PHARMACEUTICALS
Merger to form Indian giant
Top Indian drug firm Sun Pharmaceutical Industries said yesterday that it had agreed to buy its troubled peer Ranbaxy for US$4 billion in stock, ending its ill-fated six years controlled by Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo. The deal will create India’s biggest drug manufacturer by far and leave Daiichi Sankyo with a significant stake in the combined entity. Daiichi Sankyo bought Ranbaxy in 2008, believing its dominance in cheap generic medicines and developing markets would help the firm grow. However, the Indian company has been a weight on Daiichi’s books ever since due to its regulatory problems. The US, one of Ranbaxy Laboratories’ biggest markets, has slapped import bans on its manufacturing plants for failing to meet “good manufacturing practices.” Sun Pharmaceuticals said they intended to work hard to get the banned facilities recertified.
AUTOMAKERS
China drives Audi sales
The world’s second-largest maker of luxury cars, Audi AG, said sales surged 15 percent last month, joining rival Mercedes-Benz in posting the best single month ever for deliveries on rising demand in China. Audi’s registrations gained to 170,450 vehicles last month, the German automaker said in a statement yesterday. Mercedes-Benz, the third-largest maker of premium cars, said last week that demand climbed 13 percent last month on sales of its new compact cars and top-of-the-line S-Class. Audi, which reported its 51st straight monthly sales gain last month, Mercedes and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s No. 1 seller of luxury cars, are posting increases as the European auto market recovers from a six-year slump, and demand rises in China and the US. Audi’s last month sales in China advanced 37 percent.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Pfizer touts cancer drug
An experimental drug has shown encouraging results in treating advanced breast cancer in an early clinical trial, Pfizer said on Sunday. Pfizer, the world’s second-largest drugmaker, said the drug prevented breast cancer from worsening for 20.2 months in a trial involving 165 patients. Current medications do so for 10.2 months. The drug, known as palbociclib, is among a new class of cancer drugs that target specific proteins to block tumors. Wall Street analysts have been closely watching the tests given the potential market for palbociclib. Breast cancer is the most common cancer to strike women.
BANKING
Pope to reform Vatican bank
Pope Francis has decided that the troubled Vatican bank, which he had in the past not excluded closing, will remain operative and he has approved recommendations for its future, the Vatican said yesterday. The bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), has been beset by a series of scandals in past decades, including money-laundering allegations. “The IOR will continue to serve with prudence and provide specialized financial services to the Catholic Church worldwide,” a statement said. The statement said the pope had approved a proposal on the future of the IOR from various commissions and by Australian Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s new Secretariat for the Economy. It said a “plan to ensure that the IOR can fulfill its mission as part of the new financial structures of Holy See” will be drawn up for the pope, who has stressed that the bank be transparent.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day