After six years as head of clinical development at Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Ramiro Ribeiro is joining EyePoint Pharmaceuticals as CMO.

“The retinal community is relatively small, so everybody knows each other,” Ribeiro told Endpoints News in an interview. “As soon as I started to talk about EyePoint, I got really good feedback from KOLs and physicians on its scientific standards and quality of work.”

Ribeiro kicked off his career as a clinician in Brazil, earning a doctorate in stem cell therapy for retinal diseases. He previously held roles at Alcon and Ophthotech Corporation, now known as Astellas’ M&A prize Iveric Bio.

At Apellis, Ribeiro oversaw the Phase III development, filing and approval of Syfovre, the first drug for geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The complement C3 inhibitor went on to make $275 million in 2023 despite reports of a rare side effect that only emerged after commercialization.

Now, Ribeiro is hoping to replicate that success with EyePoint’s lead candidate, EYP-1901 for wet AMD, which is set to enter the Phase III LUGANO trial in the second half of the year after passing a Phase II test in December.

Ribeiro told Endpoints he was optimistic about the company’s intraocular sustained-delivery tech, which he said could help address treatment burden and compliance issues seen with injectables. He also has plans to expand the EyePoint team.

“My goal is not just execution of the Phase III study — of course that’s a priority — but also looking at the pipeline and which different assets we can bring in to leverage the strength of the team that we have,” Ribeiro said.

— Ayisha Sharma

Remco Steenbergen

→ Sandoz CFO Colin Bond will retire on June 30 and board member Remco Steenbergen will replace him. Steenbergen, who will step down from the board when he takes over on July 1, had a 20-year career with Philips and has held the group CFO post at Deutsche Lufthansa since January 2021. Bond joined Sandoz nearly two years ago and is the former finance chief at Evotec and Vifor Pharma. Investors didn’t react warmly to Wednesday’s news as shares fell by almost 4%.

The Swiss generics and biosimilars company, which finally split from Novartis in October 2023, has also nominated FogPharma CEO Mathai Mammen to the board of directors. The ex-R&D chief at J&J will be joined by two other new faces, Swisscom chairman Michael Rechsteiner and former Unilever CFO Graeme Pitkethly.

On Monday, Sandoz said it completed its $70 million purchase of Coherus BioSciences’ Lucentis biosimilar Cimerli sooner than expected. The FDA then approved its first two biosimilars of Amgen’s denosumab the next day, in a move that could whittle away at the pharma giant’s market share for Prolia and Xgeva.

Sean Marett

→ BioNTech’s chief business and commercial officer Sean Marett will retire on July 1 and will have an advisory role “until the end of the year,” the German drugmaker said in a release. Legal chief James Ryan will assume CBO responsibilities and BioNTech plans to name a new chief commercial officer by the end of the month. Marett was hired as BioNTech’s COO in 2012 after gigs at GSK, Evotec and Next Pharma, and led its commercial efforts as the Pfizer-partnered Comirnaty received the first FDA approval for a Covid-19 vaccine. BioNTech has also built a cancer portfolio that TD Cowen’s Yaron Werber described as “one of the most extensive” in biotech, from antibody-drug conjugates to CAR-T therapies.

Chris Austin

→ GSK has plucked Chris Austin from Flagship and he’ll start his new gig as the pharma giant’s SVP, research technologies on April 1. After a long career at NIH in which he was director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), Austin became CEO of Flagship’s Vesalius Therapeutics, which debuted with a $75 million Series A two years ago this week but made job cuts that affected 43% of its employees six months into the life of the company. In response to Austin’s departure, John Mendlein — who chairs the board at Sail Biomedicines and has board seats at a few other Flagship biotechs — will become chairman and interim CEO at Vesalius “later this month.”

→ BioMarin has lined up Cristin Hubbard to replace Jeff Ajer as chief commercial officer on May 20. Hubbard worked for new BioMarin chief Alexander Hardy as Genentech’s SVP, global product strategy, immunology, infectious diseases and ophthalmology, and they had been colleagues for years before Hardy was named Genentech CEO in 2019. She shifted to Roche Diagnostics as global head of partnering in 2021 and had been head of global product strategy for Roche’s pharmaceutical division since last May. Sales of the hemophilia A gene therapy Roctavian have fallen well short of expectations, but Hardy insisted in a recent investor call that BioMarin is “still very much at the early stage” in the launch.

