TheChek News Flow

Each company will receive $100 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce

The U.S. government is taking minority equity stakes in D-Wave Quantum QBTS 8.02%increase; green up pointing triangle, Rigetti Computing RGTI 4.87%increase; green up pointing triangle, and Quantinuum QNT 3.56%increase; green up pointing triangle with a combined $300 million CHIPS Act deal that funds the three companies to scale quantum-computing research.

The companies will each receive $100 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce, structured as a research-and-development grant under the CHIPS Act, the companies said Tuesday. As part of the grants, the Commerce Department will take a minority stake in each of the three companies as it looks to support the development of domestic semiconductor and advanced-hardware supply chains.

Quantinuum shares rose 5.5% to $52.44, while D-Wave shares climbed 9.1% to $18.08. Rigetti’s stock advanced 6.4% to $16.17.

Under the terms of Rigetti’s agreement with the Commerce Department, the company will deploy the new funds to address technical bottlenecks in scaling superconducting quantum processors, expanding cryogenic capacity, and speeding up manufacturing at specialized manufacturing facilities.

British Columbia-based D-Wave said it will use the new money to advance microelectronics research and development around prototyping of advanced semiconductor technology for quantum technology and scalable high-performance quantum hardware.

For Quantinuum, the award focuses heavily on building out scalable, reliable integrated photonics engines through domestic partnerships. The company said it will partner with GlobalFoundries to fabricate next-generation ion traps and other electronics, and with Monarch Quantum to manufacture integrated lasers and optical components required for its systems.

GlobalFoundries also finalized its deal with the U.S. government with its own $375 million agreement to expand domestic quantum manufacturing capabilities.

Under the five-year deal, the semiconductor manufacturer will receive milestone-based research and development funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce to support quantum hardware developers transition from lab prototypes to commercial-scale manufacturing.

GlobalFoundries said that the funding is aimed at securing critical technologies necessary to build scalable quantum processing units in the U.S.

GlobalFoundries’ stock ticked up nearly 2% to $46.09.

AstraZeneca Ends Phase 3 Lung Cancer Drug Trial After Review

Other volrustomig trials would continue as planned, the company said

BARCELONA—AstraZeneca AZN -1.38%decrease; down pointing triangle said its new drug for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease showed benefits across a broad patient population in late-stage clinical trials, boosting a medicine the company expects to generate multibillion-dollar sales.

The drug, tozorakimab, achieved reductions in moderate and severe COPD exacerbations—or lung attacks—by around 30% compared with the standard therapy in two late-stage studies, the U.K. pharmaceutical company said Tuesday.

The company said the drug worked across patient subgroups, with a 43% reduction for those with the highest level of blood cells known as eosinophils, and a 23% decline for those with lower eosinophils.

In addition to reducing exacerbations, the drug also reduced mucus plugging in lungs, AstraZeneca said. Tozorakimab was generally well tolerated, it added.

“What we have seen in the data is what we classify as a scientific breakthrough,” AstraZeneca’s biopharmaceuticals unit president, Ruud Dobber, said in an interview.

The trial results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Barcelona, could help AstraZeneca turn a page on a challenging few weeks. The failure of a heart-disease trial and takeover speculation hit its stock. The company declined to comment on the takeover reports.

AstraZeneca recently upgraded its annual peak sales estimate for tozorakimab to more than $5 billion and said the medicine is set to be its largest respiratory product.

The COPD treatment market generated $11.6 billion in sales for the pharma industry last year and is expected to grow to $14.8 billion in 2033, according to data provider Evaluate. Tozorakimab is forecast to become the No. 3 COPD drug globally by sales in the early 2030s, according to Evaluate data.

Analysts at Berenberg said before the study results were published that a 30% reduction in COPD exacerbations would be considered highly positive and ahead of expectations.

Trial setbacks for rival treatments from Roche Holding and Sanofi, the overall size of the COPD market and potential uses of the drug in other diseases led AstraZeneca to dial up its sales expectations, Dobber said.

The company is running studies for tozorakimab in asthma and viral respiratory diseases, and is considering whether to launch more for conditions like bronchiectasis, he added.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted priority review to AstraZeneca’s application for tozorakimab, with a target decision date set for the first quarter of 2027, the company said.

If approved, AstraZeneca would commercialize the drug under the framework of a U.S. policy known as “most favored nation,” or MFN, which ties U.S. prices of newly launched drugs to those of other wealthy countries.

Dobber said negotiations with governments in Europe, Japan and Canada are set to take place over the next six to 12 months.

“We are constructive. Time will tell whether the other side of the table will be as constructive as well, and then we will see what we do,” Dobber said.

