We respond…
These are some sad old guys… geez.
Crowing… like they won the 1954 County Fair — with a prize sow, or something.
Nope.
A “minority view” — just like a dissent, at the SCOTUS… means… zip.
Shut it boys.
Your lab leak theory… remains a fever dream.
And why press it, other than to enflame your irrational, under-educated… hard right readership?
I guess… that’s why.
Out.
That (at least) is a rumor out of this morning’s Wall Street Journal.
Of course, Merck was rumored last summer to be working on just the same deal for the novel oncology R&D shop out on the Northwest Coast. We shall see. Here’s a bit of the reporting — on the reporting of a rumor piece:
…Pfizer is in early-stage talks to acquire cancer drugmaker Seagen Inc in what could be a multi-billion dollar deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Seagen had a market capitalization of roughly $30 billion, as of Friday’s close….
Seagen’s shares have fallen nearly 10% since July, when the deal talks with Merck were first reported. They rose 12.3% to $182 in premarket trading on Monday.
Pfizer declined to comment on the WSJ report, while Seagen did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
“A Pfizer/Seagen combination will invite less scrutiny from the FTC due to less overlap of their products when compared to a Merck/Seagen deal,” said Zhiqiang Shu, analyst at Berenberg Capital Markets….
Pfizer has said it expects to lose $17 billion in annual sales between 2025 and 2030 due to patent expirations for top drugs, and sales of its COVID-19 products have begun to decline after they contributed to an unprecedented surge in revenue….
Well — as ever, to get Seagen, Pfizer will likely need to pay over $40 billion — and that is where Merck and Seagen were last rumored to be over $10 billion apart, on price.
So… I for one don’t expect this to happen too terribly soon. Onward, grinning — sunny here now.
नमस्ते
Once again, the mediocre old whyte whiners at Powerline’s blog… are out pontificating about matters they know less than zero about. Y A W N.
Steve Hayward says he knows nothing about treating clinical depression (post stroke). Huge surprise.
But he still feels empowered to offer his judging opinions on how Rep. Fetterman’s family is behaving.
Beyond that, he feels qualified to offer his medical diagnosis, about whether Rep. Fetterman should have been “allowed” (WTAF?!) to run, in the first place.
His sort of concern trolling… is the worst. He’s a purely malevolent, divisive… idiot.
Out.
That is — of course — a gross oversimplification.
But the long hue and cry… has led now, seven years later, to Northern Ireland in many ways remaining part of the EU.
Boris — in a word — was a blustering… buffoon, selling much the same tariff shineola (in different bottles, to be sure), as Tangerine was — over here. So it goes — but now, in fits and starts… it ends, more or less. Here’s the latest, from the Beeb:
…”Let’s hope this is one of the last great rollercoaster moments of Brexit.”
So said one government figure to me, anticipating an important moment today – but worldly enough to realise it’s not necessarily the end of the story.
These negotiations, between the government and Brussels, the government and Conservative backbenchers, and the government and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), have resembled diplomatic Jenga – wobbly bricks here, there and everywhere.
One element has been all but done for a while, and, we expect, to be sorted today – the deal between London and Brussels….
There is still the talks between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Among the things they will talk about, I’m told, is dealing with what some in London regard as a “democratic deficit” for Northern Ireland — that it needs more of a say about future changes in EU rules that will have an impact there.
But let’s be clear: the European Commission president would not be coming here unless it was sorted….
Now you know. Smiling on a soggy but warmish Monday morning here… onward. Grin.
नमस्ते
Let’s stipulate: Scott Adams is an asshole, who is from time to time… funny.
But I’m tired of his self important shtick.
I think he earned his trip out of the great egress, mightily.
John thinks “the more basic issue is whether newspapers should cancel Dilbert based on something that has nothing to do with Dilbert…”
I disagree. One cannot say Scott didn’t mean it. He’s reinforced his views repeatedly now.
He chose it. He earned it. Let him live with it.
And sit down John. He openly said whytes should “stay away from” Black people (not some; all)… for their own good.
