Dining & Travel is 3.0x points for CSR and a $1.5x value per 100 points -> essentially a 4.5% reward.
Uber Card is 4% on dining and 3% on Travel.
The difference in annual fees are totally different: CSR is $150 ($450 fees minus $300 travel credit) while Uber Card is -$50. (YES, Negative 50 – Uber Card reimburses $50 each year for any subscription e.g. amazon prime while has $0 annul fee).
Assuming a person spends $5,000 per year in travel and dines for $20,000 per year (around $55 per day), then:
CSR will earn 1.5% premium on travel, so $75 more benefits than Uber Card.
And 0.5% premium on dining, so $100 more benefits than Uber Card.
Uber Card wins as the effective saving in annual fee is $200 while the incremental benefit CSR brings is only $175 with our assumptions.
5G is the buzzword that nearly every industry is talking about. Higher download speed, AR/VR, autonomous driving, industrial IoT – 5G is the future, powering the global economy over $12 trillion by 2035, according to an IHS study.
5G physics
Source: SlideplaySource: androidauthority.com
With 5G, we are marching into new radio frequencies, subdivided into Sub-6 (<6 GHz) and mmWave (a wavelength range of 10 mm at 30 GHz decreasing to 1 mm at 300 GHz).
4G radio waves ranging from 700 MHz to about 2.5 GHz range from roughly 40 to 12 cm in length. In contrast, a 5G NR wave at 28 GHz are just 1 cm long. And that’s the lowest end of the mmWave frequencies; 60 GHz signals are just 5 mm in length. [edn.com]
mmWave…
doesn’t penetrate walls!
This is perhaps the most common issue cited with upcoming 5G networks and it’s true to some extent. Most building materials, such as cement and brick, attenuate and reflect very high-frequency signals with a big enough loss you’re unlikely to receive a very useful signal moving from inside to outside. Even the air produces signal loss, which limits frequencies above 28GHz to about a kilometer anyway. Wood and glass attenuate high-frequency signals to a smaller degree, so you’ll likely still be able to use 5G mmWave next to a window. [androidauthority]
AT&T has introduced its 5G+ service in December 2018 with 12 cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Fla., Louisville, Ky., Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Raleigh, N.C., San Antonio and Waco, Texas.
ForwardX is a startup making the world’s first smart luggage that can follow the owner – like autonomous driving.
Besides its 2C products, it is also making smart warehouse robotics.
V-AMR | Source: forwardx.com
Funding
Seed: December 2016, $1 million
Series A: May 2018. $10 million, led by CDH and Eastern Bell Capital
Series B: March 2019, RMB 100 million, led by RiverHill Fund
Market Sizing
To B: warehouse robotics, global market size $6-10 billion
To C: global luggage market $18 billion
In 2018, the total global revenue of Samsonite amounted to $3.8 billion while Tumi sales is 760 million (20% of global revenue)
Backgrounds of VC Investors
Eastern Bell Capital, Series A lead
Focus
Logistics
Supply Chain
Retail and Branding
Data & AI
Chairman of IC: Zhiming Mei, co-founder and CEO of GLP, one of the largest logistics real estate companies
GLP was spun out of the former Asian business of the world’s biggest industrial real estate operator Prologis, with GIC as the largest shareholder (36.8%), shortly after 2008 financial crisis
GLP owns and manages logistics facilities such as warehouses, controlling 55 per cent share of China’s industry of modern logistics facilities
Largest customers: Amazon, Best Logistics, JD.com
GLP was taken private in 2017 for $11.6 billion, led by Vanke (21.4%), HOPU (21.3%), Hillhouse (21.2%), Management (21.2%), Bank of China Investment (21.2%)
GLP delisted in 2018
In the interim, the company entered the European market with its US$2.8-billion deal to acquire the Gazeley platform from Brookfield.
GLP had entered the US market via another entity-level transaction in 2015, acquiring the IndCor business from the Blackstone Group for US$8.1 billion.The investment is in 117 million square feet of logistics space across 36 US markets that is 90 percent leased.The deal sees GLP commit 55 percent of the equity of the investment initially, funded via a combination of cash and a short-term credit facility, with GIC accounting for the other 45 percent.
In Jan 2018, GLP said it had received approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to issue up to US$1.8 billion of Belt & Road bonds on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The bonds are used to finance projects related to the One Belt One Road initiative that seeks to connect Asia and Europe over land and sea. Proceeds will be used to repay existing debt related to the financing of GLP’s Gazeley acquisition.
In June 2018, it was reported that Blackstone Group LP is buying U.S. industrial warehouse properties from Singapore-based logistics provider GLP for $18.7 billion.
Blackstone said the overall transaction totaled 179 million square feet of urban logistics assets, nearly doubling the size of its U.S. industrial footprint.
RiverHill Fund, Series B lead
One line is probably enough – Founded by Simon Xie, co-founder of Alibaba.
It is easy to see the 2B potential of ForwardX – be ready for its mass robotics in 3-5 years.
