Drugmakers Told to Retool Boosters

"U.S. health regulators have directed vaccine manufacturers to modify their Covid-19 shots to better target the recently circulating offshoots of the Omicron variant in preparation for a fall booster campaign.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it advised companies including Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. to make new vaccines that target the ancestral strain of the coronavirus, plus the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.

The subvariants have been spreading rapidly around the U.S., and have been able to partly elude even shots modified to target the original Omicron subvariant that the drugmakers have been working on.

The agency's direction toward BA.4 and BA.5-targeted shots should result in the first changes to the composition of the Covid-19 vaccines since they began rolling out in the U.S. in December 2020, and will kick off a frantic race to develop the shots specified.

The FDA said the modified vaccines could potentially be used starting in early to mid-fall. The FDA indicated it may authorize the shots before results of human testing of such shots are known. This would be similar to the process FDA uses for annual updates to seasonal flu shots.

"As we move into the fall and winter, it is critical that we have safe and effective vaccine boosters that can provide protection against circulating and emerging variants to prevent the most severe consequences of Covid-19," said Peter Marks, who directs the FDA division overseeing vaccines.

The changes would be made to booster shots, not the initial vaccine doses.

The new FDA directions would force vaccine makers to pivot quickly to focusing on the subvariants, because they have been focused on new shots targeting the original Omicron strain since it emerged late last year.

The two Omicron subvariants represented a combined 52% of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. for the week ended June 25, according to estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Tuesday. The original Covid-19 vaccines have been shown to be less effective against Omicron.

Pfizer, with its partner BioNTech SE, and Moderna have been testing modified shots that target the original Omicron variant, which first emerged in late 2021. The companies said these shots improved people's immune responses to the Omicron variant in studies.

Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Twitter that the company's vaccine mRNA technology "enables us to quickly update our vaccine constructs as new strains become more prominent, and we are ready to immediately implement this process."

Kathrin Jansen, the company's head of vaccine research, said Tuesday during a meeting of FDA advisers recommending modification of Covid-19 shots, that the company is prepared to deliver updated shots by early October. Dr. Jansen also said Pfizer was in the process of producing vaccines targeting BA.4 and BA.5.

Moderna said in a Twitter post it will develop a "bivalent" booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 as well as the ancestral coronavirus strain, in addition to its bivalent shot targeting the original Omicron subvariant." [1]

1. U.S. News: Drugmakers Told to Retool Boosters
Loftus, Peter; Hopkins, Jared S. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 01 July 2022: A.3.

Sulėtėjus verslui, Kinijos technologijų gigantai planuoja naujus atleidimus

  „Kinija pranešė, kad sušvelnina reguliavimo kampaniją prieš technologijų sektorių, tačiau šalies technologijų milžinai imasi daugiau darbo vietų naikinimo, nes augimas sustoja.

 

    Bendrovės, įskaitant „Tencent Holdings Ltd.“ ir „ByteDance Ltd.“, per naujausią sąnaudų mažinimo etapą atleidžia tūkstančius darbuotojų, sakė esami ir buvę darbuotojai. Šiuos darbo vietų mažinimus papildo dešimtys tūkstančių darbuotojų, kuriuos Kinijos interneto bendrovės jau atmetė nuo praėjusių metų pabaigos po to, kai Pekino reguliavimo priemonės užvaldė sektorių.

 

    Ankstesnis darbo vietų mažinimas daugiausia buvo skirtas nepelningų įmonių ir nepagrindinių segmentų restruktūrizavimui. Tačiau kadangi „Covid-19“ „Omicron“ variantas skatina griežtus užblokavimus ir trikdo Kinijos ekonomiką, kai kurios bendrovės pratęsia atleidimus pagrindinėse įmonėse.

 

    Naujas atleidimų ciklas rodo randus, kuriuos kai kurioms technologijų įmonėms paliko reguliavimo puolimas ir makroekonominiai priešiniai vėjai – tai nerimą kelianti raida Kinijos pareigūnams, kurie iš dalies kreipiasi į technologijų milžinus, tikėdamiesi išgelbėti lėtėjančią ekonomiką ir prastėjančią užimtumo aplinką.

