7 major R&D moves this week: Honda and Nissan end merger talks, Baidu to launch driver-less taxis in UAE, Chevron is moving

The R&D World Index saw gains this week, driven partly by a surge in Intel’s value amid significant developments across various sectors. Honda and Nissan have ended their merger talks, citing concerns over autonomy and decision-making, while GlaxoSmithKline consolidates its vaccine R&D in Cambridge, MA. Novartis is set to reacquire rights to a blood clot treatment with a multi-billion dollar deal. Chevron announced a headquarters relocation to Houston and workforce reductions. Baidu eyes autonomous vehicle testing in the UAE, Minnesota bans PFAS chemicals despite FDA safety declarations for Teflon, and Apple is partnering with Alibaba to bring its AI features to China.

Automotive & Manufacturing

1. Honda and Nissan scrap plans to merge

RDW Index member Honda Motor Co., Tokyo, and Nissan Motor, Yokohama, Japan, jointly announced last week that they have scrapped their planned merger that they started talking about in December 2024. Honda, whose market value is about five times that of Nissan, sought to make Nissan a subsidiary, which proved to be one of the stopping points in the talks. Honda worried that if Nissan retained influence over the joint board of directors, the debate would be paralyzed, preventing painful decisions. Nissan was worried that much of their autonomy would be lost in the merger. Nissan will now look for other partnership opportunities. Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, a major supplier of Apple computer products, was cited by analysts as a strong candidate. Honda has annual global R&D investments of more than $9 billion (for multiple automotive, consumer, aerospace, and marine applications), while Nissan invests more than $5.2 billion annually in R&D (primarily in automotive applications).

2. Baidu in talks with UAE to launch driverless taxi

Last week, Baidu, based in Beijing, China, announced it is in talks with authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to launch its driverless ride-hailing service there. Tests of the UAE’s Apollo Go robotaxis in Dubai could begin as early as the first half of 2025. Baidu received a license to test autonomous vehicles in Hong Kong in late 2024. According to recruitment posts, the company is strengthening its business development teams in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Southeast Asia. Google/Alphabet-owned Waymo has indicated plans to start its first driverless vehicle tests in Tokyo in early 2025.

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Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals

3. GlaxoSmithKline to move U.S. vaccine team to Massachusetts

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), London, announced last week that its U.S.-based vaccine and infectious disease R&D teams will move from their current Rockville, Maryland site to four sites the company occupies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. GSK’s Cambridge Park Drive facility has cutting-edge technology platforms, including DNA encoded library technologies, respiratory and immunology research, and an oligo therapeutics team. Expanding lab space there to include vaccine R&D will help the company bring together expertise working on RNA and viral capabilities.

4. Novartis plans to acquire Anthos Therapeutics

RDW Index member Novartis, Basel, Switzerland, announced last week that it plans to acquire Blackstone Life Sciences’ Anthos Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for $3.08 billion. The deal means that Novartis retakes control over a treatment candidate for blood clots that it licensed to Anthos when the firm was launched in 2019. Blackstone and Novartis formed Anthos, and it developed the drug, abelacimab, to reach late-stage clinical trials under a license from Novartis. Novartis will pay Anthos $925 million upfront and make additional payments of up to $2.15 billion upon achievement of specified regulatory and sales milestones. The drug is being developed to prevent the recurrence of blood clots in patients with cancer and has the potential to be an important treatment option for millions of patients. The drug got a fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating thrombosis associated with cancer in July 2022.

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Additional developments

5.Chevron is moving its global headquarters to Texas

Chevron announced last week that it was moving its global headquarters to Houston after 140 years of being based in California (San Ramone). Chevron CEO Mike Wirth stated that the move was being made to locate the company in a more fossil fuel-friendly state. Relations between Wirth and California governor Mike Newsom had soured recently, with Newsom alleging price gouging by Chevron and Wirth threatening to shutter its two California-based refineries. In a separate announcement, Chevron said it plans to cut its workforce by up to 20% to reduce costs up to $3 billion by the end of 2026. This move could affect roughly 8,000 employees of its total 40,000 staff. Nearly half of those cuts are scheduled to begin in 2025. Chevron invests about $1 billion annually in R&D. The company purchased about 77 acres in an area north of Houston as a site for a possible R&D campus.

6. Minnesota bans PFAS, the “forever chemicals” 

Minnesota became the first state to ban per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of chemicals resistant to water, oil, grease, and heat. Known commercially as “forever chemicals” or non-stick coatings because they don’t break down easily in the environment. They’re also referred to as the DuPont-registered name of Teflon. These coatings account for about two-thirds of the $4 billion in cookware sold annually in the U.S. Minnesota’s ban covers 11 categories of consumer products, including cooking products, dental floss, carpets, and children’s toys. Teflon has been declared safe by the U.S. FDA.

