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The higher dose was approved by the FDA nearly three weeks ago under an accelerated approval process

Novo Nordisk NOVO.B -0.76%decrease; red down pointing triangle launched its higher-dose Wegovy weight-loss shot in the U.S. after the new treatment gained regulatory approval there last month.

The Danish drugmaker said Tuesday that Wegovy HD is now available nationwide through more than 70,000 pharmacies, its online pharmacy, certain telehealth providers and other outlets.

Wegovy HD is a once-weekly injection that contains 7.2 milligrams of active ingredient semaglutide, offering the highest weight-loss of any Wegovy injection so far, the company said.

In a trial of adults with obesity but without diabetes, patients taking a 7.2 milligram dose of Wegovy over about a year and a half lost 21% of their body weight on average, while around one in three people lost 25% or more of their body weight.

Prior to the launch of Wegovy HD, the highest available injectable dose was 2.4 milligrams of semaglutide, which has shown to help patients lose around 18% of their body weight on average.

The higher dose of Wegovy was approved by the Food and Drug Administration nearly three weeks ago under an accelerated approval process based on the results of the trial.

The approval follows decisions from the European Commission and British regulators earlier this year that allowed a Wegovy dose of up to 7.2 milligrams a week administered as three separate shots of 2.4 milligrams. The decisions mean that adults with obesity in the U.K. and all 27 European Union countries can now take the 2.4 milligram dose of Wegovy for at least four weeks and then move up to 7.2 milligrams if they need greater weight loss.

Novo Nordisk has applied for approval of a 7.2 milligram single-dose pen in the EU and U.K., with a decision expected in the second half of the year.

The rollout of higher-dose Wegovy shots comes as the drugmaker broadens its offering in the booming weight-loss market, having started selling its Wegovy weight-loss pill in the U.S. at the start of the year as it awaits regulatory approval of the pill in the EU and U.K.

Rival Eli Lilly began shipping its own obesity pill in the U.S. on Monday.

The company is laying the groundwork to negotiate a step-by-step plan to wrap up the bankruptcy process.

The corporate jet is out, the “New Saks” is on the way in.

Saks Global filed its plan of reorganization with bankruptcy court on Sunday.

And while many of the details were left blank, pending negotiations with the various stakeholders in the coming weeks, the plan will ultimately lay out just who gets what out of the Chapter 11 process. Former secured lenders are expected to come away with control of the company while unsecured creditors, including vendors, will most likely see very little for the bills that piled up before the Jan. 13 bankruptcy filing.

Saks Global has a separate five-year business plan that has been worked out with lenders, but has not been disclosed. That plan sets the strategy that will guide the retailer once it exits bankruptcy, which is expected this summer.

Bankruptcies can be contentious — and there were some fireworks early on with partner Amazon — but the various parties all seem to be playing nice right now, which should help ease the way forward for the parent to Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman.

A key benefit of the bankruptcy process is the ability to, with court oversight, get out of tough-to-break contracts, including store leases. The retailer is in the process of closing most of its Saks Off 5th doors as well as 21 department stores, mostly from the Saks Fifth Avenue nameplate.

The company, now led by chief executive officer Geoffroy van Raemdonck, is also becoming a little more grounded — literally.

Saks Global cut a deal to sell its Gulfstream Aerospace model G-IV for $6 million, according to a separate court filing.

A spokesperson for the retailer said: “Saks Global’s leadership has made the decision to sell the company’s legacy plane as it continues prioritizing the disciplined use of capital. This action represents another deliberate step to direct investments toward the areas of the business that will drive meaningful growth for a stronger Saks Global.”

There are, in a sense, two Saks’ that are coming into focus right now.

One is the company that was and is still facing a string of unpaid bills, angry vendors and retail dreams that went unfilled. That business is being dissected by the court, creditors and lawyers and will pay out what it can to make good on its broken promises.

The other is the “New Saks.”

That’s how court filings described the holding company or corporation that could be formed to buy Saks Global’s assets out of bankruptcy.

That still-theoretical company just received approval to access $500 million more in funding upon exiting bankruptcy and plans to carry on with the luxury retail dream.

That version of Saks Global has also worked to rebuild relationships with its key brands and hold on to its best sales people.

According to a declaration last week by chief restructuring officer Mark Weinsten, Saks Global has a workforce of about 16,000 who are needed to keep the business chugging.

“The employees are familiar with the global debtors’ businesses, processes and systems and, in certain instances, possess unique skills and experience or have developed and maintain relationships with key vendors and customers,” Weinsten said

The top sales people, who accounted for “tens of millions of dollars in sales” last year, are particularly important.

Weinsten argued to the court that the company should be allowed to pay its top eight sellers bonuses of approximately $260,000 to acknowledge their “significant contributions.”

He said the “top sellers would not be easily replaced. Recruiting, hiring and training qualified replacements would require significant time and expense, and new hires would lack the established customer relationships and institutional knowledge that make [Saks Global’s] current top sellers so valuable.”

Such bonuses are common as companies move through the bankruptcy process and look to establish themselves anew.

And while the past still has a tight grip on Saks Global, more and more at the company is new.