Pilar de la Rocha

→ BeiGene has promoted Pilar de la Rocha to head of Europe, global clinical operations. After 13 years in a variety of roles at Novartis, de la Rocha was named global head of global clinical operations excellence at the Brukinsa maker in the summer of 2022. A short time ago, BeiGene ended its natural killer cell therapy alliance with Shoreline Biosciences, saying that it was “a result of BeiGene’s internal prioritization decisions and does not reflect any deficit in Shoreline’s platform technology.”

Andy Crockett

→ Andy Crockett has resigned as CEO of KalVista Pharmaceuticals. Crockett had been running the company since its launch in 2011 and will hand the keys to president Ben Palleiko, who joined KalVista in 2016 as CFO. Serious safety issues ended a Phase II study of its hereditary angioedema drug KVD824, but KalVista is mounting a comeback with positive Phase III results for sebetralstat in the same indication and could compete with Takeda’s injectable Firazyr. “If approved, sebetralstat may offer a compelling treatment option for patients and their caregivers given the long-standing preference for an effective and safe oral therapy that provides rapid symptom relief for HAE attacks,” Crockett said last month.

Steven Lo

→ Vaxart has tapped Steven Lo as its permanent president and CEO, while interim chief Michael Finney will stay on as chairman. Endpoints News last caught up with Lo when he became CEO at Valitor, the UC Berkeley spinout that raised a $28 million Series B round in October 2022. The ex-Zosano Pharma CEO had a handful of roles in his 13 years at Genentech before his appointments as chief commercial officer of Corcept Therapeutics and Puma Biotechnology. Andrei Floroiu resigned as Vaxart’s CEO in mid-January.

Kartik Krishnan

→ Kartik Krishnan has taken over for Martin Driscoll as CEO of OncoNano Medicine, and Melissa Paoloni has moved up to COO at the cancer biotech located in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake. The execs were colleagues at Arcus Biosciences, Gilead’s TIGIT partner: Krishnan spent two and a half years in the CMO post, while Paoloni was VP of corporate development and external alliances. In 2022, Krishnan took the CMO job at OncoNano and was just promoted to president and head of R&D last November. Paoloni came on board as OncoNano’s SVP, corporate development and strategy not long after Krishnan’s first promotion.

→ Genesis Research Group, a consultancy specializing in market access, has brought in David Miller as chairman and CEO, replacing co-founder Frank Corvino — who is transitioning to the role of vice chairman and senior advisor. Miller joins the New Jersey-based team with a number of roles under his belt from Biogen (SVP of global market access), Elan (VP of pharmacoeconomics) and GSK (VP of global health outcomes).

Adrian Schreyer

→ Adrian Schreyer helped build Exscientia’s AI drug discovery platform from the ground up, but he has packed his bags for Nimbus Therapeutics’ AI partner Anagenex. The new chief technology officer joined Exscientia in 2013 as head of molecular informatics and was elevated to technology chief five years later. He then held the role of VP, AI technology until January, a month before Exscientia fired CEO Andrew Hopkins.

→ Paul O’Neill has been promoted from SVP to EVP, quality & operations, specialty brands at Mallinckrodt. Before his arrival at the Irish pharma in March 2023, O’Neill was executive director of biologics operations in the second half of his 12-year career with Merck driving supply strategy for Keytruda. Mallinckrodt’s specialty brands portfolio includes its controversial Acthar Gel (a treatment for flares in a number of chronic and autoimmune indications) and the hepatorenal syndrome med Terlivaz.

David Ford

→ Staying in Ireland, Prothena has enlisted David Ford as its first chief people officer. Ford worked in human resources at Sanofi from 2002-17 and then led the HR team at Intercept, which was sold to Italian pharma Alfasigma in late September. We recently told you that Daniel Welch, the former InterMune CEO who was a board member at Intercept for six years, will succeed Lars Ekman as Prothena’s chairman.

Ben Stephens

→ Co-founded by Sanofi R&D chief Houman Ashrafian and backed by GSK, Eli Lilly partner Sitryx stapled an additional $39 million to its Series A last fall. It has now welcomed a pair of execs: Ben Stephens (COO) had been finance director for ViaNautis Bio and Rinri Therapeutics, and Gordon Dingwall (head of clinical operations) is a Roche and AstraZeneca vet who led development operations at Mission Therapeutics. Dingwall has also served as a clinical operations leader for Shionogi and Freeline Therapeutics.

