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Drug resistance is not just a problem with bacteria

Silvia Corcione had a nagging suspicion about a patient who kept on developing fevers, no matter what therapies her infectious-disease team administered.

“We knew he was infected with Candida [a fungus], but we did not know which species,” recalls Corcione, a doctor at Turin’s City of Health and Science hospital. She worried about the infection spreading through the hospital while tests were carried out.

It was eventually established that the species was Candida auris, which is often drug-resistant and has spread across the world since first being identified in Asia in 2009. It was also the first time Corcione encountered it. Antifungal therapy managed to clear the infection, but the patient still died because of other clinical factors.

This episode shows the growing danger of antimicrobial drug resistance, which is now found not just with bacteria but also viruses, fungi and parasites.

Candida auris is usually not a threat to healthy people, and can live on the skin without causing an infection.

But it is dangerous for those in poor health. It mainly spreads in healthcare facilities among people with severe health problems. About one in three of those who contract it pass away. In March, the US Centers for Disease Control issued a warning saying it ­classified the pathogen as an “urgent” threat.

“The rapid rise and geographic spread of cases is concerning and emphasises the need for continued surveillance, expanded lab capacity, quicker diagnostic tests, and adherence to proven infection prevention and control,” said Meghan Lyman, a CDC epidemiologist, at the time.

Candida auris is also on the World Health Organization’s list of priority pathogens. Last year, it said that there were “only four classes of antifungal medicines currently available, and few candidates [are] in the clinical pipeline. Most fungal pathogens lack rapid and sensitive diagnostics and those that exist are not widely available or affordable globally”.

The consequences of poor drug prescribing practices and lack of diagnostics were demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic in India. The overprescription of steroids, which weaken the immune system, to treat Covid led to a swell of cases of “black fungus” or mucormycosis. This starts in the nose and quickly spreads to the eyes and brain, and has a high fatality rate. Drugs to treat it were in short supply and the WHO had to step in, calling for supplies to be boosted and prices to be lowered.

Javier Guzman, the director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, says that medics “who are at the frontline normally don’t see a lot of fungal infections, because there’s no awareness and there’s no testing and you get to [diagnosing] it after many rounds of misdiagnosis”. He warns: “It’s not so much the future [threat] as it is the present. But clearly, this is only going to increase.”

He explains that part of the problem is the rise of highly effective and potent drugs that suppress immune system activity in patients for whom there is a benefit, but which also have the unintended consequence of making them a potential host for fungi that would normally not pose a threat.

Another issue, which he acknowledges is not yet measured, is the rise of climate change. “It’s known that, in warmer more humid climates, you do have more infections, you do have more resistance, you do have more of the right environment for infections to thrive.”

As with most health policy issues, the key is to shift from short-term to long-term thinking, he argues — for example, by focusing on accurate diagnostics and effective treatments that address fungi not seen before. “It’s about looking at fungal infections like a neglected issue,” he suggests. “The armamentarium [treatment range] is not growing, it’s actually shrinking because of the resistance issue.”

Sotheby’s lands $400mn Emily Fisher Landau collection

Intimate Picassos offered by Ward Moretti; Christie’s set to make Paula Rego record; new ‘non-fair’ for London

‘Femme à la montre’ by Pablo Picasso (1932) © Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s has announced it will be offering the $400mn-plus collection of about 120 works that belonged to the Manhattan patron of the arts Emily Fisher Landau, who died in March, aged 102. Two dedicated auctions, on November 8-9, both guaranteed, should give the art market a necessary boost after a weaker season before the summer break.

A longtime trustee of and significant donor to the Whitney Museum of American Art, Fisher Landau stands out as “one of the foremost female collectors of the 20th century”, says Brooke Lampley, global head of Sotheby’s fine art division. “She bought like a museum, as if she had its benefit of hindsight.”

Fisher Landau began collecting art in earnest after a jewellery theft from her New York home in 1969 resulted in a hefty insurance payout. Her collection at Sotheby’s spans major postwar artists — including Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko and Georgia O’Keeffe — and more recent success stories, such as Glenn Ligon, Nan Goldin and Mark Tansey.

