TheChek News Flow

--> FT Article

Read Across Nanobiotix : From the article I shared, Novartis is pioneering radioligand therapies — targeted radioactive drugs that deliver radiation inside cancer cells instead of externally. While the mechanisms differ (nanoparticles vs. radioligands), both aim to make radiation more precise and effective while sparing healthy tissue

.

Here are some groups “similar” to Nanobiotix in this space:

• Novartis – Leader in radioligand therapies with Lutathera (GI cancers) and Pluvicto (prostate cancer).
• Lilly, AstraZeneca, Sanofi – Recently acquired start-ups in radioligand therapy, trying to catch up with Novartis.
• Smaller biotechs – Many start-ups are emerging in Europe and the US, focusing on radioligand chemistry and isotope supply (e.g., actinium, lutetium).
• Other nanoparticle/radiotherapy enhancers – Companies like Blue Earth Therapeutics or Fusion Pharmaceuticals are also advancing radiopharmaceuticals.

Difference vs. Nanobiotix:

--> Both represent the broader “next-gen radiation oncology” trend: making radiotherapy highly targeted, effective, and safer.

The Swiss pharma group has become a pioneer in a new type of targeted radiotherapy

Doctors and drug developers who first saw scans from a new targeted form of radiotherapy were amazed. For some patients in the clinical trial, Novartis’ radioligand therapy had — in just six months — completely cleared cancer that had spread around their bodies. 

Michael Morris, an oncologist at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said it was “incredible” and “never seen before”. In the first trial he worked on, the scans were clear of cancer for about 9 per cent of the participants. In the second trial, it was 21 per cent.

“We can’t cure metastatic disease, but in most cases, treatment [also] really doesn’t impact how the disease appears on a scan,” he said. “We have something very different here.” 

Novartis has been involved in developing cancer drugs for decades but it became a pioneer in radioligand therapy after acquiring the technology in two deals. In 2017, it bought Advanced Accelerator Applications, which was founded by scientists from Cern, the European organisation for nuclear research. The following year it announced a $2.1bn deal for US biotech Endocyte.

Radiotherapy, which is used to treat about half of all cancer patients, is usually delivered from outside the body to kill cancerous cells, but healthy tissues are damaged in the process. Radioligand therapy is given intravenously as an infusion containing radioactive isotopes attached to a ligand. These are molecules that bind to receptors on cancer cells and allow a much more targeted dose of radiation to be delivered.

Lutathera, a radioligand therapy that Novartis acquired in the AAA deal, was first approved in 2017 as a treatment for some gastrointestinal cancers. The Swiss drugmaker received its first US approval for its prostate cancer drug Pluvicto in 2022, and has since expanded into treating patients with earlier stage disease.  

In 2021, chief executive Vas Narasimhan estimated the market could be worth about $10bn. Earlier this year, he told the Financial Times that if the therapy lives up to its promise, it could be a $25bn to $30bn market.

“We think there’s a whole set of targets that are unique that we think could only be targeted with radioligand therapy,” he said. 

But the promising therapy comes with major logistical challenges. The radioisotopes must be made in a nuclear reactor, then the radioactive drug has to be safely manufactured, transported and delivered to patients.

Novartis has spent years working to overcome these hurdles. Yet other companies see the opportunities in the therapy and are racing to catch up. In 2023 and 2024, US drugmaker Lilly, UK pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, and French company Sanofi all bought start-ups developing radioligand therapies. 

Philipp Holzer, executive director of radioligand therapy chemistry at Novartis, said companies were now popping up like “mushrooms”, and so were the suppliers of the isotopes. “There’s a market being created now,” he said. 

Novartis has seven potential radioligand therapies in 15 clinical trials, with more in pre-clinical testing. It is exploring different isotopes, and therapies in combination, and expanding into other cancers including lung, breast, pancreatic and colon. 

On the Novartis campus in Basel, the main radioligand lab had to be reinforced so 40 tonnes of lead could be installed to prevent radiation seeping into the rest of the building. All the scientists that work in it wear two dosimeters, including a mini one on their finger, to measure their radioactive exposure. 

They are trying to find ways to make the therapy work for a wider range of cancers. This includes finding drugs that will bind to genetic mutations that are very common in tumours, but not elsewhere, to avoid irradiating healthy tissues. 

“For every cancer type, it’ll be a unique solution,” said Narasimhan. “Very little in the human body is just like plug and play. You have to solve the challenges.” 

Once new radioligand therapies are approved, the challenge is making them at scale. Novartis has purchased much of the supply of the radioactive isotope lutetium, so other companies are looking at alternatives such as actinium. Much of this isotope is sourced from Russia, so they are also looking for supplies elsewhere. 