Steve Alley

→ MBrace Therapeutics, an antibody-drug conjugate specialist that nabbed $85 million in Series B financing last November, has named Steve Alley as CSO. Alley spent two decades at Seagen before the $43 billion buyout by Pfizer and was the ADC maker’s executive director, translational sciences.

→ California cancer drug developer Apollomics, which has been mired in Nasdaq compliance problems nearly a year after it joined the public markets through a SPAC merger, has recruited Matthew Plunkett as CFO. Plunkett has held the same title at Nkarta as well as Imago BioSciences — leading the companies to $290 million and $155 million IPOs, respectively — and at Aeovian Pharmaceuticals since March 2022.

Heinrich Haas

→ Co-founded by Oxford professor Adrian Hill — the co-inventor of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine — lipid nanoparticle biotech NeoVac has brought in Heinrich Haas as chief technology officer. During his nine years at BioNTech, Haas was VP of RNA formulation and drug delivery.

Kimberly Lee

→ New Jersey-based neuro biotech 4M Therapeutics is making its Peer Review debut by introducing Kimberly Lee as CBO. Lee was hired at Taysha Gene Therapies during its meteoric rise in 2020 and got promoted to chief corporate affairs officer in 2022. Earlier, she led corporate strategy and investor relations efforts for Lexicon Pharmaceuticals.

→ Another Peer Review newcomer, Osmol Therapeutics, has tapped former Exelixis clinical development chief Ron Weitzman as interim CMO. Weitzman only lasted seven months as medical chief of Tango Therapeutics after Marc Rudoltz had a similarly short stay in that position. Osmol is going after chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment with its lead asset OSM-0205.

→ Last August, cardiometabolic disease player NeuroBo Pharmaceuticals locked in Hyung Heon Kim as president and CEO. Now, the company is giving Marshall Woodworth the title of CFO and principal financial and accounting officer, after he served in the interim since last October. Before NeuroBo, Woodworth had a string of CFO roles at Nevakar, Braeburn Pharmaceuticals, Aerocrine and Fureix Pharmaceuticals.

Claire Poll

→ Claire Poll has retired after more than 17 years as Verona Pharma’s general counsel, and the company has appointed Andrew Fisher as her successor. In his own 17-year tenure at United Therapeutics that ended in 2018, Fisher was chief strategy officer and deputy general counsel. The FDA will decide on Verona’s non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis candidate ensifentrine by June 26.

Nancy Lurker

→ Alkermes won its proxy battle with Sarissa Capital Management and is tinkering with its board nearly nine months later. The newest director, Bristol Myers Squibb alum Nancy Lurker, ran EyePoint Pharmaceuticals from 2016-23 and still has a board seat there. For a brief period, Lurker was chief marketing officer for Novartis’ US subsidiary.

→ Chaired by former Celgene business development chief George Golumbeski, Shattuck Labs has expanded its board to nine members by bringing in ex-Seagen CEO Clay Siegall and Tempus CSO Kate Sasser. Siegall holds the top spots at Immunome and chairs the board at Tourmaline Bio, while Sasser came to Tempus from Genmab in 2022.

Scott Myers

→ Ex-AMAG Pharmaceuticals and Rainier Therapeutics chief Scott Myers has been named chairman of the board at Convergent Therapeutics, a radiopharma player that secured a $90 million Series A last May. Former Magenta exec Steve Mahoney replaced Myers as CEO of Viridian Therapeutics a few months ago.

→ Montreal-based Find Therapeutics has elected Tony Johnson to the board of directors. Johnson is in his first year as CEO of Domain Therapeutics. He is also the former chief executive at Goldfinch Bio, the kidney disease biotech that closed its doors last year.

Habib Dable

→ Former Acceleron chief Habib Dable has replaced Kala Bio CEO Mark Iwicki as chairman of the board at Aerovate Therapeutics, which is signing up patients for Phase IIb and Phase III studies of its lead drug AV-101 for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Dable joined Aerovate’s board in July and works part-time as a venture partner for RA Capital Management.