Sotheby’s top estimate by far is reserved for Picasso’s “Femme à la montre”, a bold painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter from the artist’s celebrated year of 1932, priced at more than $120mn. Fisher Landau bought the work in 1968 from Pace.

There are more works in the collection, some of which are being kept by Landau Fisher’s daughter, with others expected to come to market, though Sotheby’s could not confirm.

‘Dora au chignon’ by PIcasso (1937) © Succession/DACS

Picasso is the star of a different sort of sale this season — that of the Dutch couple Pieter and Olga Dreesmann, who are offering 32 of the artist’s works on paper, ceramics and sculptures through Ward Moretti. The exhibition opens in London on October 9, before travelling to the gallery’s new space in Paris and then to New York, where co-founder Emma Ward has rented a gallery on the Upper East Side for the show (November 6-18).

The earliest work in the collection is a drawing of Picasso’s friend and fellow young artist, Carles Casagemas (1899-1900), used as the image alongside the sitter’s obituary after he died by suicide in 1901. A sheet-metal sculpture, “Tête d’homme barbu” (1962), is the latest work in the exhibition, with other highlights including an unusually tender drawing of Dora Maar from 1937, bought from the sitter’s estate in 1998. Such intimate works “could get lost in an auction environment”, Ward says.

The Dreesmanns say they are selling the works to “begin a new chapter in our lives as collectors”, something they have done before, with the £25.3mn sale of their Dutch Old Master paintings in 2012. Their Picasso collection is valued at more than $40mn, Ward says, with individual prices ranging from $12,500 to $3.5mn.

‘Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s “Fantasia”’ by Paula Rego (1995)

Christie’s has landed Paula Rego’s majestic two-part pastel “Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’” (1995), which it will offer in London next month with an estimate of £2.2mn-£3.2mn — it would mark a record public price for the Anglo-Portuguese artist. The work was originally commissioned by London’s Hayward Gallery for its 1996 Spellbound: Art and Film exhibition.

Rego used her favourite model, Lila Nunes, for the ballet dancers, who come across as “deeply human and rooted, with a real physical presence”, says Tessa Lord, Christie’s interim head of postwar and contemporary art. Rego is a relative rarity at auction, partly accounting for what Lord describes as her being “slightly undervalued” on the public market. Her record stands at £1.1mn, made in 2015 for “The Cadet and his Sister” (1988).

The first international outpost of Stuart Shave’s Modern Art gallery in a Haussmann-designed building on Place de l’Alma, Paris

Stuart Shave will open the first international outpost of his Modern Art gallery in Paris, joining the incoming Hauser & Wirth and Mendes Wood in the French capital next month. Modern Art’s 2,000 sq ft, second-floor space will be in a Haussmann-designed building on Place de l’Alma in the city’s central eighth arrondissement.

Shave says that the move has been in the planning for a few years — “most of my artists don’t have representation in Paris” — but that it wasn’t a Brexit-motivated decision. The aim is for the Paris gallery to “complement” what he is doing in London, given the proximity of the two cities, he says. The UK capital, where he has two galleries, is “still the best city in the world for contemporary art”.

Each location will function very differently, Shave adds — the Paris gallery will host about three shows per year, versus more than a dozen in London, and will be by appointment only. He opens on October 16 with a group show including Eva Rothschild, Mohammed Sami and Sanya Kantarovsky. Modern Art is not joining this year’s coinciding Paris+ par Art Basel fair as, Shave says, “I am really mindful about what we take on.”

‘Collision’ by Savannah Marie Harris (2023)

The London gallerist Jonny Tanna, founder of Harlesden High Street, is behind what he is calling a “new non-fair”. Minor Attractions groups 20 galleries across two locations in Soho and London Bridge during Frieze week (October 10-15). Tanna says that the non-fair aspects include free entry and a more informal, socially focused event. “We’ll put up the works and have a party,” he says. Tanna compares the vibe to the recently founded, and well-received, Basel Social Club.

Tanna’s inspiration came from his own experience of the art world, which he joined after battling what he describes as “a gambling problem for 10 years”. Volunteering in galleries afterwards, he initially found “a lot of snootiness in a world that was hard to navigate” and set out “to do the opposite and erase elitism”.