The previous post discussed around how WeChat has made life in China different in terms of eating in restaurants, buying bubble teas and more.
WeChat has also become the primary working station and personal cloud for many people.
One background – email is not that popular or useful in China. Many corporates give employees email accounts, but unlike in the US, email is just not a pervasive thing in China.
In the US, people use Gmail or Outlook and the cloud services provided by Google or Microsoft. In China, the equivalent of cloud storage is not Baidu Cloud, which provides the first 15GB free, but WeChat. People just send files as attachments in emails. And if he/she needs to CC other people, just send it in a group chat. It is a very smooth experience of sending files and discussing in a certain group of people.
The only inefficient part is probably editing files. But it is very common to use WeChat on PC so that files could be downloaded and edited. For most people, WeChat works perfect well to organize work. And it’s free.
So yes, it is just like Slack.
Meanwhile, however, files are not actually stored in or accessed through the cloud. They are local and taking up storage space in phones. So for Tencent, it is not managing an ever-expanding cloud usage and needs to think about charing fees; and for users, there is no limit in storage and they can use it as free forever, as long as they enough room in phone storages. I think it is very common for a person’s WeChat to take over 10G space in the phone.
In addition, it is more efficient to search through the files as they are grouped by groups. You go into a group chat’s history to find files, instead of searching the entire gmail for them.
On a side note, WeChat history has been very useful as a poof for nearly everything. A screenshot of chat history could be as powerful as a signed contract (not legally; but one can post it in moments or Weibo, and it seems more personal or embarrassing; so to avoid this, one usually takes a yes in WeChat seriously)
The (generic drug) industry began to consolidate during the 1960s and 1970s, and Teva emerged as the largest and most dynamic firm in the sector, thanks primarily to Eli Hurvitz, who served as CEO from 1976 to 2002 and as chairman from 2002 to 2010.
Opportunity knocked on Teva’s door when the U.S. Congress passed the Hatch-Waxman Act in 1984. The legislation created incentives for generic drug companies to challenge other firms’ patents, even before they expired, with the goal of reducing the cost of drugs in the U.S. Hurvitz positioned Teva to use Hatch-Waxman as its springboard to becoming a major player in the generics sector.
“Teva succeeded in its strategy,” says Steven Tepper, an Israeli analyst who has been following Teva for many years. “It not only worked really hard at getting its production costs down, it also developed considerable expertise in the legal aspects of the generic drugs business — how to be the first to file for generic versions of patented drugs [the law awarded a period of exclusivity to the first generic version, during which time profit margins would be higher], and how to manage the testing and licensing process. Later, Teva became adept at acquiring other companies and integrating them into the group.”
The strategy worked so well that today, Teva is the largest generic drug company in the world. Achieving this designation was a conscious decision on the part of Teva’s leadership: It was achieved via a series of large acquisitions over a five-year period, beginning with IVAX, an American rival bought for US$7.4 billion in January 2006; Barr (also in the U.S.) for US$7.46 billion in December 2008; German company Ratiopharm in March 2010 for US$5 billion, and Cephalon in May 2011 for US$6.8 billion.
“Levin was instrumental in bringing Michael Hayden to Teva as head of R&D, and together they formulated a corporate strategy for Teva that distinguished it from its competitors and also explains why Teva had to acquire either Mylan or Allergan,”
“Levin and Hayden sought to marry Teva’s proven capabilities in the efficient production of generic drugs with the company’s in-house R&D capabilities, themselves enhanced by a series of acquisitions. The goal is to turn generic drugs into specialty products, for instance by giving them a special formulation or method of application — something that doesn’t change the essence of the drug, but de-commoditizes it and allows for a higher price, higher margins and hence greater profitability.”
– Steven Tepper, pharma and biomed analyst at Migdal Capital Markets and regarded as a top Israeli analyst in this sector
The number of ‘ethical’ or proprietary drugs coming off patents in the next few years is going to be much smaller than has been the case over the past decade or so
The drug producers are facing a rapid process of concentration among their main buyers — especially in the critical U.S. market, where there are now three dominant companies. This, in turn, is forcing the manufacturers to consolidate their ranks, so as to better match the greater bargaining clout of their customers. The entire pharma industry is caught up in a whirlwind of enormous deals. Data from Thomson Reuters shows that as of July 23 — prior to Teva’s Allergan acquisition — M&A deals in the health care industry so far this year totaled almost $400 billion and were up some 80% over the equivalent period of 2014
With Copaxone’s patents going to expire, Teva needs to find supports to drive the growth or to make-up the hole – manage the “patent cliff” and the stock price
There were three acquisition targets: Sandoz (Novartis), Mylan and Actavis (Allergan).
