official said that for War Power Resolution purposes, hostilities that began on February 28th have been terminated.
Iranian Judiciary head said Iran does not accept negotiation based on imposition; adds Iran has never left the negotiating table, Iranian press reported.
Iranian National Security Commission member Rezei said "we are currently in the second phase of the war with the enemy..the naval blockade is a continuation of the war.. we are not in a ceasefire situation now", Mehr reported.
Full post: "Iran cannot be besieged; We have different ways to export and import. In a conversation with Mehr, Ebrahim Rezaei said: "The enemy has turned to our naval blockade after failing in the military war and direct confrontation, and we are currently in the second phase of the war with the enemy." In other words, the naval blockade is a continuation of the war that the Americans have started against us. So, we are not in a ceasefire situation now. A member of the National Security Commission of the Majlis, stating that the Americans do not have the operational capacity to blockade Iran by sea, said: "Our only access route for transit is not through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.".
US CENTCOM Commander Cooper briefed President Trump for 45 minutes on new operational plans for potential strikes against Iran, Axios' Ravid reported citing sources.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said that it is not responsible to expect a quick conclusion of the negotiations and that the other party has not used the opportunity provided by Iran's proposal, must be ready for any eventuality. The US and Israeli regime are famous for breaking their promises and the biggest guarantee for not repeating the war is the power of Iran.
Drone attack hits Iranian Kurdish opposition camp east of Iraq's Erbil, according to Reuters, citing security sources. via vv.
The defense sound heard over Tehran is related to countering micro-birds and reconnaissance drones, via Tasnim.
Air defence sounds are being heard in some areas of Tehran but reasons are unclear, Mehr News reported.
DeepMind veteran David Silver raised $1.1 billion for his new startup Ineffable Intelligence at a $5.1 billion valuation.
Silver says reinforcement learning, not large language models, is the best path to superintelligence.
The startup aims to build AI “superlearners” that learn through simulations and self-play.
David Silver, the DeepMind scientist behind AlphaGo’s historic 2016 win over world Go champion Lee Sedol, has raised $1.1 billion to launch a startup betting that the next era of AI won’t come from today’s dominant technology.
Silver’s company, Ineffable Intelligence, launched in January at a $5.1 billion valuation and is betting on reinforcement learning,a method where AI systems improve through trial and error. Silver argues that approach, rather than the large language models now dominating the field, offers a more credible route to superintelligence.
“I think of our mission as making first contact with superintelligence,” Silver told Wired. “By superintelligence, I really mean something incredible. It should discover new forms of science or technology or government or economics for itself.”
Popularized by philosopher Nick Bostrom in his 2014 book “Superintelligence,” the term refers to AI that surpasses human intelligence across nearly all domains, while artificial general intelligence, or AGI, describes systems capable of matching human-level reasoning across a wide range of tasks.
Silver argues that large language models are fundamentally limited because they learn from human-generated data, instead of building their own understanding through experience.
“Human data is like a kind of fossil fuel that has provided an amazing shortcut,” he said. “You can think of systems that learn for themselves as a renewable fuel—something that can just learn and learn and learn forever, without limit.”
Silver has spent much of his career advancing that argument. AlphaGo, which combined human training data with reinforcement learning and self-play, developed strategies that surprised even top human players and demonstrated how AI can exceed human precedent in narrow domains.
“I feel it's really important that there is an elite AI lab that actually focuses a hundred percent on this approach,” he told Wired. “That it’s not just a corner of another place dedicated to LLMs.”
Ineffable Intelligence plans to build what Silver calls “superlearners”—AI agents placed inside simulations where they can pursue goals, fail, adapt, and improve without the limits of a static human dataset. Silver declined to describe what those simulations would look like, but said the approach would allow agents to collaborate and develop capabilities autonomously.
Silver argued that large language models are limited by the data they are trained on, adding that a model trained in a world where everyone believed the Earth was flat would likely keep that belief unless it could test reality for itself. A system that learns through experience, he said, could discover otherwise.
Ineffable Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt.
Venezuela's oil exports increased 14% in April to 1.23 million barrels per day, reaching the highest level in more than seven years, according to shipping data and documents from the state oil company PDVSA on Friday.
The increase was driven by higher sales to the United States, India, and Europe, with 66 vessels departing Venezuelan waters in April, up from 61 ships in March, when exports stood at 1.08 million barrels per day.
The April volume was the strongest monthly level since late 2018, before US sanctions were imposed on Venezuela's energy industry.
