The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending February 2, 2024, closed at 3,450.55 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was up 3.03% (or 101.59 basis points). Twelve RDWI members gained value last week from 1.00% (Oracle) to 20.51% (Meta Platforms). Thirteen RDWI members lost value last week from -0.87% (IBM) to -7.42% (Alphabet/Google).
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Automaker Mazda, Fuchu, Hiroshima, Japan, announced last week that it has officially relaunched rotary engine development with research engineers collaborating to achieve a breakthrough in rotary engine technology. The RX8, the company’s last rotary vehicle, discontinued production in 2012. The MX-30 with a rotary range extender was launched in Europe in 2023. Its new R&D efforts will initially focus on range extension for electric vehicles (EVs).
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) issued two notices last week. One of these concerns is the distribution of the $11 billion in R&D monies from the CHIPS Act. $300 million will be made available across multiple awards of up to $100 million for research on advanced semiconductor packaging. Another $200 million or more is being set aside to create the CHIPS Manufacturing USA Institute. Companies will have to apply to compete for the funds. These two notices of intent take about $500 million out of the $11 billion CHIPS R&D budget and will be followed by a competitive notice of opportunity. The packaging awards will be announced in March 2024, while the competition for the CHIPS Manufacturing USA Institute competition will happen in the first half of 2024.
Beontag, Sao Paulo, Brazil, a global manufacturer of pressure-sensitive adhesives and Smart tags, announced last week that it has opened a new global R&D center in Tampere, Finland. The center hosts a pilot factory to develop innovative products such as Bluetooth low-energy tags. The company also invested $60 million in a new manufacturing facility in Dayton, Ohio, in December 2023.
RDW Index member Intel, Santa Clara, California, announced last week that it’s delayed the construction timetable for its $20 billion chip manufacturing project in Ohio. Market challenges and the slow rollout of U.S. CHIPS grant monies meant to grow the domestic industry were being cited by analysts as reasons for the pushback. Intel’s initial timeline had production starting in 2025. However, production on the project’s manufacturing facilities now is not expected to be completed until late 2026.
Head of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk announced last week that the first human had received a Neuralink brain implant. Musk noted that the implant had successfully registered neuron signals and that the patient was recovering well. While details were lacking in this announcement, Musk announced in September 2023 that the research team was recruiting a trial participant suffering from quadriplegia. Neuralink competes with rival startup Synchron, which developed a stent-like device implanted in the jugular vein on top of a patient’s brain but not within the brain tissue. Another company, Precision Neuroscience, temporarily implanted a microelectrode array in six patients to capture data before removing it.
Biogen, Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced last week that it is pulling the plug on developing its controversial Alzheimer’s disease drug Aduhelm. The company is terminating a post-marketing study aimed at getting U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. The company will continue to develop Leqembi, the Alzheimer’s drug it developed with partner Eisai, Tokyo, which won full FDA approval in 2023 and is now on sale. Biogen said it has plans to accelerate the development of other potential new Alzheimer’s treatments. After the FDA approved Aduhelm in June 2021, doctors and U.S. government advisors questioned its effectiveness, and Medicare denied its $56,000 annual per-patient cost.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, D.C., recently walked back its proposal to limit pesticide use due to a burdensome process that state regulators objected to, which, given approval, would have made millions of acres hard to farm, leading to lower yields and higher crop prices. Its Vulnerable Species Pilot Project aimed to protect 27 rare animal species across 29 states by restricting pesticide use in EPA-designated areas.
Amazon.com, Seattle, and iRobot, Bedford, Massachusetts, announced last week that they canceled their proposed $1.7 billion merger following European Union news that they planned to block it. Amazon will pay iRobot a $94 million termination fee.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported last week that 353,000 jobs were added in January 2024. December 2023 job gains were also revised upwards to 333,000 from the initial report of 216,000. The unemployment rate for January also held steady at 3.7%, below the 3.8% rate initially forecast by analysts.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Tarrytown, New York, announced last week that it had formed a new R&D unit, Regeneron Cell Medicines, with assets purchased from 2seventy, Cambridge, Massachusetts. About 150 2seventy bio employees who support the acquired programs will join Regeneron Cell Medicines. The new R&D unit will focus on advancing cell therapies and combination treatments with Regeneron’s proprietary antibodies and bispecifics in oncology and immunology.
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) that invested a cumulative total of nearly 260 billion dollars in R&D in 2019, or approximately 10% of all the R&D spending 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.