Tanna is, however, delighted that Harlesden High Street has been accepted into the hallowed halls of this year’s Frieze London. Here, he will present a project that replicates the set of the US programme The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show, a long-running community TV show that used puppets and songs to spread the word to children. It will have works by recent graduates Hamed Maiye and Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy (under £10,000), as well as the artist — and the show’s puppeteer — David Liebe Hart. Tanna will also show in the London Bridge venue of Minor Attractions (called Cornershop), with the painter Savannah Marie Harris (£6,000-£12,000).

Failed talks between RTX and a Saudi defense firm show the kingdom’s difficulties in establishing its own military industry

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—American defense giant RTX and a Saudi weapons firm were heading toward a multibillion-dollar deal when it was abruptly called off early this year. The reason, say people familiar with the talks, was RTX’s concerns that its Saudi partner’s companies were pursuing business with sanctioned Chinese and Russian entities.

That unease was a deciding factor for an advisory board of retired American military officers to resign from the Saudi company, Scopa Defense, the people said. Scopa fired its American chief executive who had raised the sanctions concerns with his company’s owner and U.S. officials. And now other major Western defense companies are reconsidering early-stage agreements primarily because of the concerns around engagement with Russian and Chinese entities, the people said.

The failed talks with RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies, demonstrate a challenge Saudi Arabia faces in pursuing diplomatic and business relationships with China and Russia that Washington says jeopardize U.S. national security. Doing business with sanctioned companies could undermine U.S. efforts to squeeze Russia and China financially and heighten the risks that Western companies would face sanctions themselves. It also raises the specter of Moscow and Beijing obtaining secret U.S. military technology.

The breakdown of RTX-Scopa talks also shows the challenges for countries that want to maintain relationships with both the U.S. and its top global rivals when Washington prefers its partners and allies to take sides.

Saudi Arabia was once firmly in the Western camp, but since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has expanded ties with other powers, managing the oil market in alignment with Moscow and entering discussions with Chinese companies to help build its nascent nuclear program. The Biden administration has said it doesn’t want Saudi links with those countries to stray into military cooperation.

The oil-rich kingdom’s courtship of Russia and China also threatens ambitious plans to build its own military industry after decades as a top global-arms importer. Saudi Arabia’s strategy so far has been to join with defense firms from the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, which have sold the Saudis most of their current arsenal of defense systems.

Scopa’s owner, Mohamed Alajlan, chairs the Saudi-Chinese Business Council and is the scion of a prominent Saudi family that has imported Chinese textiles for decades and now operates in many sectors. Scopa, founded in 2021, is the highest-profile private Saudi company set up to support Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vision for a local arms sector, as the 38-year-old ruler tries to diversify the economy away from oil.

Alajlan denies dealing with Russian companies and says any transactions with Chinese firms are limited to securing raw materials such as copper or rubber for use in producing ammunition and armored vehicles.

“We don’t work with any companies that have international sanctions,” Alajlan said in an interview. Suggestions to the contrary “are all rumors, inaccurate and illogical and unrealistic,” he added. In a subsequent statement, he said none of his companies are involved in any negotiations or dealings with any sanctioned companies.

A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on any ongoing or potential investigations. “We expect all U.S. companies and individuals to do their necessary due diligence and operate in full compliance with all U.S. export control regulations and any applicable sanctions,” the person said.

A U.S. official said the Treasury Department is aware of concerns that Alajlan’s companies had dealings with sanctioned Russian and Chinese entities.

RTX and Scopa signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022 to set up a factory in Saudi Arabia for sophisticated air-defense systems to protect the country from drone and missile attacks.

The companies’ plan was to stitch together radars and multiple air-defense systems that could intercept drones and missiles of various sizes that fly at different speeds and altitudes, said Nasr Alghrairi, who was Scopa CEO until he was fired this year. Called a multi-mission battery, the system was supposed to be able to protect an eight-square-mile area, he said.

If information about current U.S. weapons systems that would be used in Scopa’s new weaponry were to fall into Russian or Chinese hands, it could risk being reverse engineered, undermining U.S. defenses.

The proposed joint venture between RTX and Scopa was expected to invest $25 billion in the kingdom and generate $17 billion of sales, said Alghrairi.

