FT : UK biotech to trial cancer treatment based on ‘super donor’ immune cells

UK biotech to trial cancer treatment based on ‘super donor’ immune cells
Lift BioSciences hopes to use cells from people with unusually strong immune system

What if one answer to treating cancer was not a blockbuster drug but a way of boosting the immune system to kill tumours and stop them from spreading?

A UK-based bioscience company will test that novel approach in clinical trials set to begin in Ireland next year, saying it offers hope to patients for whom other therapies have failed.

Lift BioSciences, whose chair Antonin de Fougerolles helped develop the mRNA technology Moderna used in its Covid-19 vaccines, believes it could have its treatment on the market by the end of the decade.

In the past decade, cancer treatment has been transformed by therapies that harness the immune system to fight tumours. These include checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T therapy, which rely on healthy white blood cells called neutrophils to detect and kill cancerous cells that have escaped the rest of the immune system, said Alex Blyth, Lift BioSciences chief executive.

Lift’s approach would intravenously transplant healthy neutrophils, cultured in a lab from stem cells from “super donors” who have the best potential immune responses. Lift said it had a pool of about 500,000 people with no family history of cancer, whose neutrophils were exceptionally good at tackling cancer, and that it could grow such cells “like baker’s yeast”.

“We are giving cancer patients Usain Bolt immunity to fight off these cancers and become responsive again to cancer therapies,” Blyth told the Financial Times.

Lift’s approach focuses on the “innate” immune system — defences such as neutrophils that everyone is born with. Either alone or together with drugs that target the “adaptive” immune system — which develops over time through exposure to pathogens — “we can cure cancer in more patients”, Blyth predicted.

Checkpoint inhibitors, such as ​​Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda and AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi, prevent cancer cells from disabling the immune response to tumours. Blyth believes Lift’s Immuno-Modulatory Alpha Neutrophils (IMAN) therapy could work in cases that do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors.

IMAN therapy could also replace or complement chemotherapy, or be used preventively, Blyth said, adding that he expected it to be safe and well tolerated because transfusions of granulocytes — a class of white blood cells that include neutrophils — are already used in some leukaemia patients and others vulnerable to infection.

Lift plans to begin human clinical trials in patients with advanced cervical, head and neck cancers in Galway next year — but to do that, it must secure another £22.5mn. Blyth said the company was targeting venture funds and family offices.

The therapy could cost about £10,000 per patient to produce, but would retail at about £100,000 per patient, similar to checkpoint inhibitors, he said.

The company chose Ireland for the trial because it offers high-level support: in July it won a €12mn government grant to fund a partnership with the University of Galway and Hooke Bio, an Irish medical R&D tools company.

Blyth sold his house and medical consultancy to found his business after his mother died from pancreatic cancer. Lift has already raised £10mn in a Series A funding round.

He predicts initial results from clinical trials in 2027 and “you could look at something being made available to patients by 2030-31”.

He said he owned the patents and had no direct competitors but “the biggest delay risk is the anti-biotech investing environment”, adding that since Covid, biotech was “no longer on trend”.

“We can produce this on an infinite off-the-shelf scale,” Blyth said. “Cell therapy is the future and we will show that.”

FT : Shipping companies seek non-Chinese finance to dodge steep US port fees

Shipping companies seek non-Chinese finance to dodge steep US port fees
Operators are seeking alternatives to avoid potential multimillion-dollar charges for American visits

Shipping companies with a widespread form of Chinese financing are rushing to find different funding sources to avoid potential multimillion-dollar fees for US port visits when new Trump administration rules come into force in October.

Operators are seeking alternatives to the “sale and leaseback” deals that make up a high proportion of the $100bn in outstanding financing from Chinese institutions for shipping companies worldwide.

Shipping companies are concerned the arrangements could mean that ships with no other Chinese connection will count as Chinese-owned under new US rules due to be introduced on October 14.

Under draft rules, the fee for most Chinese-owned ships would be $50 per net ton, rising to $140 per net ton over two years from April.

The fees mean that even a modest container ship of about 20,000 net tons is likely to pay about $1mn per port visit, rising to about $2.8mn. For a Very Large Crude Carrier of about 100,000 net tons, the initial cost per visit would be $5mn, rising to about $14mn.

James Lightbourn, founder of New York-based ship financing company Cavalier Shipping, said the fees — set out in the not yet finalised rules — were causing a “major shift” in the ship finance market.

He added that some Chinese leasing structures had become “problematic” for shipowners who would otherwise not be subject to the new fees. “We’ve seen some shipowners decide to refinance Chinese lease financing prior to their scheduled maturity,” Lightbourn said.

An executive at one shipping company said the business had ended a number of Chinese-linked leases. “We think that there’s a clear risk with the leases of being considered Chinese-owned,” the executive said.

The ownership charge is separate from a proposed $18-per-net-ton fee for vessels built in Chinese shipyards. That fee will rise to $33 per net ton. Operators eligible for both charges will pay only the ownership fee.

Chinese institutions started to finance a large number of ship purchases about a decade ago when many European and US banks were repairing their finances following the 2008 financial crisis.

Lightbourn estimated that China’s $100bn in outstanding financing arrangements accounted for just over 15 per cent of the sector’s worldwide $600bn total.