Julie Cherrington

→ In the burgeoning world of ADCs, Elevation Oncology is developing one of its own that targets Claudin 18.2. Its board is now up to eight members with the additions of Julie Cherrington and Mirati CMO Alan Sandler. Cherrington, a venture partner at Brandon Capital Partners, also chairs the boards at Actym Therapeutics and Tolremo Therapeutics. Sandler took the CMO job at Mirati in November 2022 and will stay in that position after Bristol Myers acquired the Krazati maker.

Patty Allen

→ Lonnie Moulder’s Zenas BioPharma has welcomed Patty Allen to the board of directors. Allen was a key figure in Vividion’s $2 billion sale to Bayer as the San Diego biotech’s CFO, and she’s a board member at Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, SwanBio Therapeutics and Anokion.

→ In January 2023, Y-mAbs Therapeutics cut 35% of its staff to focus on commercialization of Danyelza. This week, the company has reserved a seat on its board of directors for Nektar Therapeutics CMO Mary Tagliaferri. Tagliaferri also sits on the boards of Enzo Biochem and is a former board member of RayzeBio.

→ The ex-Biogen neurodegeneration leader at the center of Aduhelm’s controversial approval is now on the scientific advisory board at Asceneuron, a Swiss-based company focused on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Samantha Budd-Haeberlein tops the list of new SAB members, which also includes Henrik Zetterberg, Rik Ossenkoppele and Christopher van Dyck.

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Deterra Royalties (ASX:DRR) was established through a strategic demerger from Iluka Resources Ltd (ASX:ILU) in 2020. At the core of Deterra Royalties portfolio lies long-life, Mining Area C (MAC), a premier iron ore mining operation in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, operationally managed by BHP. This key asset is underpinned by a royalty agreement that ensures Deterra Royalties receives quarterly payments equivalent to 1.232 per cent of the revenue generated, alongside substantial one-off payments of A$1 million for each dry metric tonne increase in annual production capacity. 

South flank, a critical component of the MAC, exemplifies BHP’s latest advancement in iron ore mining, marking its inaugural production in May 2021. In financial year 2023, MAC annual iron ore production amounted to 126 million wet metric tonnes, up 14 per cent on the prior year. The company has reiterated that capacity payments have been set at 118 million tonnes last year and are expected to be updated to current production of 126 million tonnes in June 2024, with potential upside to 145 million tonnes shortly after that. Thus, there is potential upside to dividends of $8 million in capacity payments by June 2024. Meanwhile, revenue amounted to $215.2 million plus a $13 million capacity payment from south flank expansion. Net profit after tax came in at $152.5 million. 

The company distributes 100 per cent of its profits as dividends. 

In a global landscape marked by burgeoning uncertainty and China’s post-COVID-19 economic malaise, Deterra Royalties emerges as providing iron exposure with greater stability. Deterra Royalties offers investors exposure to the iron ore market with distinctly reduced volatility compared to traditional mining entities. 

With that background established, the company released its half-yearly results for FY24, reporting figures that were largely in line with both internal expectations and market consensus. The company continues to explore avenues for portfolio expansion, particularly in bulk, base, and battery commodity royalties, although no deals have been finalised. With substantial undrawn debt facilities of $500 million and recent declines in junior mining company stocks, Deterra Royalties may be moving closer to securing new deals to create new royalties or purchase existing royalties. 

Deterra Royalties reported a net profit after tax (NPAT) of $78.7 million for the first half of FY24, matching internal projections and closely aligning with market estimates, albeit slightly below consensus by three per cent. The declared dividend of $14.89 conditions precedent, representing 100 per cent of NPAT in accordance with Deterra Royalties dividend policy, also fell within anticipated ranges but slightly missed consensus. Revenue for the period stood at A$119 million, consistent with the pre-reported royalty revenue update. 

Operating costs dipped by two per cent from the previous half-year to A$4.3 million but were up by four per cent year-on-year. Notably, business development costs surged to A$1.3 million, marking a 50 per cent increase from the previous period and a 140 per cent rise from the same period last year. This uptick reflects Deterra Royalties intensified efforts to evaluate growth opportunities, as managing director Julian Andrews highlighted. 

Deterra Royalties remains steadfast in its pursuit of growth opportunities, maintaining a flexible approach in both the size and type of investments/royalties sought. The company’s focus spans non-precious metals, including bulk, base, and battery metals, primarily targeting developed mining jurisdictions across Australia, North America, South America, and Europe. Deterra Royalties continues to prioritise royalties for production or near-production companies. 