 

    Pastaraisiais mėnesiais aukščiausi pareigūnai įsipareigojo remti Kinijos skaitmeninę ekonomiką ir skatino jos technologijų milžinus plėtoti pagrindines technologijas, tokias, kaip dirbtinis intelektas, taip pat infrastruktūrą, kuri remtų sritis, įskaitant pramoninį internetą ir debesų kompiuteriją.

 

    Nuo to laiko technologijų įmonių akcijų kainos grįžo po kelerių metų žemumo lygio.

 

    „Makroekonominė rizika aplenkė reguliavimo riziką“, – sakė „Fitch Ratings“ Kinijos interneto įmonių analitikas Kelvinas Ho. „Lėtėjant augimui, įmonės turės permąstyti tinkamą verslo struktūrą“, – sakė jis.

 

    JAV didelės technologijų įmonės, įskaitant „Twitter Inc.“, „Microsoft Corp.“ ir „Tesla Inc.“, pradėjo mažinti darbuotojų skaičių arba sulėtino jų įdarbinimo pastangas, didėjant ekonominiam neapibrėžtumui po ankstesnės sparčios plėtros.

 

    Pasak darbuotojų, informuotų apie tai, „Tencent“, kurios pajamos per ketvirtį, pasibaigusį kovo 31 d., beveik nepaaugo, iki šių metų pabaigos planuoja sumažinti darbuotojų skaičių įvairiose verslo grupėse.

 

     Pasak žmonių, darbo vietų mažinimas apims kai kurias pagrindines verslo sritis ir greičiausiai palies kai kuriuos vyresniuosius vadovus.

 

    Kai kurie iš jų teigė, kad komanda, valdanti „WeChat“, visur esančią „Tencent“ pokalbių, socialinės žiniasklaidos ir mokėjimų programą, atleidžia dešimtis darbuotojų, dirbančių su trumpų vaizdo įrašų paslaugų kanalais.

 

    Kai kurie žmonės sakė, kad bendrovės vaizdo žaidimų padalinys pradėjo atkirsti daugybę žaidėjų iš komandos, kuri valdo žaidėjų bendruomenes. Pasak jų, kelios vidinės žaidimų kūrėjų studijos artimiausiais mėnesiais taip pat gali sumažinti darbuotojų skaičių, nes „Tencent“ tikisi, kad vyriausybė gaus mažiau titulų patvirtinimų ir sutelks dėmesį į žaidimus su dideliu biudžetu.

 

    Galutinis darbuotojų skaičius, kurį ketinama sumažinti, dar nenuspręstas, tačiau tai gali apimti mažiausiai šimtus žmonių, sakė kai kurie, su planu susipažinę, darbuotojai.

 

    Darbo vietų mažinimas yra naujausios „Tencent“ kampanijos, skirtos kontroliuoti išlaidas ir didinti efektyvumą, dalis. Gegužės pabaigoje bendrovė darbuotojams pranešė, kad paaukštinimai nebereiškia automatinio atlyginimo didinimo, rašoma „The Wall Street Journal“ atmintinėje. Ji taip pat paragino vyresniuosius vadovus daugiau dėmesio skirti išlaidų valdymui, rizikos kontrolei ir reikalavimų laikymuisi, teigiama kitame pranešime.

 

    Tencentas neatsakė į prašymus komentuoti.

 

    „ByteDance“, Kinijos trumpalaikių vaizdo įrašų programos „TikTok“ savininkė, naujus atleidimus iš darbo pradeda vaizdo žaidimų versle, kuris kadaise buvo perspektyvi augimo sritis. Pekine įsikūrusi „ByteDance“ įsitraukė į žaidimų pramonę 2019 m. ir nusipirko keletą įsteigtų žaidimų studijų, siekdama mesti iššūkį „Tencent“ dominavimui šiame sektoriuje. Tačiau šiuos siekius sužlugdė reguliavimo ir ekonominis spaudimas.