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Three Ways Trump’s Iran Deadline Could Play Out Tonight

President Trump has said he would bomb much of the civilian infrastructure of Iran on Tuesday night if Tehran doesn’t, among other things, allow the Strait of Hormuz to open. He has set a tight deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Trump has made numerous threats to Iran since the war began in late February. Sometimes he has followed through, and sometimes he has backed down.

Here are three ways the situation could play out ahead of the deadline, if past is prologue:

No action: This seems like the most unlikely scenario, as Trump has created this pressure point, and if he backs away he could lose leverage with Iran. Trump said Monday he was exploring the “concept” of a plan where the U.S. could charge ships for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, so that’s another door he is opening as part of a possible off-ramp. Looking at the way he has used threats in the past (with tariffs, for example), he rarely creates a deadline and then ignores it. That said, military strikes on the scale that Trump is proposing would be quite an escalation, and it’s unclear if the U.S. military and intelligence community have locked in on a way to make it happen.

“Deal” or “talks”: Trump could announce that negotiators were making progress toward a deal, or that a limited deal had been reached. He therefore could either remove the threat of military action or push it back five or 10 days (it’s this type of “punt” that created the current deadline). There are a number of countries pursuing such an outcome, and Trump suggested on Monday that proposals were being shopped back and forth, which could be a prelude to a deal—though Trump said Tehran’s latest proposal was “not enough.”

Military strikes: Trump told the Journal’s Meridith McGraw on Sunday that Iran tries to “tap along” negotiators, always delaying talks, then never agreeing to anything. If he feels Iran is doing that again, it’s possible he would authorize military strikes shortly after the deadline. He could either go all-in, as he has suggested, or start with a series of escalatory strikes, trying to create more pressure on Iran and force them to the table.

Proposed transaction would combine world’s largest music group with a blank-cheque company

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital has offered to buy Universal Music Group in a deal that values the world’s biggest record label at about €55bn and would shift its listing from Amsterdam to New York.

The proposed transaction would merge Universal, home to artists including Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, with a blank-cheque company set up by Ackman, one of the world’s best-known hedge fund managers.

The move comes as the explosive growth of AI reverberates across the music industry, with investors fearful that the technology could erode profits at the handful of dominant labels and threaten their copyright. 

Shares in Universal, which listed in Amsterdam in 2021 after it was spun out by French media group Vivendi, have slumped more than 30 per cent over the past six months.

The shares were up 11 per cent higher at €19 in afternoon trading on Tuesday after Pershing, which already owns a stake in Universal, set out the terms of a deal that it said valued the music company at €30.40 a share.

Announcing the plan, Ackman said: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and, importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”

Under the deal, Universal shareholders would receive €5.05 in cash — a total of €9.4bn — and 0.77 shares in the new company for every Universal share they owned, Pershing said.

Universal did not immediately respond to the proposal.

Ackman’s pursuit of Universal has been years in the making. Pershing Square built a roughly 10 per cent stake in 2021 ahead of the group’s Amsterdam listing.

The investment was originally planned to be executed through his pandemic-era blank cheque vehicle, but the structure collapsed under regulatory scrutiny. Ackman’s hedge fund stepped in instead, leaving Universal as one of Pershing Square’s largest positions.

Ackman joined Universal’s board and became a vocal champion of the company, arguing that ownership of music rights — from the Beatles to Taylor Swift — offered “forever” cash flows in the streaming era.

But Universal’s shares have lagged broader markets since the listing, and disagreements emerged over how to unlock value. Ackman pushed for changes including a US listing to attract a deeper pool of investors and improve liquidity.

He stepped down from the board in 2025 and trimmed his stake, but has continued to argue that Universal is undervalued. The takeover proposal is a sharp escalation of that campaign.

Last month, Universal delayed its own plan for a secondary listing in New York, saying that “uncertainty” had created a “meaningful dislocation” in the company’s valuation.

On Tuesday, Pershing claimed that uncertainty over the future of the billionaire Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in Universal had depressed its valuation.

Vivendi, which is controlled by the Bolloré family, still holds a near-10 per cent stake. China’s Tencent is Universal’s second-largest shareholder with an 11.4 per cent stake.

Analysts at Panmure Liberum said the terms of the offer looked “in part designed to offer an exit for the Bolloré Group”.

The Bolloré Group did not respond to a request for comment. Vivendi declined to comment.

The new company would be chaired by former Disney president Michael Ovitz, with “two representatives” from Pershing also joining the board.

Pershing added that the transaction would be “subject to a new employment contract and compensation arrangement” for Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal’s chair and chief executive.

Pershing Square would put in €2.5bn, including €1.05bn from investors in Ackman’s blank-cheque vehicle Sparc Holdings, with the new Universal Music entity borrowing an additional €5.4bn, according to Ackman’s letter to the company’s board.

Universal’s stake in music streamer Spotify would also be sold for €1.5bn in net proceeds, Ackman added.

Ackman is known for making multibillion-dollar bets on public companies that he regards as attractively priced, high-quality businesses with pricing power in their sectors. He has large stakes in companies such as Alphabet, Amazon and Brookfield, with his main hedge fund managing almost $18bn.

The hedge fund manager is in the middle of an IPO process for Pershing Square USA, a new closed-end fund to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Ackman aims to raise between $5bn and $10bn in a transaction that will also give investors a slice of his hedge fund’s management company.