RTX’s decision to end talks with Scopa was “rushed, illogical and even irrational,” Alajlan said. He brought in a Saudi executive to succeed Alghrairi, whose contract wasn’t renewed after he failed to achieve performance targets, Alajlan said.

Alghrairi denied that and said he had expanded the business rapidly. He said he was fired for raising concerns about the Russia and China business.

RTX and the Saudi government didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Other Western companies, including Italy’s Beretta Defense Technologies and shipbuilder Fincantieri SpA, have backed away from working with Scopa. Some of the people familiar with the matter said concerns about Russian and Chinese business were a factor.

In his drive to create a local arms-manufacturing industry, the Saudi crown prince set up a defense company under the Saudi sovereign-wealth fund to do weapons and aerospace deals with Western manufacturers and encouraged the private sector to get involved. Scopa and Alajlan’s other companies aren’t state-owned but are generally expected to fall in line with the kingdom’s foreign policy. Alajlan said the government is their only customer.

To run Scopa, Alajlan hired Alghrairi, a U.S. Navy veteran who set up a small government-service contractor in Florida with his wife but had never worked for a major defense manufacturer.

The company splashed onto the scene in March 2022 at an arms expo in the Saudi desert. American executives in attendance grumbled privately about Scopa erecting billboards featuring NATO weapons systems and the company logo before it had even begun negotiations with their manufacturers.

Alghrairi used his military connections to establish an advisory board for Scopa led by retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero and other U.S. military veterans. They began lining up partnerships with RTX and dozens of other arms manufacturers in the U.S. and Europe.

Scopa envisioned manufacturing significant portions of NATO weaponry inside Saudi Arabia, which meant gaining access to technology that is tightly guarded by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, a set of Cold War-era American rules that control the export of U.S. defense equipment.

Interviews with people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal indicate that two of his other companies made efforts to engage with sanctioned Chinese, Russian and Belarusian entities. It was those contacts that spooked Scopa’s board and potential Western partners such as RTX, some of the people said.

Barbero said Scopa’s U.S. advisers had worked in good faith and delivered potential partnerships with Western defense firms. “However, the situation on the ground made it untenable for us to continue to work with Scopa and left us with no choice other than to resign,” he said.

Alongside Scopa, Alajlan said, he set up Tal Military Industries and Sepha Military Industries. To run Sepha, he hired an executive from Concern Granit-Electron, a Russian company that supplies the Moscow government with communications technology and was sanctioned by the U.S. for supporting Russia’s military-industrial base.

He hired a Chinese national to run Tal, which he said does deals in Asia.

For months, Tal engaged in discussions about deals with Chinese companies sanctioned by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union, while Sepha held deal talks with Russian and Belarusian companies that also face Western sanctions, according to company records reviewed by the Journal and the people familiar with the matter.

Tal and Sepha also shared corporate functions, including computer servers, with Scopa employees, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, even as Scopa was moving toward getting access to sensitive data from companies including RTX.

One document dated September 2022 indicates that Sepha had a preliminary agreement with Belarusian state arms exporter BelTechExport to acquire mobile air defense and counterdrone systems it proposed to sell to the Saudi Defense Ministry. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned BelTechExport as part of restrictions put on the Belarusian defense industry in 2021.

Another preliminary agreement with Granit and Russian state-arms exporter Rosoboronexport aimed to acquire communications interception technology that Sepha proposed to sell to the Saudi intelligence services. The document also shows that Sepha looked at marketing Russian ammunition, body armor and surveillance equipment in Saudi Arabia, assembling Russian attack helicopters there, and manufacturing armored vehicles with Russia’s Military Industrial Co.

A complaint lodged with the U.S. Treasury and reviewed by the Journal alleges Tal was in touch with at least half a dozen sanctioned Chinese companies. For example, it sought to produce land systems with Norinco Group, which has faced U.S. sanctions for years for links to the Chinese military and allegedly supplying missile technology to Iran, according to a Tal company record from January 2023.

The Russian, Belarusian and Chinese companies didn’t respond to requests for comment or couldn’t be reached.