A company that pays 100 per cent of its earnings as a dividend is relatively easy to value with a discounted cash flow (DCF). Adopting a required return of 6-7 per cent of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), Deterra Royalties valuation falls in a range between A$4.70 and $5.10 per share. 

In summary, Deterra Royalties’ half-yearly results provided the stable and somewhat predictable operational performance our portfolio managers value, whilst also providing iron ore exposure. 

The Montgomery Fund and the Montgomery [Private] Fund owns shares in Dettera Royalties. This blog was prepared 19 February 2024 with the information we have today, and our view may change. It does not constitute formal advice or professional investment advice. If you wish to trade Deterra Royalties, you should seek financial advice. 

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Damage Repair Moves

I recently read an interesting section of Warren Buffett’s 1982 Chairman’s Letter. Mr. Buffett devoted considerable space to a discussion of the proposed merger between Blue Chip Stamps and Berkshire Hathaway that would ultimately occur in 1983. The merger involved issuing shares of Berkshire Hathaway in exchange for shares of Blue Chip that Berkshire did not already own. The share exchange was intended to be fair by using “an identical valuation method applied to both companies.” 

The entire letter is worth reading since the question of when to issue stock remains important today. When the acquirer issues shares below intrinsic value in exchange for control of a company at or above intrinsic value, the acquirer’s shareholders suffer harm. They are, in effect, selling part of their company at a bargain price in exchange for a business trading at a richer valuation. 

Mr. Buffett presents three ways for shareholders to avoid being harmed when issuing shares to be used in an acquisition. First, the deal can be designed on a “value-for-value” basis which was the goal of the Berkshire/Blue Chip deal. The intent is to do the deal at a valuation fair to both parties. Second, if the acquirer’s stock is trading above intrinsic value, using stock can actually enhance the wealth of the acquiring company’s shareholders since overvalued currency is being used for the deal. Third, a company can use stock in an acquisition and subsequently repurchase an equivalent amount of stock to effectively turn it into a cash transaction.

“The third solution is for the acquirer to go ahead with the acquisition, but then subsequently repurchase a quantity of shares equal to the number issued in the merger.  In this manner, what originally was a stock-for-stock merger can be converted, effectively, into a cash-for-stock acquisition.  Repurchases of this kind are damage-repair moves. Regular readers will correctly guess that we much prefer repurchases that directly enhance the wealth of owners instead of repurchases that merely repair previous damage.  Scoring touchdowns is more exhilarating than recovering one’s fumbles.  But, when a fumble has occurred, recovery is important and we heartily recommend damage-repair repurchases that turn a bad stock deal into a fair cash deal.” [Emphasis Added]

In many cases, the sellers of a company might want to transact for stock rather than cash, for example to minimize the immediate tax consequences for shareholders through a tax-free exchange if the deal qualifies. 

There have certainly been cases in the history of Berkshire Hathaway when stock has been used for an acquisition at a time when shares appeared to be undervalued. The shares issued as part of the BNSF transaction in 2010 were arguably undervalued. However, at that time, Berkshire did not have a repurchase policy in place. In 2011, a repurchase program was established allowing management to buy back shares at no more than 110% of book value. While this was later changed to 120% of book value, the effect was to establish a “floor” below which the stock almost never traded. 

Berkshire’s repurchase policy was amended in 2018 to remove a specific price-to-book value restriction and the company has repurchased $72.9 billion of stock since then. While Berkshire is currently swimming in cash and would most likely prefer to use it for any acquisition, the company can choose to use stock instead and immunize the effect by repurchasing shares. However, funds used for repurchases are now subject to a 1% tax, a situation that did not exist when Mr. Buffett wrote his 1982 letter.

Articles

Elon Musk Is Overpaid by Matt Levine, January 31, 2024. A Delaware judge struck down Elon Musk’s 2018 Tesla pay package this week citing close ties with directors who agreed to the package. As Matt Levine points out in his newsletter, even if the vast majority of Tesla shareholders are satisfied with the arrangement, it only takes one dissident to file a lawsuit and potentially upend the agreement. (Bloomberg)

• Sign up for Matt Levine’s newsletter to receive his columns free of charge.