Industry figures suggested some of the world’s largest ship operators, including container shipping lines and energy majors, were seeking to exit China-linked leases.

Earlier this year, Greek group Okeanis Eco Tankers, which is listed in New York, announced deals to replace Chinese sale and leaseback deals on three VLCCs with $195mn in lending from non-Chinese banks.

Finance director Iraklis Sbarounis said at the time that this would improve the company’s capital structure while making it more resilient to “geopolitical and other risks and costs”.

Another ship financier, Dimitri Vassilacos, a partner at Ship Finance Solutions, said some of his company’s clients had been seeking refinancing to exit Chinese leasing deals.

However, he stressed that the reasons for this were often complex. Among other factors he cited were improved industry profitability — which allowed operators to obtain better financing terms — and the increased willingness of traditional financiers such as European banks to lend.

>>> Barron’s Weekend Summary

Cover:
-Deregulation has transformed firms like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America into behemoths, while financial entrepreneurs have created companies like Blackstone, Bridgewater Associates, and Andreessen Horowitz. However, a new wave of digital-first powerhouses, driven by the explosive growth of technology in finance, is emerging. This trend is driven by the growth of technology in finance, leading to companies like Interactive Brokers Group, Susquehanna International, Jane Street, and Citadel, a burgeoning Wall Street empire controlled by billionaire Ken Griffin. Citadel consists of Citadel LLC, a $68B hedge fund operation, and Citadel Securities, a market maker that facilitates and engages in stock, derivatives, and bonds trading.
Interview:
-Stephen Miran, currently chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, is set to be the nominee for a temporary open seat on the Federal Reserve's board of governors. The administration wants the Senate to vote on his candidacy before the Fed's next policy committee meeting on Sept. 16-17. Trump is also considering Miran for the longer-term seat held by Governor Lisa Cook, who Trump fired.
Miran discusses Trump's recent decision to convert loans and grants to Intel into a 10% equity stake, which some White House economists described as a "down payment on a sovereign-wealth fund." Debate continues over Trump's other high-profile interventions in the economy, including tariffs and firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Miran, a Harvard-trained economist, has been at the center of this debate since his Senate confirmation in March.
Tech Trader:
-Nvidia has reported a 56% increase in revenue for the July second fiscal quarter to $46.7B, ahead of expectations. The company's revenue forecast range for the current quarter ending in October was above analysts' consensus of $53.4B. However, Nvidia shares initially fell modestly after the results, possibly due to profit-taking after the stock rose about 35% over the previous three months. Uncertainty over its business in China may have been another factor. China remains Nvidia's biggest problem, as analysts had hoped for a quick rebound in sales of its China-specific H20 graphics processing unit (GPU). Nvidia has not assumed any H20 shipments to China in its guidance for the current quarter.
The Trader:
-Salesforce has experienced a significant drop in shares, dropping over 25% this year and making it the second-biggest laggard in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, some fund managers and Wall Street analysts believe that the worst may be over for the customer relationship management services leader. Concerns about artificial intelligence affecting revenue streams and profit margins for corporate software companies have hit the entire software sector, with Salesforce facing an undeniable threat from AI. Salesforce is currently trading at 22 times earnings estimates for this year, a 10-year low and well under its average forward price/earnings ratio of 54.
-The Russell 2000 has seen a 7.5% increase in August, more than double the return on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and nearly triple that of the S&P 500. This rally in small-company stocks was triggered by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's dovish speech, and the talk is now about how small can outperform large for the foreseeable future. The odds of a September interest-rate cut have increased, and lower rates could support the US economy, benefiting smaller companies with higher levels of floating-rate debt. Fiscal stimulus from the White House and Congress should also help.
Features:
-Kyivstar Group, Ukraine's largest mobile and broadband operator, has boosted its NASDAQ opening bell after a delegation of business elites from the war-torn country visited New York to raise interest on Wall Street. Western investors believe that Ukrainian assets are undervalued, and the stock has risen 0.3% since the SPAC merger. Kyivstar's shares soared 32% in their first two trading sessions earlier this month, possibly due to investors' hopes for peace talks. However, the stock's overall performance has flattened since then.
-Financial markets are expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates several times over the next few months, potentially leading to disappointment for investors. The Federal Reserve is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate at its Sept. 16-17 meeting, and recent data indicates slow economic growth. The federal-funds futures market is pricing in a 90% probability of a September cut, which has led to the S&P 500 reaching new highs this year. However, markets also anticipate more rate cuts beyond September, potentially leading to a stock market dip. Futures pricing also reflects an 86% probability of a second cut by December. Historical data shows that fed-funds futures often overestimate interest rate movements in either direction. The actual fed-funds rate today is at a target range of 4.25% to 4.5%.
Europe:
-Denmark has reduced its annual growth outlook to 1.4%, down from 3%, and blamed the slowdown on sweeping US tariffs. The Danish krone slid 0.1% against the dollar, and Copenhagen's flagship OMX stock-market index dropped 0.9%. The ministry blamed the slowdown on the bursting of the obesity-drug bubble, which has dragged down Denmark's exports to countries like the US, which in turn has weighed on growth. Novo Nordisk, the company behind the guidance cut, has not immediately responded to a request for comment from Barron's. Demand for Novo's flagship products Wegovy and Ozempic has faltered this year, dragged down Denmark's exports to countries like the US, which in turn has weighed on growth.
Emerging Markets:
-No update
Commodities:
-Mexico has vast potential petroleum resources to replace the dwindling elephant fields it struck last century. These resources are either in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico or in a belt of shale reserves south from the US border. Exploiting either will require capital and expertise from private oil giants outside Mexico. Mexico's previous president, Enrique Peña Nieto, opened the door to collaboration in 2013-14, with promising results. However, President Lopez Obrador shut it down in 2018, citing a perverse energy reform approved for looting and theft. He also reined in Pemex's exploration in deep water and shale. Sheinbaum suggests a more moderate tack, floating "mixed public-private contracts," but this would be insufficient to attract big market participants. Additionally, Lopez Obrador's "judicial reform" further damaged Mexico's attractiveness for investment, as it allows for the replacement of all the country's judges by 2027.
Streetwise:
-No update

