The R&D World Index (RDWI) for the week ending January 12, 2024, closed at 3,274.61 for the 25 companies in the RDWI. The Index was up 3.16% (or 100.29 basis points). Eighteen RDWI members gained value last week from 0.16% (AbbVie) to 5.63% (Microsoft) Seven RDWI members lost value last week from -0.16% (Roche Holdings AG) to -3.68% (Bristol-Myers Squibb).
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Robotics and automation firm, Graze Inc., London, announced last week that it was moving its U.S. headquarters and R&D Center from Los Angeles to Plano, Texas. The move was cited as a desire to enhance collaboration with other industry leaders, research institutions, and technology enthusiasts in the Plano region. Graze follows financial technology firm QuickFee’s headquarters’ move from Santa Monica, California, to Plano in October.
The new year revealed several biotech acquisitions including drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline’s, London, purchase of Aiolos Bio, San Francisco, for $1.2 billion for its asthma drug which is ready for mid-stage clinical trials. RDW Index member Novartis, Basel, Switzerland, also announced it would purchase Calypso Biotech, Amsterdam, Netherlands, for $425 million for its treatment for celiac disease which is in clinical trials. Merck & Co., Kenilworth, Pennsylvania, also announced it was buying cancer drugmaker Harpoon Therapeutics, South San Francisco, for about $700 million. And RDW Index member Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, offered $2 billion for Ambrx Biopharma, San Diego, for its next-generation antibody-drug conjugates for cancer treatments.
Numerous research partnerships and collaborations were also announced in early 2024. Boehringer Ingelheim, Ingelheim, Germany, announced five new R&D partnerships last week, which built on the more than 100 partnerships it created in 2023. The new partnerships included:
- A collaboration with Suzhou Ribo Life Science Company, Kunshan, China, and Ribocure Pharmaceuticals, Molndal, Sweden, focuses on the development of new mRNA therapeutics for disease-causing genes in liver cells.
- A partnership with 3T Biosciences, Menlo Park, California, examines T-cell-based anti-cancer therapies.
- An agreement with Enara Bio, Oxford, U.K., looks at non-small cell lung cancers.
- An agreement with Kyowa Kirin, Tokyo, researches treatments for fibro-inflammatory diseases, and
- Research with Newcastle University and the University of Edinburgh, U.K., looks to understand cirrhosis endpoints.
The U.S. Department of Labor last week announced that December 2023’s consumer price index increased by 3.4% over the 3.1% increase announced for November. This inflation measure is still lower than the 6.5% increase seen at the end of 2022. A New York Federal Reserve survey has revealed that Americans expect inflation over the next three years to come in at 2.6% compared to a 4.2% rate the same survey revealed in October 2021. American expectations for inflation decline also reveal a desire for the Fed to decrease its short-term rate increases in 2024.
NASA, Washington, D.C., last week announced it was delaying two astronaut missions to the moon’s surface by a year each due to multiple technical challenges from a new spacecraft to new spacesuits. According to NASA, the delays give the “Artemis teams more time to work through challenges with first-time development, operations, and integration.” The second Artemis flight is now scheduled for September 2025 and the third flight is scheduled for September 2026. A version of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle is now planned for the Artemis 3 lunar lander. NASA said they are now working with virtually every major American aerospace contractor to make the moon missions possible.
SandboxAQ, Palo Alto, California, announced last week that it has acquired Good Chemistry, Vancouver, British Colombia, for $75 million. AI and quantum technology company SandboxAQ was spun out of Alphabet/Google in 2022 to commercialize its AI and quantum tools. Sandbox and Good Chemistry use similar tools — algorithms designed to leverage the advanced capabilities of quantum computing to simulate the behavior of materials at the molecular level.
U.S. cybersecurity firm Volexity, Reston, Virginia, announced last week that suspected Chinese hackers used two previously undiscovered software flaws to break into an un-named U.S.-based research organization in December as part of a persistent spying campaign aimed at collecting intelligence in China’s interests. The unnamed firm does research on geopolitics, including China issues and regularly draws attention from Chinese hackers. FBI officials stated that China’s hacking teams outnumber the FBI’s cyber agents by a ratio of 50 to one.
The International Space Station National Laboratory announced last week that it is seeking flight concepts that use the government-funded space facility to develop technologies in areas that include translational medicine, chemical and material synthesis, edge computing, and in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing. The national lab aims to facilitate space-based technology development and demonstration projects that seek to advance hardware prototype testing, enable process improvements, conduct advanced materials research, and demonstrate novel drugs and diagnostic services. Concept summaries are due March 4, 2024, and full proposals must be submitted by May 7, 2024.
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.
