Connect with us

International

Centessa gives Antoine Yver a new role, brings his old colleague on board; Prelude to a change: Jane Huang sets up her next move

Antoine Yver
→ Centessa looked to Daiichi Sankyo to fill the CMO post with Antoine Yver back in May 2021, and now that Yver has garnered a new title,…

Published

on

Antoine Yver

Centessa looked to Daiichi Sankyo to fill the CMO post with Antoine Yver back in May 2021, and now that Yver has garnered a new title, why mess with a good thing?

Yver has been installed as chairman of development, and Centessa is going back to the Enhertu well again by appointing Javad Shahidi as CMO. While Yver was head of oncology R&D at Daiichi Sankyo, Shahidi was the global team leader for Enhertu at the AstraZeneca partner. “I look forward to working with Javad again as we continue to grow Centessa with this incredible portfolio of assets and come closer to bringing impactful new medicines to patients,” Yver said in a statement.

Shahidi also led clinical development of Alimta and Portrazza during a three-year run at Eli Lilly.

Jane Huang

Endpoints News discussed Jane Huang’s resignation as CMO of hematology at BeiGene last week, and her destination has been confirmed: Starting April 4, Huang will be president and CMO of Wilmington, DE-based Prelude Therapeutics, the OrbiMed-backed cancer biotech whose shares have taken a nose-dive since its September 2020 Nasdaq debut in the midst of the IPO-palooza. Huang, one of our Women in Biopharma R&D honorees for 2021, worked on such recognizable drugs as Rituxan, Avastin and Kadcyla at Genentech before spending a year with Acerta Pharma as head of clinical development and later joining BeiGene in 2016.

J&J has named Wendy Sussman head of pharmaceuticals for US federal affairs, who pivots to the pharma giant after four years at EMD Serono as VP & head, US healthcare government & public affairs. Sussman, the ex-VP of public affairs for Novartis’ generics crew at Sandoz, will also be primary liaison to PhRMA. Last week J&J notched a win with regulators for its BCMA CAR-T alongside its partners at Legend, and a win in the courtroom involving its “Texas two-step” bankruptcy case.

→ Partnering with Eisai on drug discovery for such diseases as Parkinson’s and dementia with Lewy bodies — and chaired by Radius Health’s top dog Kelly Martin — UK-based neuro biotech Wren Therapeutics has tapped Bart Henderson as CEO. The founder and ex-president of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals and Motus Therapeutics, Henderson’s also been chief executive at what’s now known as Repertoire Immune Medicines from 2017-19. After Repertoire’s name change from Torque, Henderson was an operating partner at Flagship Pioneering.

Gina Consylman

→ According to a Form 8-K, Gina Consylman is on her way out as bluebird bio’s CFO effective April 2, while CBO Jason Cole is set to replace her. Once the belle of the gene therapy ball, bluebird’s mounting financial quandary is such that it “raise[s] substantial doubt regarding its ability to continue as a going concern,” which doesn’t seem to square with CEO Andrew Obenshain’s declaration of 2022 as a “landmark year” in the same release. For that to happen, bluebird needs to quit shooting itself in the foot with PDUFA delays and clinical holds in addition to finding a remedy to the cash problems. Consylman had only been CFO since last August and came to bluebird after serving as finance chief of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals.

Al Sandrock

→ The Maraganore Meter is back in working order as ex-Alnylam chief John Maraganore becomes strategic advisor to the supervisory board at ProQR, a startup that needed some good news after its lead asset sepofarsen bellyflopped in a Phase II/III trial for Leber congenital amaurosis last month.

Meanwhile, Al Sandrock has yet to catch up with Maraganore in the appointment department, but he can probably hold his own as he joins the board of directors at Atalanta Therapeutics, the neuro-focused siRNA biotech partnering with Genentech and Sandrock’s old company, Biogen. This further adds to the opportunities that have opened up for Sandrock after his departure as Biogen’s R&D chief, including board seats at Voyager and Verge Genomics.