>>> Weekend Papers sunmary

FINANCIAL TIMES
-Ukrainian nationalist politician Andriy Parubiy was assassinated in Lviv, marking the most significant killing in a string of high-profile murders since the war with Russia began. Parubiy, 54, played a key role in the pro-western 2014 Euromaidan revolution. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the killing as a "terrible murder" and authorities mobilized all necessary forces to find the killer. A manhunt has been launched.-Jay Powell has suggested a Federal Reserve rate cut in September due to a softening US labor market, which could offset risks of Donald Trump's tariffs worsening inflation. Powell's remarks put him in the camp of doves on the Federal Open Market Committee and signaled he could support a quarter-point cut at the central bank's next meeting in September. US government debt rallied after his speech, with the yield on the two-year Treasury note dropping 0.1 percentage points to 3.69%. The speech comes amid a pivotal time for the Fed, as the US president and his allies have launched a campaign against Powell and other top Fed officials, insisting the central bank should drastically cut rates. The Fed has held its main rate at a 4.25-4.5% range this year, following 1 percentage point of cuts in 2024, as some officials worry Trump's tariffs on US trading partners will ignite a fresh surge in inflation.
-The Trump administration is threatening to fire Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Powell, and other top Fed officials to curb central banking independence, which has underpinned America's economic foundations for over half a century. This comes amid a White House putsch at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has shaken confidence in the sanctity of economic data. The meetings in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, have become synonymous with central bankers' power and prestige, but economists are aware that the ascendancy of technocrats is in danger of being thrown dramatically into reverse. Glenn Hubbard, a chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, cites the broad discontent among Americans with experts and fears that if they don't pick up the thread, the populist frenzy will only get worse. Powell stated that he and his colleagues would make their decisions "solely" on the basis of economic evidence, as he teed up the possibility of further interest rate cuts.
-US President Donald Trump's administration is planning to take a 10% stake in struggling chipmaker Intel, as part of a corporate intervention to strengthen America's semiconductor industry. The US government will make an $8.9B equity investment, funded by federal grants under the 2022 Chips Act. This will give Washington a roughly 9.9% stake in the group. The deal is part of Trump's move towards a more interventionist approach to corporate America, edging closer to 1960s European state capitalism than US free-market orthodoxy. The US will also receive a five-year warrant, allowing it to purchase an additional 5% of the group at $20 a share, provided Intel divests majority ownership of its foundry business.
-Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has faced backlash and disappointment within its Middle Eastern business after revelations that the firm helped set up an Israeli-backed aid scheme for Gaza and modeled plans to relocate Palestinians from the enclave. The revelations have widened fissures within the firm, which has been triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack and Israel's military campaign in Gaza. A US BCG team worked for seven months to establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an aid distribution scheme condemned by humanitarian groups. The team also produced a financial model of postwar Gaza for Israeli businessmen backing GHF, including the economic impact of incentives for Palestinians to relocate abroad.
-Revolution Wind, a US offshore wind project developed by Orsted and Skyborn Renewables, is 80% complete, with foundations and 45 of 65 planned turbines installed. The project, which was set to start operations next year, was due to supply power for 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut under 20-year contracts. The Trump administration intervened in the project for the second time, after paused Equinor's Empire Wind project. Ørsted has obtained necessary permits and is evaluating its options, including legal action. The potential delay or loss of revenues puts pressure on the company, which launched a $9.4B emergency rights issue.
-The Congressional Budget Office has reported that Donald Trump's tariff drive will reduce US deficits by $4T over the next decade, addressing concerns that the president's tax bill will worsen public finances. The tariffs announced so far this year will reduce primary deficits by $3.3T over the period to 2035, while interest payments will fall by an additional $700B. The overall effect of the levies on debt levels is about a third higher than the $3T estimated by the CBO based on measures announced between January and mid-May. The impact of tariff revenue is expected to dull the fiscal hit from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is projected to increase debt levels by $4.1T over the period.
-Canada has lifted billions of dollars' worth of retaliatory tariffs on US goods to reduce economic tensions with the US. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Ottawa would remove the 25% tariff it has imposed on many US goods since March, but reciprocal steel and aluminum duties would remain in place. The measures will come into effect on September 1, marking the latest episode in a months-long trade battle between the US and Canada, which was strained in March when Trump imposed duties as steep as 25% on Canadian exports.
-California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken his criticism of US President Donald Trump to a new level by using his all-caps, idiosyncratic style to troll him on social media. Newsom's aggressive campaign, including posts declaring "DONALD IS FINISHED — HE IS NO LONGER 'HOT'" and artificially-generated images of himself carrying an American flag, is generating buzz and drawing critical commentary from Fox News presenters and conservatives. This aggressive campaign is energizing some Democrats concerned about the party's failure to mount an effective pushback against Trump. Veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum believes Newsom's approach is born out of frustration with the president and a determination to find new ways to fight back.
-Meta, a social media company, is set to license technology from artificial intelligence start-up Midjourney to improve its products and services. The move follows Meta's shift towards third-party collaborations to stay competitive. The technology will be used in the development of multimedia AI generation features for its apps, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects AI-generated content to become more prominent on the platform. The collaboration will involve world-class talent and collaboration with industry leaders.
-China has refused to disclose details of its plans for a "mega" embassy in London after the UK demanded more information about greyed-out areas in its drawings. The Chinese government argued that the request was not appropriate and that the level of detail provided was sufficient for understanding what was permitted. The Chinese government also opposed a request for a wall around a paved area in front of the building to ensure safe access. The UK's deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, has demanded unredacted drawings or a comprehensive identification of withheld parts.
-The FBI has conducted a raid on John Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland, following his criticism of Donald Trump. Bolton, who served as Trump's national security adviser during his first term, has become a vocal critic of the US president. The search was related to "classified documents" and the FBI had a "broad concern" about Bolton. Vice-president JD Vance stated that the raid was related to "classified documents." Trump, who had previously expressed his disapproval of Bolton, said he did not know about the raid. The raid follows Trump's repeated vows during his 2024 campaign to seek retribution against his political opponents. The relationship between Trump and Bolton, who served as US ambassador to the UN under George W Bush, fell out after Bolton left his post in September 2019. Trump has also been criticizing Bolton for criticizing Trump's approach to brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