Alex Gibney’s near-four-hour film is exhaustive, and exhausting

There was a time when film festivals were the preserve of glamorous stars and revered directors. It is telling of our era that at this year’s Venice Film Festival much of the buzz has surrounded divisive tech titan and sometime trillionaire Elon Musk.

We had already seen a rising Rupert Murdoch in Ink and murderous CIA men in Wild Horse Nine, but Alex Gibney’s near-four-hour documentary Musk threatened to douse the world’s oldest film festival with a cold dose of urgent reality.

From the moment of its announcement in early 2023, the subject of Musk seemed piqued by the very idea. “It’s a hit piece,” declared the self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist on his own platform, X, having seen none of it. “Gibney is a douche,” he added later, prompting Gibney’s pithy comeback “Douché”.

This is a director not easily cowed. His filmography is replete with subjects others might shrink from: Scientology, clerical sex abuse, Russian oligarchs. It would come as no surprise if Musk tried to block the release of the film, as Donald Trump did, unsuccessfully, with the unflattering fictionalised portrait The Apprentice in 2024. As things stand, Musk is due for release in US cinemas in October through independent distributor Bleecker Street.

But what, we all wondered, could the new film possibly add to the extensive library of journalism, books and films covering this most ubiquitous of figures? Much would depend on access to sources — and it was clear that Musk himself would not be one of them.

In lieu of the man himself, we are presented with a digital facsimile: an AI version of Musk with shifty eyes, a self-satisfied smirk and an inordinately big head. As the film cuts between this avatar delivering historical Musk quotes and footage of the real thing, you may find yourself warming to the AI.

But even the echt Elon might mostly enjoy the film’s first hour: a breathless account of his rapid rise from spotty computer nerd to tech broligarch; his yen for space exploration, especially his dreams of colonising Mars; his championing of electric cars, first for human drivers, then autopilot.

Here things start to get sticky: some of the film’s most damning evidence is the dashcam footage and photographs of crashes, a contrast to Musk’s braggadocious claims that self-driving cars are “essentially a solved problem”. Tell that to Naibel Benavides, who died after being hit by a Tesla operating on autopilot in 2019, as recounted in the film.

AI Elon offers no comment, and increasingly the humans steal the show. His first wife Justine Musk is clear-eyed on the Musk 1.0 she knew and touching about the son they lost, whom Musk has recalled holding when he died — a claim she denies. Second wife Talulah Riley and pop star Grimes, mother of three of his children, appear only in archival footage.

Ashley St Clair, mother of another of his children, offers testimony of his use of surrogates to fill the world with a legion of mini-Musks before the coming apocalypse. St Clair, a former Maga activist, has a piquant way with words: “It’s like a Gatling gun of sperm in his DMs.”

As the film covers Musk’s takeover of Twitter, video game-style imagery becomes a visual device. The CEO stalks the halls of Twitter’s HQ in pixelated form, vaporising jobs, the headcount figure rising like a high score while former employees recall the carnage he wrought. From here it’s a short hop to his growing involvement in politics and war on the “woke mind virus”, and his alliance with Trump. Next comes the spearheading of Doge and his trigger-happy approach to culling government departments.

We are invited to giggle at Musk and his goons’ cluelessness on how state institutions function, but the laughter abruptly stops as the human cost of abruptly halting USAID payments is counted: the estimated 14mn people who, we are told, will die due to USAID cuts, 4.5mn of them children under five.

Again and again, those who know him or have studied him closely suggest that such a disregard for moral consequences is not a bug but a feature of the Musk MO. The resounding image is of a high-stakes gambler who so far keeps winning, and is increasingly using political influence to bend the odds in his favour. “Don’t bet against Elon — you will lose,” growls his father, Errol Musk. You are left with the feeling that humanity might well lose either way.

We may have Errol to thank for his son’s embrace of far-right politics. We see Musk addressing a rally of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, which was quick to thank him after the party’s election victory in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday.

In a film largely short on revelations, a glaring new one is posited: the possibility of election interference, given the super-admin access Musk’s Doge staffers have had to voter data, not to mention the more than 10,000 satellites that form his Starlink network. We are advised to keep a careful eye on this year’s US midterms. 

Gibney’s film flies by but is ultimately both exhaustive and exhausting, a dire warning on the perils of unchecked wealth and power that plays more like a horror movie the longer it goes on. In Tuesday’s press conference, the director stated that, in an age of constant social media scrolling and 24-hour news, his film was an attempt to show the forest, not just the trees.

On the evidence he presents, the forest is already burning. As St Clair told the assembled press: “He is causing deliberate division that may be catastrophic if it’s not regulated or tamed or if we don’t do our part in putting it down.”