Damn.
This is as good news as could be hoped for. But still, three more weekly tests ought to occur — to rule out a prolonged incubation period. But it does seem that the man, age 34, who’d recently been in Equatorial Guinea… did not carry the virus into Valencia.
Even so, he and the health workers who treated him will undergo a voluntary 22 day quarantine now. Here’s that VOA story:
…A man in Spain who was suspected of having the deadly Marburg disease tested negative Saturday and does not have the virus, the health ministry said.
Health authorities in Valencia earlier said they had detected the country’s first suspected case of the infectious disease that has led to the quarantining of more than 200 people in Equatorial Guinea.
The 34-year-old man, who had recently been in Equatorial Guinea, had been given the all-clear but would be tested again in the coming weeks, officials said.
He had been transferred from a private hospital to an isolation unit at the Hospital La Fe in Valencia while tests were being conducted, the Valencian regional health authorities said.
Three health staff who are treating the man were also isolated as a precautionary measure, authorities said….
Now you know — after a very long Avatar 2… just chilling tonight, as the sun sets on the end of Grade One basketball season. Smile.
नमस्ते
So (as ever, in truly ironic fashion) — leave it to the Powerline boys to purport to stand as would-be judges of people who are less than proud of their ancestors. The back story, without Scott’s deceptive re-editing, then:
In this case, Angela Davis — the celebrated academic, activist and Black Historian has learned from Skip Gates that she is a direct lineal descendent (on the whyte side of her family, of course) from a man most regard as the founding elder of the Plymouth colony — one William Brewster, who sailed on the Mayflower… and from his sons’ sons, who fought in the Revolutionary War.
On video, she expressed both shock and dismay… and it seems she was quickly made aware that Brewster had brought two children (ages 6 and 8, respectively — and likely also whyte) as indentured servants, to the New World with him — against their biological mother’s wishes, as payment for a debt of supposed adultery. [It is unknown exactly from whom in the tangled Brewster trees… Dr. Davis descends.]
It is known that Brewster may have had at least three children technically out of wedlock (with a common law wife, apparently never married in a church) — thus illegitimate, in the eyes of what passed as government then in the 1590s to 1620s. [Bangs, Jeremy Dupertius (2012); The Mayflower Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 2 (June), p. 145.] Scott reports:
…Brewster took two of Samuel More’s children as indentured servants, but I don’t think we know of any crime he committed and Davis in my opinion has her own wrongdoing for which to atone….
So — again, Scott feels that Angela Davis is not allowed to express her own deep concern about how we all come to be… Americans — and about her own blood lines, newly revealed. And yet, Scott Johnson feels he may judge her, for charges she won a complete acquittal on — after a year in jail, in the early 1970s. That’s nearly a half-century ago, in her (and his) life.
Let that sink in. [As a later-bit of addendum, I wish to note that on the Black side of Angela Davis’ family, shortly after the Civil War, her direct lineal forebears filed a civil suit in rural Alabama, to win the unconditional release of three children — orphaned nephews and nieces, then being held in de facto slavery by the same plantation owner, a Mr. Pauling, who had held the brothers themselves for so long. The children were freed — to their uncles — after protracted litigation. That was in the early 1870s, during Reconstruction in the South. Then came… Jim Crow.]
But back to the main arc — Scott thinks… she should not be heard, on her concerns about how it is that children were stolen into the New World, and how she descends (at least in part from rape and genocide against people held in bondage)… and that she should stand and praise Brewster in full throat. [Thus his reference to Faulkner.]
All I glean from it… is that reactionary, old hard right embittered whyte Americans like Scott, And Steve And John (and yes Paul)… have learned very little in over six decades on the planet — about the value of letting each express their own… truths, as they see them.
What a pile of rubbish, Scott.
Rubbish.
So, with my immediately prior entry — we see the very pinnacle of what’s right about life sciences leadership — and now… we see… the very bottom, of what is wrong with at least one embodiment / incarnation… of it.
Yep. This is going to end badly, for Mr. Shkreli. [And almost word for word in the way we predicted, too.]