NEW YORK TIMES
-Corporate America has developed defenses against corporate raiders like Carl Icahn and Nelson Peltz, but now faces a new investor: the US president. President Trump has inserted the government into US companies, taking stakes in US Steel and pushing for a cut of Nvidia's and Advanced Micro Devices' revenue from China. The Pentagon has also taken a 15% stake in MP Materials and Intel agreed to allow the US government to take a 10% stake in its business, worth $8.9 billion.
-Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet with Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office. Vance warned Zelensky to "behave" and not to say anything, which the Ukrainian leader chuckled at. This is not the first time Vance has addressed Zelensky during a diplomatic summit. In February, Vance criticized Zelensky for disrespecting the US and not thanking Ukraine for military assistance. The jovial tone of the meeting highlights the importance of Zelensky's actions in influencing Trump's approval.
-California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed two redistricting bills, a response to the Republican-led map passed by Texas at the request of President Trump. The move will put California in a national campaign as Democrats and Republicans vie for control of the House of Representatives. Newsom, a potential presidential candidate, will be at the forefront of a partisan fight against President Trump. He emphasized neutralizing the situation in Texas and giving the American people a fair chance.
-A federal judge has ordered the removal of immigrant detainees from a Florida Everglades facility, Alligator Alcatraz, and the dismantling of much of the facility. The ruling rebuked the state and federal governments for not considering environmental harms before building the facility. The judge gave both branches 60 days to move out detainees and remove fencing, lighting, and power generators. The decision is a major legal setback for the facility, the nation's first state-run facility for federal immigration detainees, which has faced numerous lawsuits and complaints.
-Lisa Cook, a former Federal Reserve chair, has consistently voted with Jerome H. Powell, the chair, on interest rate cuts last year and this year. However, she is often viewed as a "dove" by some observers. In a November speech, Cook suggested that the Fed should continue to lower interest rates, but the pace of cuts would depend on economic data. In June, she warned that high inflation after the pandemic could make firms more willing to raise prices and consumers more likely to expect high inflation to persist. Cook, a daughter of a hospital chaplain and nursing professor, grew up in Georgia and earned an undergraduate degree from Spelman College and another at Oxford University.
-President Trump has been aggressively expanding his power since taking office, asserting the right to override spending decisions by Congress, dismiss leaders of independent agencies, and push through legal and constitutional barriers on issues like immigration and birthright citizenship. He has also used the government to pursue his campaign of retribution against political and personal foes, instigating criminal investigations, demanding large payments, revoking security clearances, and dismissing federal employees. However, when Trump called for the resignation of a Federal Reserve governor, it marked the merging of these two defining features of his second term. The move came after Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, found that Cook appeared to have falsified bank documents to obtain favorable mortgage loan terms.
- Thailand's former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has won a significant legal victory after a court dismissed a case accusing him of insulting the nation's monarchy. The case, which was indicted last year, was the most high-profile to be charged with violating the royal defamation law, which is one of the world's harshest and has long been used to quash dissent. Thaksin faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The charges were seen as politicized and the latest salvo in a decades-long clash between Thaksin and Thailand's royalist-military establishment. The Criminal Court in Bangkok ruled that Thaksin's interview could have been edited in a way that did not fully represent his remarks and that he did not specifically mention the monarch at the time.

