May 28 2024
Ozempic; cyberattack; housing market; Iran bomb; displaced persons
1 Ozempic economy grows as drug approved for new conditions
2 Cyberattack cripples hospital chain
3 Share of new home sales increases amid higher interest rates
4 Iran “a week” from nuclear bomb as uranium stockpile grows
5 Internally displaced people at all-time high
5/28/1754 First action of the French and Indian War
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1 Ozempic economy grows as drug approved for new conditions
The “Ozempic economy" keeps bulking up. Nestlé’s new line of smaller-portioned, high-protein frozen foods, dubbed Vital Pursuit, is aimed at the millions taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Last fall John Furner, CEO of Walmart’s U.S. operation, said the retailer was seeing market changes from the growing demand for weight-loss drugs. A February Morgan Stanley report, using data from market research firm Numerator, found Ozempic users slashed grocery store spending by up to 9%, with snacks and sweets taking the biggest hit, and vegetables and protein sales ticking up. WW International, formerly WeightWatchers, has introduced a new food plan for those on weight-loss drugs, while luxury gyms are launching clinics with access to medical professionals who can prescribe them. In April, GNC said it will add a section to its 2,300 stores specifically for weight-loss drug users. This week Hims & Hers Health said it aims to offer generic versions of Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound that are much more affordable.
News Items, Matt Murray
Semaglutide, the compound in the blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, dramatically reduced the risk of kidney complications, heart issues and death in people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease in a major clinical trial, the results of which were published on Friday. The findings could transform how doctors treat some of the sickest patients with chronic kidney disease, which affects more than one in seven adults in the United States but has no cure.
NYT
Eli Lilly is investing a further $5.3bn in a new Indiana manufacturing site, one of the biggest investments of its kind, to boost production of its hugely popular diabetes and weight loss drugs, the company said on Friday.
FT
2 Cyberattack cripples hospital chain
In more than a dozen states, doctors and nurses have resorted to paper and handwritten treatment orders to chart patient illnesses and track them, unable to access the detailed medical histories that have long been available only through computerized records. Patients have waited for long stints in emergency rooms, and their treatments have been delayed while lab results and readings from machines like M.R.I.s are ferried through makeshift efforts lacking the speed of electronic uploads. For more than two weeks, thousands of medical personnel have turned to manual methods after a cyberattack on Ascension, one of the nation’s largest health systems with about 140 hospitals in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The large-scale attack on May 8 was eerily reminiscent of the hack of Change Healthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth Group that manages the nation’s largest health care payment system. The assault shut down Change’s digital billing and payment routes, leaving hospitals, doctors and pharmacists without ways to communicate with health insurers for weeks. Patients were unable to fill prescriptions, and providers could not get paid for care.
NYT
3 Share of new home sales increases amid higher interest rates
The housing market is primed to stay strong despite high mortgage rates, according to Susan Maklari, who covers homebuilders for Goldman Sachs Research. Mortgage rates have risen substantially in the past two years, which would generally be seen as a problem for home prices. But Maklari points out that prices are essentially flat since 2022 and are up nearly 50% from 2019. This is because rising mortgage rates don't just impact demand — they also impact supply,” Maklari says. She notes that two-thirds of US homeowners have mortgages locked in at or below 4%. With rates now much higher, these owners are loath to move, which is one reason the number of existing homes for sale is down 37% since 2019. This could ultimately spell opportunity for homebuilders. Maklari says the supply imbalance “could normalize as homebuilders add supply — and indeed, new homes have accounted for 16% of transactions, the highest since before the financial crisis.
Goldman Sachs
4 Iran “a week” from nuclear bomb as uranium stockpile grows
Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential report on Monday by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the latest in Tehran’s attempts to steadily exert pressure on the international community. Iran is seeking to have economic sanctions imposed over the country’s controversial nuclear program lifted in exchange for slowing the program down. The program — as all matters of state in Iran — are under the guidance of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that likely won’t change in the wake of last week’s helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president and foreign minister.
The report, seen by The Associated Press, said that as of May 11, Iran has 142.1 kilograms (313.2 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% — an increase of 20.6 kilograms (45.4 pounds) since the last report by the U.N. watchdog in February. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
AP
That stockpile, some of which is enriched to 60% purity, close to weapons grade, is enough for about three bombs (see chart 1). Along with Iran’s use of newer and faster centrifuges, these developments have “completely superseded” the jcpoa, he says. The result is that Iran could produce a bomb’s worth of weapons-grade uranium in just a week and enough for seven over a month, according to research by the Institute for Science and International Security, an American think-tank.
Economist
5 Internally displaced people at all-time high
The number of people reported as forcibly displaced worldwide has risen from around 2.8 million people in 1952 to some 114 million in 2022. Of these, the biggest group of people were internally displaced persons, according to data by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Data from mid-2023 indicates that 115 million people have been unable to return to their homes. The UNHCR has forecast that there will be 130.8 million forcibly displaced and stateless people by the end of 2024.
UN
5/28/1754 First action of the French and Indian War
In the first engagement of the French and Indian War, a Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeats a French reconnaissance party in southwestern Pennsylvania. In a surprise attack, the Virginians killed 10 French soldiers from Fort Duquesne, including the French commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and took 21 prisoners. Only one of Washington’s men was killed. The French and Indian War was the last and most important of a series of colonial conflicts between the British and the American colonists on one side, and the French and their broad network of Native American allies on the other. Fighting began in the spring of 1754, but Britain and France did not officially declare war against each other until May 1756 and the outbreak of the Seven Years War in Europe.
The French and Indian War raged on elsewhere in North America for several years. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February 1763, France lost all claims to the mainland of North America east of the Mississippi and gave up Louisiana, including New Orleans, to Spain. Fifteen years later, French bitterness over the loss of their North American empire contributed to their intervention in the American Revolution on the side of the Patriots, despite the fact that the Patriots were led by one of France’s old enemies, George Washington.
Sources
[1] News Items; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/well/ozempic-kidney-disease-semaglutide.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb; https://www.ft.com/content/071775f4-b0a9-48c1-a4ac-b6f631d83308
[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/health/cyberattack-ascension-hospitals-patient-data.html
[3] Goldman Sachs
[4]https://apnews.com/article/2190f0d7247a6160fb13f28304d4b6ad; https://www.economist.com/international/2024/05/20/irans-new-leaders-stand-at-a-nuclear-precipice
[5]https://www.statista.com/chart/32273/number-of-people-forcibly-displaced-by-unhcr/
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