In US cinemas from October 16

Historically, the European Union’s (EU’s) merger control framework has provided businesses with a relatively predictable basis on which to assess transaction risk. While enforcement has naturally evolved over time through case law and changing market conditions, the underlying principles governing how the European Commission (EC) evaluates mergers have remained largely unchanged.

That position is now beginning to shift. Earlier this year, the EC published draft revised Merger Guidelines, representing the most significant reform of EU merger control in more than two decades.

The publication of the draft guidelines is significant because it responds to a substantially changed economic and geopolitical environment, one defined by instability, the rise of digital platforms and artificial intelligence (AI), and a renewed focus on European industrial competitiveness.

The proposals will replace the 2004 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2008 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. Although they remain subject to consultation and formal adoption, the draft guidelines are expected to shape the EC’s approach to dealmaking for the foreseeable future.

The draft guidelines seek to adapt EU merger control to a dramatically changed economic and geopolitical landscape. The modern global economy is increasingly driven by digital platforms, AI, data, intellectual property (IP) and innovation. Greater emphasis is also being placed on supply chain resilience, economic security and strategic autonomy, all of which have risen rapidly up political and corporate agendas.

These developments have occurred alongside growing regulatory intervention. Governments across the world are increasingly willing to intervene in transactions involving strategically important sectors, most notably those with national security implications, but also those linked to economic resilience and technological leadership. Beyond traditional defence-related assets, scrutiny increasingly extends to areas such as energy, telecommunications, AI, semiconductors, critical infrastructure, life sciences and critical minerals.

Against this backdrop, the EC has sought to modernise its merger control framework while maintaining its core objective of protecting competition across the bloc.

Given the changing nature of the global economy and the growing importance of innovation, technological capability and data, the EC intends to adopt a broader and more forward-looking approach rather than one focused primarily on existing market structures. Regulators will place greater emphasis on how transactions may affect future innovation, emerging technologies and the evolution of competition over time.

This reflects wider concerns that acquisitions involving innovative businesses could undermine future competition. Consequently, merger reviews are likely to involve more detailed analysis of research and development pipelines, IP portfolios, technological capabilities and potential future market entrants. This shift could have significant implications for companies pursuing transactions in fast-moving sectors.

One of the most significant features of the revised framework is the EC’s commitment to looking beyond conventional indicators of market power. Merger assessments have traditionally focused on market definition, concentration levels and the likelihood of higher prices, reduced output or diminished consumer choice. However, the EC has long considered factors including innovation, coordinated effects, buyer power, barriers to entry, efficiencies and foreclosure.

The revised guidelines emphasise that competitive harm can also arise through reduced innovation, weaker resilience, diminished labour market competition, the accumulation of data and the growing influence of digital ecosystems. As a result, the reforms adopt a broader view of how competition operates in modern economies, moving beyond a predominantly price-based assessment while retaining the fundamental principles underpinning EU merger control.

Rather than representing a fundamental break with the past, the revised guidelines constitute an evolution of the EC’s established analytical framework, adapting traditional competition principles to the realities of a digital, innovation-driven and geopolitically complex economy.

Innovation competition is a particular area of focus. Regulators are increasingly concerned about acquisitions that eliminate a future competitive threat before it fully emerges, especially where highly innovative smaller companies are acquired by larger incumbents. This issue is particularly relevant in digital markets, biotechnology and AI.

The guidelines distinguish between a merger’s direct and dynamic effects, structure competitive assessment around concepts such as capabilities, and recognise that mergers can be justified where they generate meaningful innovation benefits.

Another notable feature is the creation of the so-called Innovation Shield, which aims to ensure that merger control does not discourage investment in innovative businesses while allowing intervention where acquisitions risk removing important future sources of competition. The shield does not provide a blanket exemption for start-up acquisitions. Rather, it is intended to provide greater certainty for transactions involving small innovative businesses that are unlikely to raise competition concerns, while preserving the EC’s ability to intervene where necessary.

The guidelines are also expected to encourage greater consideration of organic growth, partnerships and other strategic alternatives where regulatory risks are elevated.

The revised guidelines arrive amid a growing political debate over Europe’s global competitiveness. Faced with strong competition from heavily capitalised rivals in the US and Asia, policymakers are seeking ways to strengthen European businesses and improve their ability to compete internationally.

Some argue that Europe should become more willing to permit consolidation in order to create businesses with sufficient scale to compete globally. Historically, however, such consolidation has often been viewed with caution, as competition policy has prioritised maintaining robust competition within the internal market.

Opponents of a more permissive approach argue that weaker merger control can lead to higher prices, reduced innovation and diminished consumer choice, with no guarantee that larger businesses will ultimately become more competitive internationally.

The revised guidelines represent an attempt to strike a balance between these competing objectives. Rather than introducing a wholesale relaxation of merger controls, they seek to incorporate wider economic considerations without abandoning established competition principles.