Once the radioactive material has been made, the company has only three to five days to create the drug and deliver it to the patient before the decay process starts to make it less effective. Each vial is made for an individual patient, tailored to their planned treatment date. Novartis has previously struggled to keep up with demand for Pluvicto, but 99.5 per cent of injections are now administered on the planned day, it said. 

Steffen Lang, president of operations at Novartis, said the isotope must be bound to the molecule that targets the cancer in the right concentration, and then checked for quality. “It’s not only quick, it needs to be right the first time.”

Then, a team works 24/7 to track GPS-tagged vials. Novartis is starting to use generative AI to help it anticipate logistical problems and select routes to hospitals. To get closer to hospitals and patients, it is expanding manufacturing plants from its current six in the US and Europe, adding more in China, Japan, and the US. 

“Air traffic problems, severe weather conditions, we’ve seen it all,” Lang said.

There are further challenges when the radioligand therapy is given to patients: unlike with external radiotherapy, the radioactive material remains in the body, continuing to work after the dose is delivered. In some countries, including Germany and Japan, patients must remain isolated overnight in a radiation-proof hospital room. At the moment, there are few companies that can build this type of specialist facility. 

Clinicians also need to be trained in how to care for these patients. In some countries, patients’ urine must be collected and stored for 70 days until the radioactive material in it has decayed. 

Carla Baenziger, portfolio manager at asset manager Vontobel — a Novartis shareholder — said that despite the hurdles, targeted therapies like this are the “future for cancer treatment”. 

She said this year is important for Novartis, partly because it received expanded approval for Pluvicto, doubling the potential patient population. Yet she believes it will still take 10 to 15 years to build the ecosystem required for radioligand therapy to be mainstream. 

Novartis has surmounted many of the problems, especially scaling production, creating a “high barrier to entry for other competitors”, she said.

Narasimhan agrees Novartis has an advantage. “When you enter this field by acquiring a biotech, which some of our peers have done, it gives you a start. But it’s a lot of work and investment to figure this out,” he said. “We have a five year head start.” 

DAX:

MDAX:

SDAX:

How secretive hedge fund Magnetar went all in on AI

The group known for betting against subprime mortgages is wagering billions of dollars on CoreWeave

A secretive credit hedge fund known for its bets during the 2008 financial crisis is benefiting from one of the best returns of the year, while leaving investors concerned about its exposure to a volatile artificial intelligence stock.

Magnetar has resurfaced on Wall Street this year with a canny wager on CoreWeave that has generated massive paper profits, driving its returns to about 56 per cent this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The hedge fund’s gains have largely been generated by its stake in the AI data centre operator, which was worth more than $11bn in August and represented roughly 29 per cent of CoreWeave’s publicly traded class A stock, according to regulatory filings.

Within just six months, the hedge fund’s investment in CoreWeave has become by far the largest position in its portfolio, with about half of its total assets tied up in the New Jersey-based group’s equity. However, its overall investment in CoreWeave was only about $500mn, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The investment, which has its roots in a series of loans, has multiplied in size as the data centre operator’s shares have surged more than 150 per cent since the company went public in March on the back of market enthusiasm for AI stocks.

The outsized bet has caught some institutional investors off guard, particularly those that had turned to Magnetar for its knowhow in debt markets. They are now looking at a fund that appears more akin to a venture capital or growth equity investor with billions of dollars staked on the fate of a single tech company.

“The concentration became a little crazy because of the appreciation of the shares,” said one investor, adding that the stake had become an “embarrassment of riches”.

“They’re obviously looking for ways to right-size the position, but it was one of those once-in-a-decade type of amazing investments.”

Magnetar declined to comment.

While the bet on CoreWeave has so far yielded huge returns, investors are concerned Magnetar will struggle to exit the stake. Without a large interested buyer, selling down its stock could put pressure on the share price.

“How do we get out?” one investor asked. Even still, they added: “When you are sitting on that kind of return, it’s hard to be upset.”

CoreWeave shares slid after a share lock-up tied to the initial public offering expired last month, and are down more than 40 per cent since they hit a peak of $187 in June. Magnetar has already started paring its stake, disclosing that it has sold $149mn worth of stock in recent days.

The investment firm has sought to hedge itself and lock in at least some of its gains, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Magnetar has used offsetting put and call options on CoreWeave stock to protect itself if the shares drop below a certain threshold, while capping its potential gains.

Magnetar was co-founded in 2005 by former Citadel executive Alec Litowitz — who brought on his former colleague David Snyderman — and Ross Laser. It has focused on niche debt deals, investing in everything from music royalties to auto loans.

The hedge fund made its name just a few years after it launched during the financial crisis by making a windfall through shorts on subprime mortgages. It became such a prominent player betting against collateralised debt obligations backed by subprime mortgages that the investment became known as the “Magnetar trade”.