Jonathan Javitt

Jonathan Javitt has retired as CEO of NRx (shortened from NeuroRx) but he won’t wander off too far, taking on a consultancy gig as “chief scientist.” “Dr. Javitt will remain on the Board of Directors,” the release states, “but will no longer be responsible for company operations or day-to-day management.” Head of operations and chief commercial officer Robert Besthof, a longtime Pfizer vet, takes on the role of interim CEO as NRx wages a court battle with Relief Therapeutics over the Covid-19 drug they partnered on, aviptadil.

Serge Messerlian

Serge Messerlian has left Big Pharma behind to lead a company of his own, grabbing the CEO job at GPCR upstart Teon Therapeutics out of San Francisco. Messerlian — the ex-president of Actelion and a 17-year vet of Baxter and Baxalta — breaks away from J&J’s Janssen, where he was president of the US oncology unit. He replaces co-founder and acting chief executive Lina Yao as she slides into the role of CSO. Messerlian talked to Endpoints earlier this week about the “fantastic opportunity to join the team and help catalyze the effort there.”

Siddhartha Kadia

Berkeley Lights started the year off by reassigning CEO Eric Hobbs, who’s officially the president of antibody therapeutics now that the digital cell biology outfit has lined up Siddhartha Kadia as the next chief executive. A board member at Berkeley Lights since September, Kadia was president and CEO of EAG Laboratories from 2014-18 and also has board seats at IsoPlexis and NuVasive, among others. Berkeley Lights will also be searching for a new CFO, as Kurt Wood announces his departure “to pursue his expressed interest in a role outside of the biotech industry” effective April 1.

Lynne Murray

MiroBio, the Oxford spinout helmed by first-year CEO and Novartis alum Carolin Barth, has installed Sanjay Keswani as CMO and promoted Lynne Murray to CSO. Keswani, the ex-Roche SVP and global head of neuroscience, ophthalmology and rare diseases research and early development, and the former VP, exploratory and clinical translational research with Bristol Myers Squibb, had been CMO for Annexon Biosciences since June 2019. Murray joined MiroBio in October 2020 as SVP of R&D after she was head of regeneration at AstraZeneca’s early respiratory & immunology department.

William Shen

Orna Therapeutics, the aptly named MPM-seeded startup developing circular RNA (oRNA) programs, has welcomed William Shen as CBO. Shen, the former head of M&A and interim head of corporate development at Biogen, had recently been COO of Virtuoso Therapeutics for a brief period and was an M&A lead during his five years at Bristol Myers, which jumped on the Orna bandwagon with such big names as NIBR, Kite and Astellas for the company’s Series A in February 2021. Elsewhere at Orna, ex-Novartis Pharmaceuticals CEO Thomas Ebeling has been added to the board of directors.

Soojin Kim

Inozyme, the developer of enzyme replacement therapies from the IPO Class of 2020, has added two members to its executive team: Sanjay Subramanian has taken over as CFO, and Soojin Kim has been appointed SVP and chief technical operations officer, a position formerly held by Steven Jungles, who has announced his retirement. Prior to joining Inozyme, Subramanian served as CFO and head of corporate development at Ocugen. Kim most recently served as SVP and site head of the bio plant complex at Hanmi Pharmaceutical.

Parrot Head (of finance): Another one of Jennifer Doudna’s CRISPR startups, Alameda, CA-based Scribe Therapeutics, has corralled David Parrot as CFO and George Manning as controller. Parrot hails from Barclays, where he was managing director and head of West Coast life Science investment banking. Previously at Allogene, Manning was senior director and assistant controller before turning the page at Scribe, which was also co-founded by Benjamin Oakes, Brett Staahl and David Savageand racked up $100 million in a Series B last March. Concurrent with the raise, Behzad Aghazadeh from Avoro and Carl Gordon of OrbiMed became members of Scribe’s board of directors.

Robert Ho

Launched last month with ex-Audentes chief Natalie Holles at the controls and raking in a new nine-figure round of funding to push its lead candidates for chronic urticaria into the clinic, Third Harmonic Bio has selected Robert Ho as CFO. The Morgan Stanley vet had held the same post at Neoleukin Therapeutics the past two years and he’s also been senior finance director for DaVita.