 

    Pasak dabartinių darbuotojų, nuo gegužės mėnesio „ByteDance“ atleido daugiau, nei pusę iš maždaug 300 darbuotojų, dirbančių Šanchajuje įsikūrusioje vaizdo žaidimų kūrimo studijoje, kuri buvo likviduota anksčiau birželio mėn. Jie taip pat atleido dešimtis žmonių iš žaidimų platinimo padalinio.

 

    Atskirai „ByteDance“ atleidžia apie 3 000 papildomų darbuotojų iš savo švietimo skyriaus, nes susiduria su drungna paklausa šioje srityje, sakė esami ir buvę darbuotojai. Sumažinti tūkstančiai darbuotojų, kuriuos „ByteDance“ atleido iš padalinio po to, kai 2021 m. liepos mėn. Pekinas sugriežtino internetinio mokymo taisykles. Skyriuje išliks beveik 1 000 darbuotojų, kurie vadovaus suaugusiems ir išmaniesiems įrenginiams, sakė žmonės.

 

    ByteDance neatsakė į prašymus komentuoti.

 

    Net mažindami darbo vietas kai kuriose srityse, Kinijos technologijų gigantai vis dar samdo kitas naujas verslo linijas, kuriose mato augimo potencialą, įskaitant metaversumą – virtualias erdves, kuriose žmonės bendrauja per skaitmeninius avatarus.

 

    Tencent įsteigė verslo padalinį, orientuotą į įtraukias technologijas, tokias, kaip virtualiosios ir išplėstinė realybės, šią savaitę sakė Stevenas Ma, Tencent vyresnysis viceprezidentas, remdamasis bendrovės pasidalijusių pastabų stenograma. Pasak darbuotojų, susipažinusių su planu, „Tencent“ siekia suburti apie 300 darbuotojų komandą.

 

     „Tencent“ taip pat plečia savo komandas užsienyje, sakė ponas Ma.

 

     Pasak darbuotojų ir išorės galvų medžiotojų, „ByteDance“ vis dar įdarbina žmones įvairioms pareigoms Kinijoje ir užsienyje." [1]

1.  China's Tech Giants Target New Layoffs As Business Slows
Huang, Raffaele. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 01 July 2022: A.1.  

China's Tech Giants Target New Layoffs As Business Slows

"China has been signaling an easing of its regulatory campaign against the technology sector, but the country's tech giants are moving ahead with more job cuts as growth stalls.

Companies including Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd. are implementing fresh layoffs affecting thousands of employees in their latest round of cost-cutting, current and former employees said. These job cuts come on top of the tens of thousands of employees already axed by Chinese internet companies since late last year after Beijing's regulatory crackdown swamped the sector.

Previous job cuts were mostly focused on restructuring unprofitable businesses and noncore segments. But as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 prompts harsh lockdowns, roiling the Chinese economy, some companies are extending layoffs to core businesses.

The fresh round of layoffs points to the scars that the regulatory assault and macroeconomic headwinds have left on some tech companies -- a worrisome development for Chinese officials as they turn in part to tech giants in hopes of salvaging a slowing economy and worsening employment landscape.

In recent months, top officials have pledged to support China's digital economy and encouraged its tech giants to develop core technologies such as artificial intelligence, as well as infrastructure that would support areas including industrial internet and cloud computing.

Since then, tech-company stock prices have bounced back from multiyear lows.

"Macroeconomic risk has overtaken regulatory risk," said Kelvin Ho, an analyst focused on Chinese internet companies at Fitch Ratings. "As growth slows, companies will have to rethink their appropriate business structure," he said.

In the U.S., big tech companies including Twitter Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Inc. have begun reducing the number of employees or slowed their recruiting efforts as economic uncertainties grow, following earlier rapid expansion.

Tencent, whose revenue barely grew in the quarter ended March 31, plans to cut employees across different business groups through the end of this year, according to employees briefed on the matter.

 The job cuts will extend to some core businesses and will likely hit some senior managers, the people said.

The team operating WeChat, Tencent's ubiquitous chat, social-media and payments app, is letting go of dozens of employees working on its short-video service Channels, some of them said.