“When Magnetar sees something they like, they write really, really big cheques,” said one hedge fund executive who has run into the firm on previous deals.

It first became involved with CoreWeave through debt investments, lending $50mn to the company in 2021 back when it mined the cryptocurrency ethereum.

It spotted a similar situation in the pricing of computer chips that it had in the mortgage market. At the time, CoreWeave owned a large number of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) that were mainly used to mine crypto. These chips would go on to become the bedrock of AI computing power.

The hedge fund worked with Blackstone last year to underwrite loans to CoreWeave collateralised by the company’s GPUs. It was among the first examples of using Nvidia’s high-powered chips as collateral for loans, providing a new route for Wall Street to profit from the booming AI sector.

One of Magnetar’s structured credit funds was up 54 per cent in May alone, according to people familiar with the matter, a monthly profit that is almost unheard of among hedge funds. For comparison, a structured credit index from the data provider PivotalPath returned 1.1 per cent over the same period.

But some investors have raised questions with Magnetar about the performance fees they will ultimately be charged on its outsized gains on CoreWeave well before the hedge fund will be able to fully exit the position, they added.

There are also nerves about the recent knock to CoreWeave’s share price.

Despite the worries, Magnetar was able to buy into CoreWeave at such a relatively low price that it is expected to make a profit even if the shares continue to drop.

“Exiting is going to be damn near impossible but they could sell and lose 50 per cent [of their profits] and it’d still be a phenomenal outcome,” said a person familiar with a Magnetar investor’s thinking.

The close ties with CoreWeave stretch beyond the mere financial. Magnetar’s former chief operating officer Ernie Rogers left after nearly two decades in June to join the tech group. Jessica Damrat, another of the hedge fund’s former executives, also left to work for CoreWeave.

In addition to base salaries and bonuses, Rogers and Damrat were granted 600,000 shares and 200,000 shares respectively in the company that would vest over two years, which are worth about $62mn and $21mn.

As CoreWeave stock soared 158 per cent since going public in March, it has attracted huge short interest — even as the cost of betting against the company has skyrocketed.

If Magnetar eventually exits CoreWeave and successfully returns capital to its investors, the bet will raise new questions for its executives, including whether it will stay with its credit-focused roots, or push further into AI.

“If you’re Magnetar it’s a great position to be in, they just need CoreWeave not to go bankrupt,” one rival said. “The question is: what do they do next?”

Apollo to launch $5bn sports investment vehicle

Private capital firm plans to buy stakes and lend to clubs and leagues as it steps up push into sector

Apollo Global Management is planning to launch a $5bn sports investment vehicle, as it looks to deepen its exposure to a sector that is attracting a growing amount of funding from the world’s largest private capital groups.

The New York-based firm, with more than $800bn of assets under management, has been accelerating its push into sports in recent years, with investments ranging from Premier League football clubs to horseracing ventures.

But Apollo’s new vehicle will mark the first time the investment giant has allocated permanent capital to the sector. The firm will make new hires to lead the strategy, which will focus on lending to sports leagues and teams, as well as buying stakes in clubs, according to people familiar with the matter. Apollo declined to comment on its plans.

Apollo is one of several major private capital groups pushing deeper into the fast-growing area of sports finance, which is poorly served by mainstream lenders. Private capital firms can deploy capital quickly, often in return for high yields.

Apollo’s most noteworthy deals to date include lending £80mn in expensive debt to Nottingham Forest Football Club, secured against assets including the club’s stadium, its first known foray into Premier League football.

The Financial Times reported last week that it also lent £40mn to football super agent Kia Joorabchian’s Sports Invest Holdings, charging an interest rate of 10.25 per cent. 

The unorthodox debt is secured against a number of the agent’s companies including AMO Racing, AMO Stables and Sports Invest UK, a branch of Joorabchian’s management group that works with footballers “from youth to international level”.

As well as doing his own business with the private capital group, Joorabchian is actively looking for sports deals to pass to Apollo as it attempts to expand its presence in European football.

Apollo has also been exploring bigger deals: the US firm has been in talks this summer with Atlético Madrid about taking a stake in Spain’s third-largest football club.

In recent years the firm considered financing bidders for Manchester United and previously agreed a $1.25bn investment in the Mexican football league that later unravelled.

CVC, a long-term investor in sport, has invested in La Liga, Spain’s top football league, as well as rugby’s Six Nations tournament and Indian Premier League cricket franchise the Gujarat Titans.

Meanwhile, US firm Ares Management, a close peer of Apollo’s, has lent hundreds of millions of pounds to John Textor’s Eagle Football group as well as Chelsea FC.

US sliding towards 1930s-style autocracy, warns Ray Dalio

Billionaire hedge fund boss says other investors are too scared of Trump to speak out

Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio has warned Donald Trump’s America is drifting into 1930s-style autocratic politics — and said other investors are too scared of the president to speak up.