Susan Catalano

→ Gene therapy developer Coda Biotherapeutics, Mike Narachi’s latest project after selling Orexigen that focuses on neuro conditions like neuropathic pain and epilepsy, has appointed Susan Catalano as CSO. Catalano co-founded Cognition Therapeutics in 2007 and was chief scientist for the Alzheimer’s biotech, which landed on Nasdaq in October 2021 with a nothing-fancy IPO. Prior to Cognition, the Roche and Rigel alum was director of discovery biology at Acumen Pharmaceuticals. A cadre of investors led by Pacira BioSciences put up $28 million of financing in December as Coda made Pacira CEO David Stack a member of the board of directors.

Reneo Pharmaceuticals rolled onto Nasdaq in April 2021 before a bear market squelched the desire for more companies to do the same, and this week the mitochondrial disease biotech has promoted Michael Cruse to COO and Jennifer Lam to principal financial and accounting officer. Cruse, the former SVP of corporate operations at Reneo since December 2020, has held senior positions before at Avanir Pharmaceuticals and Eledon Pharmaceuticals (back when it was Otic Pharma and then Novus Therapeutics). Lam just became VP of finance and accounting at Reneo six months ago after her posts at Amplyx, where she was controller and then VP of finance at the company Pfizer bought last April.

Monique Bobadilla

Monique Bobadilla has signed on to be chief people and culture officer with Chris Varma-led Frontier Medicines, the South San Francisco upstart striving for the next big thing in KRAS after the approval of Amgen’s Lumakras. Before setting off for Frontier — which netted $88.5 million for those KRAS ambitions with a Series B last July — Bobadilla held the same title at Encoded and also spent more than a decade in human resources at Genentech.

→ Cell therapy startup Clade Therapeutics has poached Derek Hei from Vertex, naming him chief technology officer. For the last year, Hei had been Vertex’s SVP of preclinical and clinical manufacturing, cell and gene therapies, and from 2017-21 he was a manufacturing exec at BlueRock Therapeutics. Clade, established by Sana and CRISPR Therapeutics co-founder Chad Cowan, entered the iPSC fray with a $87 million Series A back in November.

Marie McAvoy

→ UK-based biotech NanoSyrinx, which touts itself as “the first company to engineer protein ‘nanosyringes’ as a cell-selective non-viral peptide and protein delivery system,” has brought on Marie McAvoy as CSO. Prior to joining NanoSyrinx, McAvoy was senior director of the oncology cell therapy research unit as GlaxoSmithKline. She has also served as GSK’s director, head translational research, cell and gene therapy.

Scott Saywell

Cerevel schizophrenia partner Herophilus has recruited Scott Saywell as CBO. Saywell began his tenure at Theravance Biopharma in 2015 as senior director, business development, getting elevated to VP, corporate development and strategy in 2019 before heading to Herophilus, a San Francisco biotech that also notably hired CSO Sharath Hegde from Recursion and head of chemistry Brad Savall from Plexium.

AVM Biotechnology is locking in Brian Andersen as CCO and Pearl Chan as CFO. Andersen joins with experience from his times at Vidara Therapeutics (co-founder), Pharmacia, Dendreon and Horizon Therapeutics under his belt, while Chan has served as CFO at PicMonkey and NetMotion Software among others.

Isabelle Lefebvre

→ Watertown, MA-based Eyepoint Pharmaceuticals has appointed Isabelle Lefebvre as chief regulatory officer, taking over the position from John Weet, who had been SVP, regulatory since August 2018. Most recently, Lefebvre was VP, head of regulatory science at Hengrui USA, and she’s also held senior regulatory positions at Lundbeck, Bausch Health Companies and Bristol Myers.

→ Hearing gene therapy company Akouos is ringing in Aaron Tward as CSO. Tward joined the Boston-based company in 2018 as part of its scientific advisory board. Tward served as an associate professor of otolaryngology — head and neck surgery at UCSF and previously had a 6-year stint at the Broad Institute.