7. China’s cyberspace regulator reviewing Apple Intelligence 

RDW Index member Apple, Cupertino, California, recently submitted Apple Intelligence features for China. Developed with Alibaba, Hangzhou, China, for approval by China’s cyberspace regulator, the reviewing process is expected to take several months. Apple Intelligence was released in 2024 and includes an improved Siri voice assistant and a variety of text-generation and phone-editing capabilities. Chinese regulators require Apple to work with local companies to develop the generative AI services it plans to release in the country.

The R&D World Index

R&D World’s R&D Index is a weekly stock market summary of the top international companies involved in R&D. The top 25 industrial R&D spenders in 2020 were selected based on the latest listings from Schonfeld & Associates’ June 2020 R&D Ratios &  Budgets. These 25 companies include pharmaceutical (10 companies), automotive (6 companies), and ICT (9 companies) who invested a cumulative total of nearly 260 billion dollars in R&D in 2019, or approximately 10% of all the R&D spent in the world by  government, industries and academia combined, according to R&D World’s 2021 Global R&D Funding Forecast. The stock prices used in the R&D World Index are tabulated from NASDAQ, NYSE, and OTC common stock prices for the companies selected at the close of stock trading business on the Friday preceding the online publication of the R&D World Index.

R&D World Index Week Ending February 14, 2025

		Ticker	Exchange	2020 R&D Billions $	02/07/25	02/14/25	2/7/25 to 2/14/25	1/1/22 to 2/14/25
1	Alphabet/Google	GOOGL	NASDAQ	27.303	187.14	186.87	-0.14%	29.01%
2	Microsoft	MSFT	NASDAQ	17.198	409.75	408.43	-0.32%	21.44%
3	Volkswagen AG	VWAGY	OTC	17.259	9.97	10.84	8.73%	-62.88%
4	Apple	AAPL	NASDAQ	18.667	227.63	244.60	7.46%	37.75%
5	Facebook/Meta	META	NASDAQ	13.874	714.52	736.67	3.10%	119.02%
6	Intel	INTC	NASDAQ	14.503	19.10	23.60	23.56%	-54.17%
7	Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	NYSE	13.750	153.12	156.15	1.98%	-8.72%
8	Roche Holdings AG	RHHBY	OTC	14.143	39.77	41.05	3.22%	-20.58%
9	Merck & Co.	MRK	NYSE	11.381	87.28	83.01	-4.89%	8.31%
10	Novartis	NVS	NYSE	9.387	106.26	105.43	-0.78%	20.53%
11	Toyota	TM	NYSE	10.724	183.98	184.24	0.14%	-0.57%
12	Pfizer	PFE	NYSE	8.336	25.74	25.53	-0.82%	-56.77%
13	Alibaba	BABA	NYSE	6.006	103.51	124.73	20.50%	5.00%
14	GM	GM	NYSE	6.727	47.39	48.37	2.07%	-17.84%
15	Honda	HMC	NYSE	8.806	27.87	28.69	2.94%	0.84%
16	Ford	F	NYSE	9.340	9.24	9.48	2.60%	-54.36%
17	AbbVie	ABBV	NYSE	13.949	190.60	192.87	1.19%	42.44%
18	Sanofi SA	SNY	NYSE	7.750	53.35	54.50	2.16%	8.78%
19	Cisco	CSCO	NASDAQ	6.331	62.27	64.87	4.18%	2.37%
20	Bristol-Myers Squibb	BMY	NYSE	7.130	56.85	53.90	-5.17%	-13.55%
21	Astra Zeneca PLC	AZN	NYSE	6.056	71.99	73.57	2.19%	26.30%
22	IBM	IBM	NYSE	5.368	252.34	261.28	3.54%	95.48%
23	Oracle	ORCL	NYSE	6.928	174.46	174.16	-0.17%	99.70%
24	Eli Lilly & Co.	LLY	NYSE	8.606	878.31	844.27	-3.88%	205.65%
25	Stellantis NV	STLA	NYSE	5.309	12.94	14.05	8.58%	-28.10%
	Total			269.522	4105.38	4151.16	1.12%	47.22%
	ICT				2150.72	2225.21	3.46%	53.50%
	Automotive				291.39	295.67	1.47%	-13.52%
	Biopharmaceutical				1663.27	1630.28	-1.98%	58.55%