NEW YORK POST
-Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and now federal prisoner, has shared her relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in an interview with President Trump's Department of Justice. Maxwell, 63, described her connection to Epstein as romantically strung-along while serving as "general manager" of the late millionaire pedophile's real estate portfolio. In her two-day interviews last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Fla., she revealed that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks were when she realized they would never have a romantic future.
-The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, was fired after a classified assessment of US strikes on Iran was leaked to the media. The assessment suggested that US strikes on Iran only set back the rogue nation's nuclear program by a few months. The DIA's classified, "low confidence" estimation of the effectiveness of the June 21 airstrikes on Iran's Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear facilities was leaked to CNN three days after American B-2 stealth bombers and cruise missiles bombarded the sites. The document, based on limited intelligence gathered the day after the strike, reportedly indicated that the Iranian regime could bring its nuclear program back online as quickly as one to two months. The preliminary assessment also suggested that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed by the airstrikes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly fired Kruse over a "loss of confidence" in the lieutenant general.

TechCrunch : Cracks are forming in Meta’s partnership with Scale AI

Cracks are forming in Meta’s partnership with Scale AI

It’s only been since June that Meta invested $14.3 billion in the data-labeling vendor Scale AI, bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang and several of the startup’s top executives to run Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). But the relationship between the two companies is already showing signs of fraying.

At least one of the executives Wang brought over to help run MSL — Scale AI’s former Senior Vice President of GenAI Product and Operations, Ruben Mayer — has departed Meta after just two months with the company, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Mayer spent roughly five years with Scale AI across two stints. In his short time at Meta, according to those sources, Mayer oversaw AI data operations teams but wasn’t part of the company’s TBD Labs — the core unit within Meta tasked with building AI superintelligence, where top AI researchers from OpenAI have landed.

However, Mayer disputes some details about his role, telling TechCrunch that his initial position was “to help set up the lab, with whatever was needed” rather than data, and that he was “part of TBD Labs from day one” rather than being excluded from the core AI unit. Mayer also clarified that he “did not report directly to [Wang]” and was “very happy” with his Meta experience.

Beyond the personnel changes, Meta’s relationship with Scale AI appears to be shifting. TBD Labs is working with third-party data labeling vendors other than Scale AI to train its upcoming AI models, according to five people familiar with the matter. Those third-party vendors include Mercor and Surge, two of Scale AI’s largest competitors, the people said.

While AI labs commonly work with several data labeling vendors – Meta has been working with Mercor and Surge since before TBD Labs was spun up – it’s rare for an AI lab to invest so heavily in one data vendor. That makes this situation especially notable: even with Meta’s multi-billion-dollar investment, several sources said that researchers in TBD Labs see Scale AI’s data as low quality and have expressed a preference to work with Surge and Mercor.

Scale AI initially built its business on a crowdsourcing model that used a large, low-cost workforce to handle simple data labeling, which is the process of tagging and annotating raw information to train AI models. But as AI models have grown more sophisticated, they now require highly-skilled domain experts—such as doctors, lawyers, and scientists—to generate and refine the high-quality data needed to improve their performance.

Although Scale AI has moved to attract these subject matter experts with its Outlier platform, competitors like Surge and Mercor have been growing quickly because their business models were built on a foundation of high-paid talent from the outset.

A Meta spokesperson disputed the fact that there are quality issues with Scale AI’s product. Surge and Mercor declined to comment. Asked about Meta’s deepening reliance on competing data providers, a Scale AI spokesperson directed TechCrunch to its initial announcement of Meta’s investment in the startup, which cites an expansion of the companies’ commercial relationship.

Meta’s deals with third-party data vendors likely mean the company is not putting all its eggs in Scale AI, even after investing billions in the startup. The same can’t be said for Scale AI, however. Not long after Meta announced its massive investment with Scale AI, OpenAI and Google said they would stop working with the data provider.

Shortly after losing those customers, Scale AI laid off 200 employees in its data labeling business in July, with the company’s new CEO, Jason Droege, blaming the changes in part on “shifts in market demand.” Droege said Scale AI would staff up in other parts of the business, including government sales — the company just landed a $99 million contract with the U.S. Army.

Some speculated initially that Meta’s investment in Scale AI was really to lure Wang, a founder who has operated in the AI space since Scale AI was founded in 2016 and who appears to be helping Meta to attract top AI talent.

Aside from Wang, there’s an open question around how valuable Scale is to Meta.

One current MSL employee says that several of the Scale executives brought over to Meta are not working on the core TBD Labs team.

Meanwhile, Meta’s AI unit has become increasingly chaotic since bringing on Wang and a wave of top researchers, according to two former employees and one current MSL employee. New talent from OpenAI and Scale AI have expressed frustration with navigating the bureaucracy of a big company, while Meta’s previous GenAI team has seen its scope limited, they said.

The tensions indicate that Meta’s largest AI investment to date may be off to a rocky start, despite that it was supposed to address the company’s AI development challenges. After the lackluster launch of Llama 4 in April, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg grew frustrated with the company’s AI team, one current and one former employee told TechCrunch.