Gaurav Shah’s team at Rocket Pharmaceuticals is go for launch with Jessie Yeung as VP of investor relations and corporate finance. Yeung was head of corporate finance and investor relations for Legend, and she also brings financial experience from JP Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The Phase I trial for Rocket’s drug RP-A501, a gene therapy for Danon disease, is in full swing again after the FDA lifted a clinical hold in August 2021.

Bill Ringo

→ Cancer outfit Sensei Biotherapeutics has tapped Bill Ringo as chairman of the board. Ringo, who also chairs the board for John McHutchison at Assembly Biosciences, is a 30-year Eli Lilly vet who was Pfizer’s SVP of strategy and business development from 2008-10. Not included in the release is the arrival of SVP of cancer immunology Hanspeter Waldner, who’s held senior immunology leadership roles at BlueRock Therapeutics and CRISPR Therapeutics.

→ Not long after Harlan Waksal assumed the role of chairman, Lyra Therapeutics has made room for one-time Biogen CEO Jim Tobin on the board of directors. Tobin became CEO of Boston Scientific for 10 years after his stint as Biogen chief from 1997-99.

Diana Brainard

Diana Brainard has made her way to the board of directors at Affinia, the second move involving the AAV gene therapy company in as many weeks after co-founder Robert Johnson became CEO of Adrestia. Brainard, the former virology chief at Gilead, has been CEO at AlloVir for almost a full year.

→ Ex-Moderna CCO Corinne Le Goff is saying yes to a board appointment as independent director at Paris-based Acticor Biotech. Le Goff has quite a few stints under her belt including roles at Aventis, Pfizer, Merck, Roche and Amgen.

→ San Diego-based January Therapeutics has signed on Christopher LeMasters to its board of directors. LeMasters just finished a stint as COO of Amplyx, where he helped lead the sale of the company and its lead antifungal to Pfizer in April 2021. Prior to that, LeMasters was EVP and CBO of Mirati Therapeutics.

Artiva Biotherapeutics, which executed the 1-2 punch of a CAR-NK pact with Merck and a nine-figure Series B within weeks of each other in early 2021, has added Laura Bessen to the board of directors. Bessen was head of US medical to cap off a 15-year tenure at Bristol Myers.

David Smith

→ Former Five Prime CFO David Smith has been tacked on to the board of directors at Danish IDO/PD-L1 cancer vaccine player IO Biotech, which hit Nasdaq last fall. Five Prime and its anti-FGFR2b antibody bemarituzumab were sold to Amgen right around this time last year for $2 billion.

→ A month after Bernard Lambert took the chief technology officer job at Curie Therapeutics, the radiopharma player has elected Karen Smith to the board of directors. Smith is a Big Pharma vet from Bristol Myers and AstraZeneca as well as the ex-CMO and global head of R&D at Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

→ Houston-based Moleculin Biotech is tacking on Joy Yan to its board of directors. This isn’t Yan’s first board appointment, as she currently serves as independent board director at Checkmate Pharmaceuticals. Yan brings with her experience from her times at Ambrx (CMO and member of the SAB), Bristol Myers, Janssen and Bayer.

Kenota Health is adding two new faces to its board of directors with the appointments of Ruth Abdulmassih and Dennis Flannelly. Abdulmassih is the CEO of Alternative Biomedical Solutions, while Flannelly is the head of precision medicine for US oncology at Merck. Prior to his current role at Merck, Flannelly was VP and general manager of immunodiagnostics at PerkinElmer and global head of marketing for Thermo Fisher Scientific‘s immunodiagnostics business.

Nancy Beesley

HCB Health president Nancy Beesley has pulled up a chair at the board of directors of Dermavant, the tapinarof maker trying to stand out in the plaque psoriasis market. Beesley joined HCB Health nearly 20 years ago as chief commercial officer and was named president in 2019.

Juhyun Lim has made her way to the board of directors at Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, a company that eliminated a third of its workforce to start 2022 and will see its CFO Kurt Gustafson walk out the door. Lim is the president, global strategy and planning for Hanmi Science and Hanmi Pharmaceutical.

