LyrArc Article Gist
Dr Bernadine Healy, was the first woman to lead the National Institutes of Health and the first physician to head the American Red Cross. Her pioneering role at the National Institutes of Health included launching the Women's Health Initiative. She focussed attention on the risks to women's health from cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis and cancer. The focus on women's health was new at the time.

LyrArc Article Gist
Oxford Biomedica is the company that is part of the consortium making the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Oxford University's Jenner Institute.  Her Mr. Dawson describes the challenges he faced and cash crunches 4 times in 12 years, the last 4 years ago. The turning point he says was in 2012 when the cell and gene therapy was validated with a new drug developed for a form of cancer using this method. Oxford Biomedica is setting up a facility for manufacturing the vaccine in England at a 84,000 square foot former Royal Mail sorting facility in the city's business park called Oxpark. Dawson says cell and gene therapy is going to be big in health care. He did not see it coming till 2012. In 2014 he says during a cash crunch they had realized that what they had to do at Biomedica was to get to the time when it was going to be big. Today Astra Zeneca of the UK is organizing the effort and includes the use of British and Indian facilities for manufacturing, and Oxford University for research effort. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Kaname Harada, 98 years, was a Japanese fighter pilot during World War II. Here NYT's Martin Fackler provides this exceptional account of Harada's effort to remind each new generation since 1965 of the horrors of war, and why Japan should not forget the lessons of World War II. In 1965 Harada started teaching kindergarden children at a school he opened to help give a new Japanese generation the right values of peace. Since he retired he gives frequent public speeches on the values of peace, and how Japan has benefitted from the post war peacetime period. He reminds listeners about the horrors of war from his own experience shooting down 19 Allied aircraft from his Zero fighter plane, and being close enough to see the horror stricken faces of Americans in the other planes. Even at the age of 98, Harada's voice has vigor though he suffers from throat cancer. His message is that the best way for Japan to protect its children, and its children's children from war, is never to forget. He says the current generation of leaders were born after the war and have no idea what it is....

LyrArc Article Gist
Constellation Energy decides to cancel its Chesapeake Bay nuclear project, after failure of negotiations with the US government on the proposed fee for a loan guarantee.

LyrArc Article Gist
Pfizer stops selling inhaled insulin drug Exubera 2 years after its introduction because of sales being less than 1% of the insulin market. Pfizer will take a charge of $2.8 billion for this failed attempt.

LyrArc Article Gist
How drug companies like Roche are diversifying away from pharmaceuticals because of the weak pricing and poor new drug discovery rates that are in the industry's immediate future. Roche is diversifying into machines that diagnose diseases like breast cancer through acquisitions.

LyrArc Article Gist
Anand Chaturvedi, an executive for Korean Company Doosan Infracore- which acquired Bobcat from Ingersoll Rand- and his wife Garima, a doctor in internal medicine, both in their mid 30's, and their lives between two continents. Chaturvedi works for Doosan in Atlanta and Garima set up the diabetes clinic in Udaipur, Rajasthan. A couple's unique way of working to provide help to deal with diabetes in India, as a way of honoring a brother who died of cancer.

LyrArc Article Gist
IBM's Watson Computer business has set a target of $1 billion in sales by 2018 and $10 billion by 2024. Current sales are in the $100 million range. Manoj Saxena is the head of the Watson business unit. The Watson ranks medical treatments by "confidence scores" and incorporates learning from errors. The way Watson works is for IBM engineers to study the technical details of a customers business and store this information for the computer to use. Uses so far are insurer WellPoint using it for determining if doctor's treatments meet company guidelines and a patient's insurance policy. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is developing a version that recommends leukemia treatments for patients by data mining medical literature. Watson was moved to commercial phase in 2011 after beating 2 Jeopardy champions. IBM has a $15 million deal, its largest so far, with M.D. Anderson. It has taken frequent interaction between developers and IBM engineers to develop a version that recommends cancer treatments. The versions are only as good as how well knowledge in the field is translated into usable software, a long and difficult process. Applications in health care are seen as the best prospects for revenue generation. Google with its data mining capabilities is seen as the closest competitor....