Since publication of the draft guidelines in April 2026, the consultation process has generated significant debate among businesses, investors and competition law practitioners. Stakeholders have broadly welcomed the EC’s increased focus on innovation, resilience and global competitiveness, although some have expressed concern that the broader analytical framework could introduce greater uncertainty into merger reviews.

The EC has indicated that it will continue engaging with stakeholders throughout 2026, including through dedicated economic studies and workshops on dynamic merger effects, before publishing the final guidelines later in the year.

The revised guidelines are also likely to influence how international investors approach acquisitions involving European businesses. While the EC continues to welcome investment that promotes growth and innovation, the regulatory environment has become significantly more complex.

In today’s global economy, merger control operates alongside foreign direct investment screening regimes, foreign subsidy investigations and sector-specific national security reviews. The result is an increasingly complex web of overlapping regulatory requirements that dealmakers must navigate.

For companies pursuing cross-border transactions, part 3 of the draft guidelines offers several important insights. The guidelines suggest a more structured framework for assessing national objections to intra-EU transactions, potentially increasing the burden on member states seeking to justify interventions.

Protectionist measures may also become more vulnerable to challenge. The guidelines provide a framework against which national interventions can be assessed, potentially making it easier for businesses to challenge measures that appear motivated by economic protectionism rather than legitimate security concerns.

The guidelines also reinforce the EU’s one-stop-shop principle. At a time when geopolitical pressures are encouraging greater national intervention, the EC is reaffirming its central role in preserving the integrity of the internal market.

Another important implication of the revised guidelines is the EC’s willingness to assess competition through a longer-term lens.

Traditional merger analysis has focused largely on existing products, identifiable competitors and measurable market shares. Increasingly, however, regulators are asking whether today’s transactions could reshape tomorrow’s competitive landscape.

This is particularly relevant in innovation-driven industries where future market leaders may not yet have established significant commercial positions. AI is perhaps the clearest example. A relatively small AI company may currently generate limited revenue, yet possess technologies capable of transforming entire industries.

The guidelines provide a clearer analytical framework for assessing these types of transactions. This reflects a broader shift toward assessing competition as a dynamic process rather than a static snapshot of current market conditions. In sectors characterised by rapid technological change, regulators are increasingly concerned with preserving future rivalry and innovation incentives, even where immediate competitive effects appear limited at first glance.

Going forward, internal business plans, research strategies, investment roadmaps, technical expertise and future product development are all likely to become more influential during regulatory reviews. Economic modelling may also play a greater role in demonstrating how competition could evolve under different market conditions.

In this evolving environment, companies must be able to explain and substantiate the strategic rationale behind a transaction or risk encountering regulatory difficulties.

Although the guidelines have not yet been finalised, the EC has stated that it expects to complete the review process during Q4 2026.

As preparation for major transactions commonly begins nine to 12 months before completion, companies should already be taking steps to prepare for the revised framework.

Whatever form the final guidelines take, boards and investors increasingly recognise that regulatory strategy can no longer be treated as a procedural step that follows negotiations. It has become a strategic consideration capable of influencing valuation, transaction structure, financing arrangements and even decisions about whether to pursue a transaction at all.

Companies should therefore devote greater time and resources to identifying potential competition concerns at an early stage. Target assessments should examine not only existing overlaps and potential synergies, but also innovation capabilities, future market developments and areas where regulators may identify competition concerns.

Early engagement with specialist advisers, economists and technical experts can help identify issues before they become significant obstacles during formal reviews.

Transaction teams must also be prepared for increasingly information-intensive investigations. The EC is likely to seek detailed evidence relating to research programmes, internal strategy documents and product development plans. Preparing this material in advance can improve the efficiency of regulatory engagement and help shorten review timelines.

In today’s dealmaking environment, and with the EC expected to finalise the revised guidelines during Q4 2026, businesses should recognise that regulatory uncertainty is likely to become a permanent feature of major transactions.

EU merger control will continue to evolve as markets become increasingly digital, interconnected and innovation-driven. AI, advanced analytics and more sophisticated economic modelling are expected to play a growing role in regulatory assessments, while cooperation between competition authorities, national governments and other regulators is likely to deepen.

In this environment, dealmakers will need to become more adept at anticipating regulatory concerns and addressing them proactively rather than reacting once problems emerge.

Ultimately, the revised merger guidelines are more than a technical update to European competition law. They reflect a broader shift in how regulators assess competition in an economy increasingly shaped by innovation and technology.

As that understanding continues to evolve, successful dealmakers will need to adapt accordingly, embedding regulatory strategy into every stage of transaction planning, and not treating it as an obstacle to overcome after negotiations have begun.