Read More

Continue Reading

International

Analyst reviews Apple stock price target amid challenges

Here’s what could happen to Apple shares next.

Published

on

They said it was bound to happen.

It was Jan. 11, 2024 when software giant Microsoft  (MSFT)  briefly passed Apple  (AAPL)  as the most valuable company in the world.

Microsoft's stock closed 0.5% higher, giving it a market valuation of $2.859 trillion. 

It rose as much as 2% during the session and the company was briefly worth $2.903 trillion. Apple closed 0.3% lower, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.886 trillion. 

"It was inevitable that Microsoft would overtake Apple since Microsoft is growing faster and has more to benefit from the generative AI revolution," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said at the time, according to Reuters.

The two tech titans have jostled for top spot over the years and Microsoft was ahead at last check, with a market cap of $3.085 trillion, compared with Apple's value of $2.684 trillion.

Analysts noted that Apple had been dealing with weakening demand, including for the iPhone, the company’s main source of revenue. 

Demand in China, a major market, has slumped as the country's economy makes a slow recovery from the pandemic and competition from Huawei.

Sales in China of Apple's iPhone fell by 24% in the first six weeks of 2024 compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Counterpoint, as the company contended with stiff competition from a resurgent Huawei "while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi," said senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.

“Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," he said.

A man scrolling through Netflix on an Apple iPad Pro. Photo by Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images.

Future Publishing/Getty Images

Big plans for China

Counterpoint said that the first six weeks of 2023 saw abnormally high numbers with significant unit sales being deferred from December 2022 due to production issues.

Apple is planning to open its eighth store in Shanghai – and its 47th across China – on March 21.

Related: Tech News Now: OpenAI says Musk contract 'never existed', Xiaomi's EV, and more

The company also plans to expand its research centre in Shanghai to support all of its product lines and open a new lab in southern tech hub Shenzhen later this year, according to the South China Morning Post.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Apple announced changes to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect last week, Reuters reported on March 12.

Beginning this spring, software developers operating in Europe will be able to distribute apps to EU customers directly from their own websites instead of through the App Store.

"To reflect the DMA’s changes, users in the EU can install apps from alternative app marketplaces in iOS 17.4 and later," Apple said on its website, referring to the software platform that runs iPhones and iPads. 

"Users will be able to download an alternative marketplace app from the marketplace developer’s website," the company said.

Apple has also said it will appeal a $2 billion EU antitrust fine for thwarting competition from Spotify  (SPOT)  and other music streaming rivals via restrictions on the App Store.

The company's shares have suffered amid all this upheaval, but some analysts still see good things in Apple's future.

Bank of America Securities confirmed its positive stance on Apple, maintaining a buy rating with a steady price target of $225, according to Investing.com

The firm's analysis highlighted Apple's pricing strategy evolution since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, with initial prices set at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model.

BofA said that Apple has consistently launched new iPhone models, including the Pro/Pro Max versions, to target the premium market. 

Analyst says Apple selloff 'overdone'

Concurrently, prices for previous models are typically reduced by about $100 with each new release. 

This strategy, coupled with installment plans from Apple and carriers, has contributed to the iPhone's installed base reaching a record 1.2 billion in 2023, the firm said.

More Tech Stocks:

Apple has effectively shifted its sales mix toward higher-value units despite experiencing slower unit sales, BofA said.

This trend is expected to persist and could help mitigate potential unit sales weaknesses, particularly in China. 

BofA also noted Apple's dominance in the high-end market, maintaining a market share of over 90% in the $1,000 and above price band for the past three years.

The firm also cited the anticipation of a multi-year iPhone cycle propelled by next-generation AI technology, robust services growth, and the potential for margin expansion.

On Monday, Evercore ISI analysts said they believed that the sell-off in the iPhone maker’s shares may be “overdone.”

The firm said that investors' growing preference for AI-focused stocks like Nvidia  (NVDA)  has led to a reallocation of funds away from Apple. 