Warren Buffett Q&A Transcript || Detroit Homecoming (2014) by Kingswell, January 29, 2024. “On September 18, 2014, Warren Buffett spoke to a crowd of ultra-successful Detroit natives as part of the beleaguered city’s first-ever ‘Detroit Homecoming’ event. For nearly an hour, he fielded questions from Quicken Loans co-founder (and Cleveland Cavaliers owner) Dan Gilbert — on topics ranging from the Global Financial Crisis to that time that Buffett almost bought a bridge in Detroit.” (Kingswell)

The Intellectual Obesity Crisis by Gurwinder, May 17, 2022. Society is developing “atherosclerosis of the mind”: “We evolved to seek out sugar because it was a scarce source of energy. But when we learned how to produce it on an industrial scale, suddenly our love for sweet things went from an asset to a liability. The same is now true of data. In an age of information overabundance, our curiosity, which once focused us, now distracts us. And it’s caused an epidemic of intellectual obesity that’s clogging up our minds.” (The Prism)

The Vision Pro by John Gruber, January 30, 2024. I linked to this article in my own article about Vision Pro. John Gruber’s review is, by far, the most comprehensive account of the new product that I have read so far. (Daring Fireball)

What I Learned When I Stopped Watching the Stock Market by Jason Zweig, January 26, 2024. “When my last regular column ran last May 26, the S&P 500 was already up 10.3% in 2023—right in line with the long-term average annual return of U.S. stocks. ‘Let’s just call it a year right here,’ I recall muttering to myself. That was the last thing I remember. From that day to this week, I tuned out the daily noise of fluctuations in stocks, bonds, commodities and economic indicators.” (WSJ)

Called to Account by Jonathan Clements, January 27, 2024. “Most folks should go for tax diversification, funding both traditional and Roth accounts during their working years. And while it’s tempting to make big Roth conversions early in retirement, especially if you find yourself in a low tax bracket, don’t overdo it. In your later years, you may face hefty medical expenses, find yourself in a low tax bracket or want to make QCDs—and, at that juncture, you could put your traditional retirement accounts to good use.” (Humble Dollar)

Psychology of Apple Packaging by Trung Phan, January 26, 2024. “Jobs and Apple’s head designer (Jony Ive) long understood the value of packaging. As Ive recounts: “Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging. I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater.” (SatPost)

Profitability – The End Game for Business? by Aswath Damodaran, January 31, 2024. This is the fifth in a series of data updates for 2024. “In this post, I start by looking at the end game for businesses, and how that choice plays out in investment rules for these businesses, and then examine how much businesses generated in profits in 2023, scaled to both revenues and invested capital.” (Musings on Markets)

Value Investing’s Renaissance Man, January 25, 2024. “I am excited to share this ‘Fireside Chat’ with Jeff Gramm, General Partner of Bandera Partners and author of Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism, that took place at our second annual Ideas & Networking Conference on September 21st, 2023.” (Raging Capital)

• Book Review of Dear Chairman, June 18, 2016. (The Rational Walk)

Podcasts

Dear Chairman: Robert Young vs. New York Central, January 30, 2024. 38 minutes. Video. Geoff Gannon and Andrew Kuhn discuss chapter two of Dear Chairman which is about Robert Young and his activist campaign in 1954. (Focused Compounding)

Economists May Be Using Bad Data to Make Big Decisions, January 26, 2024. 18 minutes. This podcast questions whether important government measures of labor market conditions reflect economic reality, especially given changes to labor patterns since the pandemic. It is good to see anyone willing to question government statistics. Perhaps a future episode will examine the many adjustments made to data in the calculation of the consumer price index. (Bloomberg — Big Take DC)

Samsung: Semiconductors over Smartphones, January 31, 2024. 51 minutes. Transcript. “We go inside this vertically integrated technology giant and talk about the history of the business, the manufacturing DNA and what it means to create hardware components, and how those hardware components unlock significant opportunities in the smartphone market for Samsung.” (Business Breakdowns)

Unlocking Innovation in Pharma, January 29, 2024. 1 hour. Transcript. “If you look at how much drug companies are getting for their investment, actually, most of them are pretty near zero or very low return on invested capital. The industry as a whole is not that great of a business. It’s very much like a lottery model that is just type of lottery that’s attractive to people with biomedical PhDs where most people are not making that much money, but a small number of drugs and companies are making supranormal profits.” (Invest Like the Best)

The Ghost Army of World War 2, January 30, 2024. 41 minutes. “In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops … conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Every move they made was top secret and their story was hushed up for decades after the war’s end.” (History Unplugged)

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information

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