The Bridgewater Associates founder told the Financial Times that “gaps in wealth”, “gaps in values” and a collapse in trust were driving “more extreme” policies in the US.

“I think that what is happening now politically and socially is analogous to what happened around the world in the 1930-40 period,” Dalio said.

State intervention in the private sector, such as Trump’s decision to take a 10 per cent stake in chipmaker Intel, was the sort of “strong autocratic leadership that sprang out of the desire to take control of the financial and economic situation”, Dalio said.

His comments to the FT mark a rare criticism of Trump by a prominent financial figure, despite mounting private alarm at the president’s policies among some Wall Street’s investors.

“I am just describing the cause and effect relationships that are driving what is happening,” he said. “And by the way, during such times most people are silent because they are afraid of retaliation if they criticise.”

Dalio, who is among the US’s best-known macro hedge fund investors and turned Bridgewater into a $150bn powerhouse at its peak, also warned about the threats to the Federal Reserve’s independence days after Trump launched an unprecedented move to sack one of its governors.

Trump also recently nominated a close ally to fill a vacancy on the Fed’s board, a critical step as he pushes for fast and deep cuts to borrowing costs.

Dalio said a politically weakened central bank, pressed to keep rates low, “would undermine the confidence in the Fed defending the value of money and make holding dollar-denominated debt assets less attractive which would weaken the monetary order as we know it”.

International investors had started shifting out of Treasuries into gold, he added.

Dalio said he also believes many years of big deficits and unsustainable debt growth had brought the US economy to the brink of a debt crisis, although he noted “presidents from both parties” had overseen a worsening situation before Trump’s latest fiscal plan.

“The great excesses that are now projected as a result of the new budget will likely cause a debt-induced heart attack in the relatively near future,” he said. “I’d say three years, give or take a year or two.”

Dalio, the author of Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order and How Countries Go Broke: the Big Cycle, has long been vocal in warning of the debt threat posed to western economies. He likened the US to a body’s circulatory system clogged with plaque as the debt service payments squeeze out other spending.

He said Washington is spending about $7tn a year while raising only $5tn in revenue — an imbalance that would force massive new debt issuance just as investors question whether Treasuries are “good storeholds of wealth”. He added: “The demand for debt will unlikely keep up with the supply.”

The Fed would face a stark choice as the market began doubting the US’s fiscal credibility, Dalio added. “Allow interest rates to go up and have a debt default crisis, or print money and buy the debt that others won’t buy.” Both paths would hurt the dollar, he said.

The veteran investor also took aim at a rising impulse towards state control under Trump. Dalio resisted calling the president’s model authoritarian or socialist, but described the mechanics bluntly: “Governments increasingly take control of what is done by central banks and businesses.”

Asked about Trump’s Intel stake and export tariffs imposed on Nvidia and AMD, Dalio referred to his own concept of “the big cycle”, when during periods of great conflicts and risks countries’ leaders are more controlling of the markets and the economy.

“Classically, increased wealth and value gaps lead to increased populism of the right and populism of the left and irreconcilable differences between them that can’t be resolved through the democratic process. So democracies weaken and more autocratic leadership increases as a large percentage of the population wants government leaders to get control of the system to make things work well for them.”

Bullion surpasses previous high set in April after Donald Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs

Gold prices jumped to an all-time high on Tuesday, surpassing a previous record in April after President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, amid a weak dollar and expectations of a US interest rate cut this month.

The spot price of gold rose 0.9 per cent to $3,508.70 a troy ounce during early trading in Asia, before paring gains to trade at $3,497.

Demand for bullion has risen as investors view it as a hedge against inflation and broad macroeconomic uncertainty, said analysts.

Mounting concerns about the Federal Reserve’s independence after Trump put pressure on chair Jay Powell and moved to sack governor Lisa Cook, as well as expectations of a rate cut, have fuelled the most recent rally.

“Everything’s coming together to provide the perfect situation for higher gold,” said David Wilson, director of commodities strategy at BNP Paribas. “Growing levels of economic uncertainty is quite clearly making gold more appealing.”

Inflows into gold exchange traded funds have emerged as an important source of demand that has supported prices, Goldman Sachs wrote in a recent note. Analysts from the bank forecast spot prices to hit $4,000 a troy ounce by the middle of next year.

Gold prices have nearly doubled since the start of 2023 as central banks have increased holdings.

Last year, the metal overtook the euro to become the world’s second-most common central bank reserve asset after the dollar, accounting for 20 per cent of global official reserves.

Large buyers last year included India, China, Turkey and Poland, according to the World Gold Council.

“You have that underlying de-dollarisation trend among some central banks,” said BNP’s Wilson. “That’s an underlying backstop that’s just continuing.”