The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending February 16, 2024, closed at 3,582.66 for the 25 firms within the RDWI. The Index was up 0.64% (or 22.87 foundation factors). Fourteen RDWI members gained worth final week from 0.22% (Pfizer) to five.66% (Eli Lilly & Co.) Eleven RDWI members misplaced worth the earlier week from -0.09% (Roche Holdings AG) to -5.69% (Alphabet/Google).
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RDW Index member Google, Mountain View, California, introduced final week that it’ll open an AI analysis hub in Paris and host greater than 300 researchers. Amazon, a serious participant within the AI analysis discipline, has analysis groups primarily based in a number of areas in Germany and the U.Okay. Meta Platforms (Fb), Menlo Park, California, additionally has had an AI analysis workforce primarily based in Paris since 2015.
Safer Human Medication Inc., Boston, introduced final week that it plans to construct a monkey-breeding facility in Bainbridge, Georgia. The 200-acre complicated will home as much as 30,000 long-tailed macaques in huge barn-like constructions. The animals will then be despatched to universities and pharmaceutical firms for medical analysis. The $396-million facility will home the macaques in extremely safe circumstances, not unfold illness within the native space, and will probably be fed recent native produce. The development and improvement of the power faces sturdy opposition from animal rights and native teams. About 70,000 primates a 12 months are used throughout the U.S. in exams for remedies of infectious illnesses, ageing, and neurological illnesses akin to Parkinson’s.
Semiconductor chip maker Renesas Electronics, Tokyo, introduced final week that it’ll buy software program developer and printed circuit board specialist Altium, Sydney, Australia, for $5.91 billion. Renesas stated that integrating Altium would assist simplify complicated electronics-system design processes for engineers.
A report within the Wall Avenue Journal final week famous that fast-evolving AI is now threatening white-collar jobs. Generative AI may quickly upend a a lot bigger share of white-collar jobs, together with middle- and high-level managers, in response to firm consultants and executives interviewed by the newspaper. In keeping with the report, Generative AI has the ability to create content material and synthesize concepts — the work scores of staff now do behind computer systems, together with managerial roles, in response to the report. This expertise will revamp and exchange work now finished up and down most all company ladders, says the report. AI may even increase and elevate some white-collar roles, giving staff and managers the means to do extra significant work.
Biopharmaceutical Gilead Sciences, Foster Metropolis, California, introduced final week its buy of CymaBay Therapeutics, Newark, California, for $4.3 billion. CymaBay is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm whose lead product candidate focuses on persistent and progressive liver illnesses, a specialised goal space for Gilead. The U.S. Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) lately granted a precedence overview to CymaBay’s utility for its liver remedies. The FDA solely grants precedence evaluations to medicines which have the potential to supply vital enhancements within the remedies of significant illnesses.
Diamondback Power and Endeavor Power, each massive oil and fuel firms in Midland, Texas, have been famous final week as finalizing a merger to make them a $50 billion conglomerate. In keeping with analysts, placing a deal for Endeavor, Diamondback fended off competitors from ConocoPhillips and different large firms. Every of the businesses is valued round $25 to $27 billion. Combining the businesses would grant the mixed firm top-tier standing within the Permian Basin oil discipline, which straddles the border between West Texas and New Mexico. Endeavor’s stock is the biggest of top-tier oil acreage of any non-public Permian firm and one of the crucial lively producers within the area.
China’s largest electrical automobile (EV) maker, BYD, Shenzhen, China, was reportedly contemplating Mexico in its quest to develop EV manufacturing towards North America. BYD is trying to keep away from the 27.5% tariff for Chinese language EVs imported instantly into the U.S. by assembling them in Mexico. BYD has a price benefit over U.S. EV makers on account of decrease labor and supplies prices. BYD may additionally use a Mexican plant as a base to ship its merchandise to South America or ship batteries to U.S. automobile makers. BYD sells electrical buses and vans in North America made at its manufacturing website in Lancaster, California.
RDW Index member VW, Wolfsburg, Germany, was famous in experiences final week as contemplating pulling out of its three way partnership within the Xinjiang area of China on account of geopolitical tensions linking the German carmaker with China’s alleged persecution of the Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang. VW stated it had entered talks with its three way partnership associate there relating to the enterprise’s future.
U.S.-based plane engine producer Pratt & Whitney (PW), East Hartford, Connecticut, introduced final week that it has established an R&D middle in Bengaluru, India, to speed up innovation and drive digital and enterprise transformation for its international operations. The corporate is at the moment recruiting the primary batch of researchers. By 2027, the corporate expects the middle to have greater than 300 researchers. The India Digital Functionality Heart will probably be co-located with PW’s engineering and provide chain operations middle. The brand new middle will facilitate shut collaboration with different India-based organizations with PW’s mum or dad firm RTX — Raytheon and Collins Aerospace. PW says it has sourced greater than $500 million from aerospace suppliers in India over the previous 20 years.
R&D World’s R&D Index is a weekly inventory market abstract of the highest worldwide firms concerned in R&D. The highest 25 industrial R&D spenders in 2020 have been chosen primarily based on the most recent listings from Schonfeld & Associates’ June 2020 R&D Ratios & Budgets. These 25 firms embody pharmaceutical (10 firms), automotive (6 firms), and ICT (9 firms), which invested a cumulative whole of practically 260 billion {dollars} in R&D in 2019, or roughly 10% of all of the R&D spent on this planet by authorities, industries and academia mixed, in response to R&D World’s 2021 World R&D Funding Forecast. The inventory costs used within the R&D World Index are tabulated from NASDAQ, NYSE, and OTC inventory costs for the businesses chosen on the shut of inventory buying and selling enterprise on the Friday previous the web publication of the R&D World Index.