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT was supported by Shinzo Abe of Japan, also Germany and Italy, only Anglo-Saxon Canada and UK opposed to Russia staying in G-8.  “Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in. And I would say that was a mistake because you wouldn’t have a war right now" “Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anybody else because he was insulted when he got thrown out of the G8.” Just to understand support for DJT and the huge mistake made by Obama and Merkel, Canada, UK prime ministers in 2014 to cancel the G-8 Summit in Sochi, Russia and expel Russia from G-8 in 2014. Did it help solve anything not to have discussions. Hidden in all this was Obama's lack of understanding of role Russia plays in Northern Europe and his mistake to judge Russia on basis of GDP alone as an insignificant power. Shinzo Abe-" Russia's in G-8 discussions is "crucial to tackling multiple crises in the Middle East" Italian and German leaders also felt Russia in G-8 was important to end Cold War atmosphere.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Polly Lower quit her job to take care of her granddaughter, and Eddie Gonzalez-Novoa quit a $88,000 job to help a nephew who is a cancer survivor setup his startup video-gaming and social media site, and provide childcare for his granddaughter. They are 2 examples of the equivalent of 2.5 million workimg people the Congressional Budget Office estimates will reduce hours or quit jobs and take the government subsidies to lower income earners for healthcare insurance in the U.S.

LyrArc Article Gist
Pollution levels at the Ilva steel plant in southern Italy's Mezzogiorno region. The family of Vincenzo Vestita, a 35 year old worker at the plant, his father and uncle who also worked at the plant, and their struggle with the effects of pollution. Higher cancer rates are seen in the region surrounding the plant. The Monti government's efforts to provide state money to clean up the plant and keep it open, because it is a major supplier of steel for Italian industry.

LyrArc Article Gist
Venezuelan president Chavez says his cancer has returned and he will need more surgery in Cuba. This comes shortly after winning the presidential election. He asks Venzuelans to support vice president Nicholas Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, for president if new elections are held. Venezuela's constitution requires new elections in 1 month if Chavez dies or resigns. Higher spending in the election year has widened the gap between revenues and spending from 5% to 20%, with expectations Venezuela's currency, the Bolivar, will be devalued.

LyrArc Article Gist
The defensive nature of invesments in healthcare sector with increasing uncertainty in the 4th quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015. The S&P 500 Healthcare Index trades at 17.3 times earnings for the next 12 months, up from 16.7 at the beginning of 2014, according to FactSet. By comparison the S&P 500 trades at 16 times earnings. A major factor pushing earnings is the development of new drugs for cancer, and other diseases. FDA approved 41 new drugs in 2014, up from 27 in 2013, and 39 in 2012.

LyrArc Article Gist
China bans smoking in public places in June 2015. The authorites say unlike previous bans before the Olympics this one will be enforced. The damage to public health is immense, with about one third of smokers in the world in China. Public spaces include restaurants, offices, bars, nightclubs, airports and trains. Included also are areas around schools and hospitals. There are 301 million smokers in China, according to the World Health Organization. About 53% of men and 2.4% of women smoke regularly, and this contributes to 1 million deaths from heart disease, cancer and other diseases. WHO estimates about 100,000 deaths from second hand smoke. About 28.1% of the population are smokers, based on the 2010 survey. The survey was organized by the WHO and China's Center for Disease Prevention and Control. The figure of 2.4% shows women are less affected than men by the damage done to public health. Women also are leading the way to fight smoking and effects of second hand smoke. People in Beijing already have to deal with the effects of pollution in the air they breathe, and are keen on eliminating the additional harmful effects of secondhand smoke added to this....