Scopa, Tal and Sepha were planning to display Chinese drones and radars from BelTechExport alongside RTX air-defense systems and Beretta firearms at the next Riyadh defense show, scheduled for February 2024, according to another document and the people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh knew about the talks that Tal and Sepha were having with Chinese and Russian companies as early as August 2022, when it told Scopa in an email reviewed by the Journal that those activities “could seriously hinder the ability of Scopa to enter into contractual agreements with U.S. defense firms.”

Alajlan said that Sepha works with Eastern European companies and that Tal’s engagement with China is limited to securing supply chains for manufacturing military and civilian equipment in Saudi Arabia.

He continues inviting U.S. companies to work with Scopa and said some still talk to him. “There is a huge opportunity to cooperate together,” he said.

Chinese banks shun Beijing’s flagship property bailout fund

State-backed lenders have disbursed less than 1% of $27bn scheme after failing to find creditworthy developers

A flagship Beijing lending programme to revive the country’s debt-stricken property market has done barely any business almost a year after its launch, officials said, highlighting the difficulty for policymakers seeking to boost confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.

The People’s Bank of China in November announced a Rmb200bn ($27bn) facility to provide interest-free loans to six state-owned commercial banks to finance thousands of stalled property projects across the country.

But almost a year after the programme was launched, less than 1 per cent of the funds have been disbursed to banks, which were supposed to match the PBoC loans with their own lending but have been unwilling to issue further debt to the ailing sector, according to former PBoC and current banking officials familiar with the situation.

“For Chinese banks, the downside of lending to distressed property projects far outweighs the upside,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie.

The failure of the central bank’s signature initiative to resolve the problem of unfinished homes illustrates the complexity of trying to design measures to revive China’s property sector, which accounts for more than a quarter of the country’s economic activity.

Plunging sales and mounting liabilities have forced many cash-strapped developers to suspend construction, leaving housing projects in limbo. Elmlead, a Shanghai-based real estate information provider, estimated that almost 2,000 projects nationwide worth a combined Rmb6tn had been suspended at the beginning of this year by developers that defaulted on bond payments.

Tens of thousands of frustrated homebuyers, who often begin paying mortgages before properties are completed, have launched boycotts, while construction delays have deterred new buyers from entering the market.

Economists said boosting the sector was critical to putting a floor under weak consumer demand in the economy, which has also been hit by a plunge in exports and flagging industrial production.

China’s State Council, the cabinet, in July highlighted “ensuring the delivery of [unfinished] apartments” as a policy priority. Chen Chuandong, director of the Hefei Housing Bureau in China’s eastern Anhui province, said in a speech this year that completing stalled apartments was a “political task” that developers and banks should treat as a “top priority”.

Policymakers have unveiled a series of measures, led by the PBoC-backed bailout fund and low-interest loans from policy banks, targeted at restarting construction, while large cities have cut minimum mortgage rates and downpayments to spur demand.

The central bank, which launched the bailout fund in November, initially planned to charge commercial banks 1.75 per cent interest before later cutting rates to zero to incentivise their participation.

But state-owned banks — which must lend double the amount of the central bank’s contribution to qualify for the funds — have not taken it up. Official data showed the value of outstanding loans issued through the Rmb200bn scheme was just Rmb500mn in June. Two people close to the central bank said the figure had not changed significantly since then.

One significant hurdle has been finding suitable recipients for the funds. Many developers could struggle to generate cash from unfinished projects to repay loans as their properties are pre-sold or have already been pledged to existing creditors.

“This [bailout fund] project is set to fail due to a lack of sources of debt repayment,” said an official at China Development Bank.

China Construction Bank, the country’s largest mortgage lender, has worked closely with CDB to provide property rescue loans. It became the first lender in eastern Shandong province to tap the fund in June, issuing an Rmb100mn matched loan in a region with more than 300 delayed residential projects. An official at CCB’s Shandong branch said no other bank had shown interest because of the risks.

“Qualified projects are very difficult to come by,” said the official.

In a report published last month, the PBoC said the fund would continue operating through May, adding that it would “encourage and guide” financial institutions to provide funding for stalled projects.

But analysts expressed scepticism about its prospects.

The PBoC “wanted to show that they had done their best even though the program wouldn’t work in practice”, said a former official with the central bank.

The PBoC, China Development Bank and China Construction Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.