In an effort to turn things around and catch up with OpenAI and Google, Zuckerberg rushed to strike deals and launched an aggressive campaign to recruit top AI talent.

Beyond Wang, Zuckerberg has managed to pull in top AI researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Meta has also acquired AI voice startups including Play AI and WaveForms AI, and announced a partnership with the AI image generation startup, Midjourney.

To power its AI ambitions, Meta recently announced several massive data center buildouts across the U.S. One of the largest is a $50 billion data center in Louisiana called Hyperion, named after a titan in Greek mythology that fathered the God of Sun.

Wang, who’s not an AI researcher by background, was viewed as a somewhat unconventional choice to lead an AI lab. Zuckerberg reportedly held talks to bring in more traditional candidates to lead the effort, such as OpenAI’s chief research officer, Mark Chen, and tried to acquire the startups of Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati. All of them declined.

Some of the new AI researchers recently brought in from OpenAI have already left Meta, Wired previously reported. Meanwhile, many longtime members of Meta’s GenAI unit have departed in light of the changes.

MSL AI researcher Rishabh Agarwal is among the latest, posting on X this week that he’d be leaving the company.

“The pitch from Mark and @alexandr_wang to build in the Superintelligence team was incredibly compelling,” said Agarwal. “But I ultimately choose to follow Mark’s own advice: ‘In a world that’s changing so fast, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk’.”

Asked afterward about his time at Meta and what drove his decision to leave, Agarwal declined to comment.

Director of product management for generative AI, Chaya Nayak, and research engineer, Rohan Varma, have also announced their departure from Meta in recent weeks. The question now is whether Meta can stabilize its AI operations and retain the talent it needs for its future success.

MSL has already started working on its next generation AI model. According to reports from Business Insider, it’s aiming to launch it by the end of this year.

The Information : ‘ChatGPT for Doctors’ Startup Considers $6 Billion-Valuation I

‘ChatGPT for Doctors’ Startup Considers $6 Billion-Valuation Investment

The Takeaway
OpenEvidence, which operates a ChatGPT-like product for doctors, is considering multiple investment offers valuing the company at $6 billion.

OpenEvidence, which operates a ChatGPT-like product for doctors to find health information, is considering multiple investment offers valuing the three-year-old startup at $6 billion, nearly double its private valuation from a financing just one month ago, according to three people involved in the potential deal.

The funding conversations are still in their early stages. If a deal happens, the company is likely to raise more than $100 million, one of the people involved said. The funding interest comes as ChatGPT creator OpenAI gears up to develop products related to the healthcare sector and other health-related artificial intelligence startups make inroads into selling their products to doctors and other medical professionals.


OpenEvidence CEO and co-founder Daniel Nadler previously sold an AI startup to financial research firm S&P Global for hundreds of millions of dollars. His current startup provides a chatbot for registered physicians to find answers to their questions or to analyze peer-reviewed studies.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company sells advertising space on its chatbot to pharmaceutical companies, similar to the way Google sells ads on its search engine.

It is currently generating more than $50 million in advertising revenue on an annualized basis, according to one of the people involved in the deal, which implies it’s generating more than $4 million in revenue per month. But it currently has more than $400 million worth of ad inventory that it could theoretically sell, they said.

The company’s gross profit margins are currently above 90%, the person said. That level puts it well above many AI startups.

Gross margins measure a company’s sales after taking into consideration the fundamental costs of its main product, known as cost of revenue. OpenEvidence’s costs of revenue include its cost of compute, including running servers and AI models, and money spent on licensing content from medical journals, they said. OpenEvidence is currently burning less than $10 million per quarter, they said.

Millions of people already use OpenAI’s ChatGPT to answer health-related questions and review bloodwork and other test results. The company is expanding its efforts in this field. Last week, OpenAI hired longtime Facebook executive Ashley Alexander to develop health-related products.

ChatGPT doesn’t sell ads but has publicly discussed doing so, and its incoming chief of applications—which include ChatGPT—was also a longtime Meta Platforms executive and has advertising-related experience.

OpenEvidence says its chatbot is more accurate than general chatbots such as ChatGPT because it was developed using information from medical journals whose content it licensed, such as the New England Journal of Medicine.

The company’s product uses open-source models to search through medical journals and return useful information and citations. It also uses AI from Google, OpenAI and other providers to write its chatbot’s responses.

With the new capital, OpenEvidence could acquire more content from medical journals to train its models or could buy other healthcare startups, like electronic health record firms, to reach hospitals and other potential customers and expand what the startup can offer doctors, one of the people involved in the deal said.

OpenEvidence’s product is used in more than 10,000 hospitals and medical centers and more than 40% of physicians in the U.S., the company said in a blog post. (There are about 1 million physicians in the U.S., according to the Federation of State Medical Boards.)

As of July, the company said it handles more than 8.5 million questions from clinicians each month. The company has raised more than $300 million from investors including GV, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital.

OpenEvidence said earlier this month that the models it developed scored perfectly on the U.S. medical licensing exam. Notably, one of OpenEvidence’s co-founders told Fierce Healthcare that OpenAI‘s ChatGPT-5 got 97% of answers right, based on OpenEvidence’s own evaluation.