In addition, Evercore said concerns over weakening demand in China, where Apple may be losing market share in the smartphone segment, have affected investor sentiment.

And then ongoing regulatory issues continue to have an impact on investor confidence in the world's second-biggest company.

“We think the sell-off is rather overdone, while we suspect there is strong valuation support at current levels to down 10%, there are three distinct drivers that could unlock upside on the stock from here – a) Cap allocation, b) AI inferencing, and c) Risk-off/defensive shift," the firm said in a research note.

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

Read More

Continue Reading

International

Major typhoid fever surveillance study in sub-Saharan Africa indicates need for the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high…

Published

on

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Credit: IVI

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

 

The findings from this 4-year study, the Severe Typhoid in Africa (SETA) program, offers new typhoid fever burden estimates from six countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria, with four countries recording more than 100 cases for every 100,000 person-years of observation, which is considered a high burden. The highest incidence of typhoid was found in DRC with 315 cases per 100,000 people while children between 2-14 years of age were shown to be at highest risk across all 25 study sites.

 

There are an estimated 12.5 to 16.3 million cases of typhoid every year with 140,000 deaths. However, with generic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and abdominal pain, and the need for blood culture sampling to make a definitive diagnosis, it is difficult for governments to capture the true burden of typhoid in their countries.

 

“Our goal through SETA was to address these gaps in typhoid disease burden data,” said lead author Dr. Florian Marks, Deputy Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). “Our estimates indicate that introduction of TCV in endemic settings would go to lengths in protecting communities, especially school-aged children, against this potentially deadly—but preventable—disease.”

 

In addition to disease incidence, this study also showed that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, has led to more reliance beyond the traditional first line of antibiotic treatment. If left untreated, severe cases of the disease can lead to intestinal perforation and even death. This suggests that prevention through vaccination may play a critical role in not only protecting against typhoid fever but reducing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.

 

There are two TCVs prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In February 2024, IVI and SK bioscience announced that a third TCV, SKYTyphoid™, also achieved WHO PQ, paving the way for public procurement and increasing the global supply.

 

Alongside the SETA disease burden study, IVI has been working with colleagues in three African countries to show the real-world impact of TCV vaccination. These studies include a cluster-randomized trial in Agogo, Ghana and two effectiveness studies following mass vaccination in Kisantu, DRC and Imerintsiatosika, Madagascar.

 

Dr. Birkneh Tilahun Tadesse, Associate Director General at IVI and Head of the Real-World Evidence Department, explains, “Through these vaccine effectiveness studies, we aim to show the full public health value of TCV in settings that are directly impacted by a high burden of typhoid fever.” He adds, “Our final objective of course is to eliminate typhoid or to at least reduce the burden to low incidence levels, and that’s what we are attempting in Fiji with an island-wide vaccination campaign.”

 

As more countries in typhoid endemic countries, namely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, consider TCV in national immunization programs, these data will help inform evidence-based policy decisions around typhoid prevention and control.

 

###

 

About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.

IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is recently pre-qualified by WHO.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, a Country Office in Austria, and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.

 

CONTACT

Aerie Em, Global Communications & Advocacy Manager
+82 2 881 1386 | aerie.em@ivi.int


Read More

Continue Reading

International

US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

Earlier today, CNBC’s…

Published

on

US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever... And Debt Explodes

Earlier today, CNBC's Brian Sullivan took a horse dose of Red Pills when, about six months after our readers, he learned that the US is issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, which prompted him to rage tweet, (or rageX, not sure what the proper term is here) the following:

We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.   

Maybe it will never matter.   Maybe MMT is real.   Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.

I have no idea.  Only time will tell.   But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.

He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."

According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.

The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...

... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.

The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.

And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.

But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).

And it gets even worse, because we are now in the ponzi finance stage of the Minsky cycle, with total interest on the debt annualizing well above $1 trillion, and rising every day

... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.

We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...

.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:

The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.

Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.

That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.

No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.

Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/12/2024 - 18:40

Read More

Continue Reading

Trending