The FTC just weighed in, to put the lie to Martin’s claims about “one missed voicemail” — and his otherwise “full cooperation”.
Obviously, the truth is a very long horseback ride away from where Martin left it.
And so, the FTC just said so by way of a formal, filed reply, to USDC Judge Cote.
But Exhibit D to that filing (mostly redacted and sealed)… contains the best bit, at the last unredacted page, at the bottom.
There we read that a Delaware LLC called “SHKRELI FAMILY HOLDINGS LLC” has a controlled company in its family. That controlled company (likely a wholly-owned subsidiary) is called… yep: Druglike, Inc., a Delaware corporation.
This, after Martin filed a sworn pleading about ten days ago in Manhattan saying he has no position, or ownership interest in Druglike. But Exhibit D also includes his employment offer letter / contract from Druglike, dated as of October 14, 2022.
Now, it is possible, given the various redactions and sealings, that only his family members (and not Martin himself) hold legal title to the shares of Druglike, through that LLC.
But his injunction was crystal clear — his effective beneficial ownership via family members and employment letter signed by one Marek Biestek (for Druglike), make out a plain, and likely continuing, violation of the terms of his court orders in the FTC matter.
Damn.
The main question now is what will Judge Cote order as remedies — sitting as a court of equitable contempt.
Does she send him back inside for a couple weeks — to make sure he remembers who is boss?
We shall see.
नमस्ते
Tonight… he opines that children are getting permanent top and bottom surgery… for gender dysphoria “often” in America, after 2015. [That’s a very stupid lie. There are ~60 million school age (pre-18; after that, it is an individual’s choice matter) children in the US. There were two surgeries (at 15, and 17… last year in Florida); nationwide there were fewer than 180-200. And fewer than 1,000 began taking hormone therapy. So… that’s 0.0003 of one per cent of all kids that got intervention of any substantial kind.] Incredibly, Florida’s DeSantis is pushing for new laws… based on two surgeries, out of over 3.2 million school age kids in Florida. Two.
Of course — and in any event — in his next sentence, he admits he doesn’t know much. About any of it. Obviously.
He ought to… shut up. We all know he’d be the first in line — to tell all comers to “butt out” if a set of hard right X-tian parents refuses to vaccinate their children.
But (in his upside down world, at least) parents are not allowed to choose, with their teenagers’ input — about gender surgeries?!
John?
John?
End, mission transmission.
You knew he would not stay fully retired for long — and to be fair, this is a chairman of the board of directors role, not an operating, hands on, position. [But we all know he has only one speed: full, ahead.] And anyone who has been paying attention here knows I admire just about everything about him. A great guy, and a stellar leader.
So, the new-ish health delivery via connected device company is very lucky to have him. And the team has about three years of fully-funded capital raised, as runway — to get it into the black. Here’s the scoop from Axios:
…Health care pathway architect Transcarent named former Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier chair of its board of directors….
[Frazier] sees the role as a means of helping restore people’s sense of trust and control in the medical system.
“I’ve spent a lot of time developing new medicines and vaccines,” Frazier tells Axios. “I also grew up in the inner city of Philadelphia, so I understand the last mile problem of not having access to care. There’s a lot of dignity involved when you feel you’re in charge, as opposed to having someone dictate it to you….”
Launched in summer 2021, Transcarent has raised just shy of $300 million, including the $200 million in Series C funds it collected in January 2022 led by Kinnevik and Human Capital….
Employer-facing Transcarent gives members round-the-clock access to clinicians via text and offers price comparison tools and quality assessments for medical interventions including surgeries…. The company pays clinicians including surgeons on the same day they provide care….
Well. That sounds promising, indeed.
To be certain, the competitors (Accolade, which in 2020 raised $192.5 million in a second public offering, and HealthJoy) include some deeper pockets, but the opportunity to make health care delivery a more customer focused endeavor in the US… is a vast one. Onward, and Kudos to Mr. Frazier! Have a great weekend, one and all….
नमस्ते