Other health AI startups have received investor interest of late. Abridge, whose software transcribes physicians’ conversations with patients, recently raised funding at a $5 billion valuation, nearly double the company’s valuation from a deal three months earlier.

Ambience, a competitor to Abridge, raised capital at a valuation of more than $1 billion, more than triple its 2023 valuation.

CrunchBase : The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Commonwealth Fusion’s Giant F

The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Commonwealth Fusion’s Giant Financing Leads Otherwise Slow Week For Big Deals

Hoping to be the first company to commercialize fusion power, Commonwealth Fusion Systems led the pack by a long shot for funding this week, pulling in $863 million for its latest round. Beyond that deal, however, it was a rather slow week for large startup funding rounds, although we did see some good-sized financings for the fintech, biotech and vertical AI sectors.

1. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, $863M, fusion energy: Devens, Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a developer of commercial fusion energy systems, announced that it raised $863 million in what it described as Series B2 financing from a long list of investors including Nvidia’s NVentures. Commonwealth said it is moving closer to being the first in the world to commercialize fusion power.

2. Wugen, $115M, oncology: St. Louis-based Wugen, a developer of CAR-T cell therapies to treat T-cell cancers, picked up $115 million in equity financing led by Fidelity. Seven-year-old Wugen plans to use the financing in part to fund clinical trials.

3. Rain, $58M, fintech: Rain, a developer of infrastructure for stablecoin payments, announced that it secured $58 million in a Series B funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. The raise comes five months after New York-based Rain’s Series A and brings total funding to $88.5 million.

4. Blue Water Autonomy, $50M, autonomous ships: Boston-based Blue Water Autonomy, a startup designing and building unmanned ships for the U.S. Navy, closed on $50 million in Series A funding led by Google’s GV. Blue Water said it plans to use the funding to build and deploy its first long-range, full-sized autonomous ship next year.

5. Assort Health, $50M, health care AI: Assort Health, a San Francisco-based provider of AI patient communication tools for specialty healthcare providers, reportedly raised about $50 million in a Series B round at a valuation of $750 million.

6. OpenLight, $34M, photonics: OpenLight, based in Goleta, California, is a developer of a silicon photonics platform for semiconductor design which landed $34 million in a Series A co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group.

7. (tied) Atomic, $30M, fintech: New York-based Atomic, provider of an embedded investing platform for fintechs and financial institutions, snagged $30 million in a growth round led by Aquiline Capital Partners and Brewer Lane Ventures.

7. (tied) Aurasell, $30M, vertical AI: San Mateo, California-based Aurasell, developer of an AI-native CRM platform, locked up $20 million in seed funding backed by N47, Menlo Ventures and Unusual Ventures.

7. (tied) Leal Therapeutics, $30M, biotech: Leal Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based developer of therapeutics for patients living with neuropsychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders, announced a $30 million Series A financing led by SV Health Investors‘ Dementia Discovery Fund.

10. Copper, $28M, appliances: Copper, a developer of appliances with integrated battery storage, scored $28 million in a Series A financing consisting of equity and debt that was led by Prelude Ventures. The Berkeley, California-based startup’s first product offering is a stainless steel range and oven called “Charlie.”

WSJ : How Hedge Funds Won Big on an Obscure Drugmaker

How Hedge Funds Won Big on an Obscure Drugmaker
Abivax surged almost 600% in one day, delivering big gains to some biotech-focused funds that had previously been in the red

  • Abivax, a French drugmaker, saw its U.S.-listed shares jump over 580% in one day after releasing trial results.
  • The surge in Abivax’s stock boosted the performance of healthcare-focused hedge funds ADAR1 and Deep Track Capital.


It had been an anemic year for hedge funds that trade biotech stocks, thanks in part to moves by the Trump administration. A little-known French drugmaker provided a shot in the arm.

The market value of Abivax ABVX 0.00%increase; green up pointing triangle hovered around $500 million early this summer. But when the Paris biotech company released results in July of a late-stage trial of its oral drug for inflammatory bowel disease, Abivax’s U.S.-listed shares skyrocketed by over 580% in one day. Abivax is now worth more than $6 billion.

That gave a major performance boost to a handful of healthcare-focused hedge funds. ADAR1 Capital Management and Deep Track Capital, two of the largest owners of Abivax’s U.S.-listed shares, gained about 18% and about 8%, respectively, in July, people familiar with their performance said.

After spending the first half of 2025 in the red, ADAR1 is now up nearly 16% on the year through July, while Deep Track is slightly positive. In contrast, the total return of the S&P 500 index was 8.6% this year through July after a 2.2% gain that month.

Founded in 2013 by the French immunologist Philippe Pouletty, Abivax went public in Europe two years later and added a U.S. listing in 2023. It had unsuccessfully explored using its main drug, obefazimod, to treat HIV before it homed in on ulcerative colitis.

The company remained off Wall Street’s radar for a while. Markets assigned obefazimod an estimated 16% probability of success ahead of the readout of its trial results, ADAR1 told investors in a June letter.

But the Austin, Texas, hedge-fund firm had developed its own hypothesis on how the drug worked and tested it itself in experiments on mice. After that, it raised the odds of a successful readout to 50% to 60%. It predicted that the stock could surge up to 500% if it was right, or slump 90% if it was wrong. ADAR1 shared its proprietary research with clients on June 28—a few weeks before the trial results came out.