LyrArc Article Gist
Key takeaways from XI's speech to the 20th Party Congress of the CCP, China's Communist Party, are shown in the Guardian. Xi presented a vision of continuity. Goals that were seen as significant were self-reliance in science and technologies and building China's capacity for innovation by building up its capabilities in science education. This was stated as the main driver of future growth. It does not favor decoupling with the US even though the US sees it in its own interest and that of its working class to bring home manufacturing and rebuild supply chains for American self reliance - the pandemic showed the weakness of free markets approaches that ignored this. A promise to step up regulation on income distribution and wealth accumulation, to cut down the growing inequality gap that developed in the last two decades of hypergrowth.  To focus on the quality of economic growth after lessons learned on climate change. To double down on the zero covid policy. He lauded the "all out war on the virus." To continue the battle against "corruption on a scale unprecedented in our history." "Corruption is the biggest cancer that harms the vitality and affects the combat effectiveness of the party, and anti-corruption is the most thorough self-revolution. As long as there is the soil and conditions for corruption, the fight against corruption will not stop for one moment." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Though the smoking rate has dropped in the U.S. to 15% of adults smoking, the figures conceal a socioeconomic fact. Many of the smokers are now concentrated in rural areas and among less educated people. The rate for people with only a high school diploma is about 40%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The result is that people in rural areas are diagnosed of lung cancer at rates 18-20 % higher than city residents. These are two worlds says one rural resident who has grandchildren in D.C. suburbs. She is fighting the battle against smoking yet sees this is less of an issue for city residents. Her experience is that the family, health, work and other problems drive people to smoke more in rural areas of Virginia, including her small town of Martinsville, Virgina. An added problem is the marketing by tobacco companies to these areas.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mexico's newly elected president Lopez Obrador says spending for a new airport was not in the interest of a country with Mexico's social needs. He voted to cancel the project in favor of using a military airbase north of Mexico City and building new runways to complement the existing airport. The aiport project was a key effort by the outgoing administration of Pena Nieto. About $5 billion spent on the airport would be written off, and bondholders holding $6 billion in bonds could ask for payment.

The airport cost originally estimated at $10 billion is now expected to cost $13.3 billion. Mexico City airport handled 44 million passengers last year and the new airport was intended to handle future congestion.

LyrArc Article Gist
Microsoft embraces open-source software for the first time. CEO Steve Ballmer once considered Linux open-source software "a cancer." Microsoft announces the creation of Microsoft Open Technologies in April 2012, as a unit that will manage the introduction of open source software programs and the compatibility of Microsoft software with open-source software. Cloud computing has strong elements of open-source software in it and Web services provided by Google and Facebook rely on Linus's open-source software. Younger programmers are trained with working on Linux and it is important for Microsoft to accept and work with the open-source software community to retain its influence in the field.

LyrArc Article Gist
Albergotti and Macmillan tell the story of Jan Koum of WhatsApp who immigrated from Ukraine as a teenager in 1992, and settled wih his mother in Silicon Valley. His interest in messaging apps stemmed from his interest in staying in touch with extended family in Ukraine, Russia and Israel, after losing his mother to cancer and his dad passing away in Ukraine before making it to the U.S. He met Brian Acton at San Jose State University, where he studied programming, and the two founded WhatsApp in 2009. In the early years after 1992, before joining Yahoo following graduation, Koum lived on food stamps.

LyrArc Article Gist
Merck's decision to organize R&D using four innovation hubs in Boston, San Francisco, London and Shanghai. Merck currently lacks a large R&D presence in London and it has commercial operations in Shanghai. Experts say innovation centers enable drug companies to take advantage of academic research at an early stage. Pfizer and other companies are also pursuing a similiar strategy. The new head of R&D at Merck, Dr, Perlmutter plans to shrink staff and focus on promising areas such as immunoterapies for treating cancer and vaccines. Perlmutter comes from Amgen and is bringing people who he worked with at Amgen. The focus is also shifting to tapping the new science behind dieseases.

LyrArc Article Gist
Sharing insights into customer relationships from Varian Systems which makes ultra sound scanners that help in detecion and treatment of cancer. The first insight, you exist to solve a customer problem, it does not mean that something is broken. Second insight if you solve the problem even if the customer has been righteously angry with you, you likely have a lifelong relationship. For breakdown of scanner machines in hospital settings, he has another insight- my rule has always been first to fix the machine as quickly as possible and worry about the money later. This must build trust, and likely builds a strong relationship just from the memory of what you have done and the trouble you have taken.

LyrArc Article Gist
French president Macron cancels a fuel tax increase after violent protests. Spontaneous protests took place in Paris and across France. People in rural France were angered by the increase in the fuel tax even though by a few cents, because many people in rural areas of France are struggling to make ends meet. The tax aroused sentiment in rural areas because it followed a move by president Macron to cancel a tax on the wealthy.  Students and ambulance workers joined the strike. 
The aloof nature of president Macron staying above the public concerns has led to a sharp drop in his popularity and the sudden eruption of protests.

Macron's large majority in parliament may not reflect the true nature of public opinion as many people stayed away from the polls in the election for the National Assembly. Since the election Macron has alienated members of his own Movement by not listening to concerns and several ministers have resigned.