The company's videogame unit has started cutting dozens from a team that runs gamer communities, some of the people said. Multiple in-house game developer studios might also trim staff in the coming months, they said, as Tencent anticipates fewer title approvals from the government and streamlines its focus on games with big budgets.

The final number of employees to be reduced hasn't been decided yet, but it could involve at least hundreds of people, some of the employees familiar with the plan said.

The job cuts are part of Tencent's recent campaign to control costs and improve efficiency. In late May, the company told staff that promotions no longer mean automatic salary increases, according to a memo seen by The Wall Street Journal. It has also urged senior managers to pay closer attention to cost management, risk control and compliance, according to another memo.

Tencent didn't respond to requests for comment.

At ByteDance, the Chinese owner of short-video app TikTok, the fresh round of layoffs is hitting its videogame business, once a promising growth area. Beijing-based ByteDance tapped into the gaming industry in 2019 and bought several established game studios, aiming to challenge Tencent's dominance in the sector. But those ambitions have been thwarted by regulatory and economic pressures.

Since May, ByteDance has let go of more than half of the roughly 300 employees working at a Shanghai-based videogame-development studio that was dissolved earlier in June, according to current employees. It has also cut dozens of people from a game-distribution unit, they said.

Separately, ByteDance is cutting around 3,000 additional people from its education unit as it faces lukewarm demand in that sphere, current and former employees said. Those cuts come on top of the thousands of employees that ByteDance laid off from the unit after Beijing tightened rules on online tutoring in July 2021. It will retain nearly 1,000 employees in the unit to run businesses aimed at adults and focused on smart devices, the people said.

ByteDance didn't respond to requests for comment.

Even as they trim jobs in some areas, Chinese tech giants are still hiring for other new business lines where they see growth potential, including the metaverse -- virtual spaces where people interact via digital avatars.

Tencent has set up a business unit focused on immersive technologies such as virtual- and augmented-reality, Steven Ma, Tencent's senior vice president, said this week, according to a transcript of remarks shared by the company. Tencent aims to build a team of some 300 employees, according to employees familiar with the plan.

Tencent is also expanding its teams overseas, Mr. Ma said.

ByteDance is still recruiting people for various positions in China and overseas, according to employees and external headhunters." [1]

1.  China's Tech Giants Target New Layoffs As Business Slows
Huang, Raffaele. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 01 July 2022: A.1.   

 

A big autonomous ship crossed the Atlantic

"The Mayflower, an unmanned robotic ship that recreated English colonists' 1620 voyage on the Mayflower, reached the coast of Massachusetts on Thursday.

 

More than 400 years after the colonists' historic voyage from England, the newly autonomous ship Mayflower rendezvoused with an escort off the coast of Massachusetts, was towed to Plymouth Harbor under U.S. Coast Guard regulations and docked near an exact replica of the original Mayflower.

 

 

The 15 m long trimaran controlled by artificial intelligence technology had neither a captain nor a helmsman; there were no people in it at all.

 

The first attempt of a solar-powered ship to cross the Atlantic in 2021 was accompanied by technical problems and eventually the ship had to be returned to its port - Plymouth, England, from which the Pilgrim Fathers set sail in 1620.

 

In April, the autonomous ship set sail again from southwest England, but mechanical problems diverted it to Portugal's Azores and then to Canada.

 

"With nobody on board, obviously you can't do the necessary mechanical, physical repairs," said Rob High, head of software at International Business Machines (IBM), the world's leading computer services provider, which is helping with the project.

 

"It's also part of the learning process," he added.

 

The ship left Halifax, Nova Scotia on Monday and successfully reached the port of Plymouth in four days.

 

Marine research nonprofit ProMare built the ship with IBM and used it to collect data on whales, microplastic pollution, and other research.

 

Small experimental autonomous ships have crossed the Atlantic before, but the Mayflower is said to be the first ship of its size to do so.

 

Completing the voyage "means we can start analyzing the ship's voyage data" and the operation of the AI ​​system, High said. According to him, the prospect of such unmanned ships constantly sailing means that it will be easier to collect information on "all the things that scientists care about"."