December, 2019

• 28 December

  Regeneron cuts employee numbers as it reworks partnership with Sanofi

  

  Bloomberg Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc said it plans to cut some staff as it restructures its partnership with French drugmaker Sanofi, with whom it had shared drug sales responsibilities. Regeneron employees to be affected work on the rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara, which Sanofi is expected to gain global rights to under the restructuring. There will be no Kevzara roles at Regeneron ...

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• 28 December

  Drugmaker Melinta files for bankruptcy in US

  Bloomberg Melinta Therapeutics Inc, a bio-pharmaceutical company specialising in infectious disease treatment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware with plans to continue operating. Melinta listed as much as $500 million in assets and up to $500 million in liabilities in its bankruptcy petition. Founded in 2000 by scientists including Nobel Prize winner Thomas Steitz, the company sells drugs that ...

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• 28 December

  Wheat could be surprise winner of US-China deal

  

  Bloomberg In the agriculture world, news of the partial US-China trade deal has sparked a lot of buzz about soybeans. It turns out, wheat could actually end up being a bigger surprise winner. Speculations is mounting that China will work to fill its wheat-buying quota as part of the detente, a pledge it failed to stick to in the past. ...

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• 28 December

  Apple sued by NY doctor over watch’s heart technology

  

  Bloomberg A New York University cardiologist claims Apple Inc’s Watch uses his patented heartbeat-monitoring invention and he wants compensation. Dr Joseph Wiesel, who teaches at NYU School of Medicine, filed a suit recently against the tech giant, in federal court in Brooklyn. Wiesel claims the Apple Watch infringes his patent for a method to detect an irregular heartbeat. Apple promotes ...

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• 28 December

  Amazon’s Deliveroo deal probed as UK targets tech giants

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc’s purchase of a minority stake in UK food startup Deliveroo faces a British probe in another sign of mounting antitrust scrutiny of American tech giants. The Competition and Markets Authority said it’s opening an in-depth investigation of Amazon’s investment of about $500 million, saying it risked a “substantial lessening” of competition “in the supply of online food ...

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• 28 December

  US denies seeking 20% troop funding boost from S Korea

  

  Bloomberg The US denied a report that it’s demanding South Korea pay as much as 20% more to host American troops, as funding talks between the two nations continue. The 10%-20% figure referred to in Korean media is “ungrounded speculation,” a Trump administration official said by email. US negotiators will seek a “fair and equitable” outcome at the next round ...

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• 28 December

  Truck bomb kills 73 in Somalia’s capital

  Bloomberg More than 73 people died when a truck bomb exploded during rush hour at a busy intersection in Somalia’s capital, police said. An explosives-laden vehicle hit the taxation office near a junction in Mogadishu, Ahmed Abdi Hussein, a Somali police officer, told Bloomberg News by phone. Another police official said the target was Turkish engineers who were in a ...

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• 28 December

  US contractor killed as rocket hits Iraqi base

  Bloomberg A rocket attack on an Iraqi military base killed an American contractor and wounded several US and Iraqi military personnel, the Defense Department said. Iraqi security forces were “leading the response and investigation” following the assault on the base in Kirkuk, where coalition forces are based, the Pentagon said in a statement. The names of the contractor and the ...

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• 28 December

  Police use face-recognition software as India protests continue unabated

  

  Bloomberg Indian police have started using facial-recognition software to screen large crowds as protests over a new religion-based citizenship law intensify, the Indian Express newspaper reported, citing people it didn’t identify. The software, originally acquired in 2018 to find lost children, was used at a political rally for the first time on December 22, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi staunchly ...

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• 28 December

  Austria’s Kurz expects to form government soon

  Bloomberg Austrian conservative leader Sebastian Kurz expects to strike a deal to govern in a coalition with the environmentalist Greens by mid-January, breaking new ground in Austrian politics half a year after his alliance with nationalists ended in scandal. Kurz, 33, and Werner Kogler, his 58-year-old counterpart at the Greens, said they will try to iron out any outstanding issues ...

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