“We believe that victory laps after the fact are cheap,” ADAR1 founder Daniel Schneeberger, a medical doctor and former McKinsey consultant, wrote in the letter.

The data from the Phase 3 trial showed that obefazimod was a safe and effective treatment for patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

ADAR1, named for an enzyme, manages around $850 million.

Many biotech hedge funds were in a funk in 2025 until recently. Changes under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Food and Drug Administration and a White House order attempting to lower prescription-drug prices weighed on the stocks of experimental pharmaceutical companies.

A healthcare hedge-fund index compiled by the research firm PivotalPath lost 5% in the first half of 2025, a period during which PivotalPath’s broad hedge-fund index gained 4%.

Few sectors are as boom-and-bust as biotech, and investors in the sector notched a handful of recent wins.

Hedge funds rode the 167% rally in shares of Celcuity on July 28, the day the company announced a successful late-stage trial of its breast-cancer therapy. Baker Brothers Advisors and Soleus Capital, two of Celcuity’s largest shareholders as of the end of June, each gained about 11% in July, people familiar with their performance said.

On July 9, Merck agreed to buy Verona Pharma, a drugmaker focused on respiratory disease, for roughly $10 billion, representing a 23% premium to Verona’s closing price a day earlier.

Caligan Partners, an activist hedge-fund firm that counts Verona and Abivax among its top holdings, was up about 14% in July, bringing its year-to-date gains to 38%, people familiar with the matter said.

Hedge funds collectively gained at least $1.4 billion on their Abivax positions in July, according to Old Well Labs, which analyzes hedge-fund filings to estimate returns. Five of the 10 best-performing funds Old Well Labs followed in July owned sizable stakes in Abivax at the end of June.

WSJ : Risk-Taking Is Back in Debt Markets Too

Risk-Taking Is Back in Debt Markets Too
Investors are piling back into funds that buy junk-rated corporate bonds and loans, despite elevated default rates

  • Companies with below-investment grade credit ratings are issuing bonds and loans, capitalizing on the appetite for risk.
  • Junk bond issuance hit a monthly record of $240 billion in July, and this month is expected to be the busiest August ever.
  • Junk-rated company defaults have been elevated, and could increase if tariffs fuel inflation or slow the economy.


So much for the dog days of summer. Companies with low credit ratings are feverishly issuing new bonds and loans to capitalize on the appetite for risk that is driving stocks to record highs.

Buying by individual and institutional investors is pushing up prices for junk debt and driving down yields to levels not seen since before President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. That is prompting companies to refinance existing debt and slash their interest expenses.

One possible danger: Defaults among junk-rated companies have been elevated. If tariffs fuel inflation or slow down the economy, analysts say more defaults are likely. That means investors could lose out on their bets and likely see prices of other high-yield bonds fall.

Chasing yields
Investors have been piling back into high-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds since May.

They are betting U.S. economic activity will strengthen if the Federal Reserve begins cutting interest rates as expected in September. But there are also signs tariffs are pressuring corporations.

Downgrades accounted for two-thirds of S&P Global Ratings’ credit-rating actions in the second quarter, up from about half in the first quarter.

The average yield of around 6.75% is still juicy enough to attract buyers. The premium for junk bonds—or the spread on yields compared with Treasurys—remains slightly above its recent low in January, suggesting the rally could continue.

A surge in new debt
Issuance of junk-rated bonds and loans hit a monthly record of $240 billion in July, according to data from JPMorgan Chase. This month is also expected to be the busiest August ever, with total issuance set to exceed $100 billion.

That brings the amount companies have raised from junk bonds and loans so far this year to $930 billion, just shy of the $1 trillion issued during the same period in 2024, despite the credit freeze this spring.


Most of the deals refinanced existing debt, but others went to less conservative uses. Aircraft parts maker TransDigm Group issued a $9 billion bond in August to fund a dividend to shareholders.

“If the markets stay in the condition they are, they will remain busy through the rest of the year,” said Trip Morris, co-head of leveraged finance at Wells Fargo.

Private credit powers on
Funds that make private loans to riskier corporations have been booming in part because they pay even higher yields than their public counterparts.

The money managed by business development companies, which make private loans to small and midsize companies, jumped by about 33% over the 12 months ending in June, according to data from LSEG’s loan data unit.


The performance of the funds’ portfolio companies has been generally stable, according to Morgan Stanley research. But smaller borrowers have been pressured by tariffs and weakening consumer spending, pushing the ratio of delinquent loans held by BDCs to 2.9% at the end of June. That’s up from 2.7% in March and about 2.25% in December.

Higher for longer
Signs of trouble are also emerging in public high-yield bonds and loans, where the default rate has remained above the 30-year average since July 2023. That is a longer stretch than any of the previous three default cycles, including the subprime credit crisis, according to data from S&P Global Ratings.


The period of elevated defaults has the potential to drag if the risk of runaway inflation prevents the Fed from sharply cutting interest rates. If interest rates remain elevated, larger junk-rated companies could start to buckle under their debt loads.

The current default rate of 4.7% is still well below the 12% peak hit in 2009.