April 8, 2015: Mylan offers to buy Perrigo for about $29 billion in cash and stock in a move that some analysts suggested was an effort to help fend off a $40 billion acquisition by larger rival Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries
April 24, 2015: Mylan goes hostile with a sweetened bid of $60 plus 2.2 Mylan shares, valuing Perrigo at $31 billion; Perrigo rejects offer
July 23, 2015: Dutch foundation linked to Mylan adopts poison pill in efforts to block takeover by Teva, citing potential job losses
July 27, 2015: Teva drops its hostile pursuit of Mylan, decides to buy Allergan Plc’s generic business in a deal worth $40.5 billion
Aug. 13, 2015: Mylan lowers the percentage of Perrigo shares it needs to control the company to just over 50 percent from its original plan of 80 percent
Sept. 14, 2015: Mylan launches a tender offer in a move to lure Perrigo investors to support its take-over efforts
Sept. 17, 2015: Perrigo recommends shareholders to reject Mylan’s tender offer, which was set to expire on Nov. 13, saying it substantially undervalued the company
Oct. 22, 2015: Perrigo announces its plans to lay off 6 percent of its global workforce and buy back shares worth $2 billion
Nov. 13, 2015: Mylan fails $26 billion bid in tender offer as it was unable to secure at least half of Perrigo’s shares
Teva said its offer should be more attractive to Mylan shareholders than the proposed purchase of Perrigo, representing a 48 percent premium to the company’s share price before speculation of a deal surfaced on March 10. When Teva made the proposal, Mylan shares were up 8.9 percent at $74.12 in afternoon Nasdaq trading, while Teva rose 2.0 percent to $64.55 on the New York Stock Exchange. Perrigo fell 2.2 percent to $193.79. (Reuters)
Copaxone reached its global peak sales of $4.3 billion in 2013
In 2013 Teva, with total revenue over $20 billion, had a generic drug business close to $10 billion and specialty drug sales of $8.4 billion (Copaxone accounted for more than half of the specialty drug business)
Profitability 1/2
…while made 50.8% of Teva’s total profitability in 2013
Copaxone contributed a segment profitability (gross margin – S&M – R&D) of $3.3 billion, with a very healthy margin of 76%
Other specialty drugs and generic business had a margin of 32% and 17% respectively
Teva’s total profitability (gross margin – S&M – R&D) was $6.4 billion in 2013
Two “bad” (for Teva) developments in 2013
Biogen’s Tecfidera approved by FDA, which would become the leading MS drug in 2017
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on March 27, 2013 that it has approved Tecfidera™(dimethyl fumarate or DMF, formerly known as BG-12) as a first-line therapy for the long-term treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Tecfidera is administered in pill form orally (by mouth) and is the third oral DMT approved for MS. The approved dosage is 240 mg to be taken two-times daily.
The appellate court struck down some of Teva’s composition patents that were protected until that date, with the effect of allowing a launch as early as May 24, 2014
Copaxone is one of the leading drugs for multiple sclerosis (MS).
What is MS?
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system affecting more than 2 million individuals globally and approximately 400 000 in the United States. [paper]
MS 通常分为四类，其中复发缓解型多发性硬化症 relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) 占比约 85%。[药事纵横]
Relapsing forms of MS include clinically isolated syndrome (CIS; a first demyelinating episode), relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), secondary-progressive MS, and progressive-relapsing MS. The symptoms of MS can be highly variable, both in severity and duration, but may include visual disturbances, bladder/bowel dysfunction, weakness, impaired balance, vertigo, numbness, tingling, pain, and cognitive dysfunction. [paper]
Source: Multiple Sclerosis Association of America
Among the available drugs for MS, Copaxone has been the best-selling drug for years until 2017. In 2017 H1, Copaxone sales = $2.296 billion while Tecfidera by Biogen had a total revenue of $2.069 billion. [药事纵横]
The past decade has seen a dramatic change in the US MS-treatment landscape. While no cure for MS is currently available, treatment options exist to reduce the frequency of relapses, manage symptoms, and slow disease progression. Many US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) are currently available in the US market for patients with relapsing forms of MS, including interferon beta-1b (Betaseron®4, Extavia®), interferon beta-1a (Avonex®6 and Rebif®), glatiramer acetate (Copaxone8), natalizumab (Tysabri®), fingolimod (Gilenya®), teriflunomide (Aubagio®), dimethyl fumarate (Tecfidera®), alemtuzumab (Lemtrada®), peginterferon beta-1a (Plegridy®), and daclizumab (Zinbryta™). In general, the currently available medications primarily target the mechanisms that underlie inflammation. Early and ongoing treatment helps to minimize early inflammation, reduce damage in nerve fibers (axons), and reduce loss of brain tissue. The anti-inflammatory effects of these agents are largely believed to result from the inhibition of T-lymphocyte proliferation, from a shift of the cytokine response from an inflammatory response to an anti-inflammatory profile, and/or from a reduction in the migration of inflammatory cells across the blood–brain barrier. More recently, ocrelizumab (Ocrevus™) became the first and only DMT approved for the treatment of primary progressive and relapsing forms of MS. Although the precise mechanism by which ocrelizumab exerts its therapeutic effects in MS is unknown, it is presumed to involve the depletion of pre-B and mature B lymphocytes. [paper]
Source: 药渡
Copaxone History
Glatiramer acetate, also known as copolymer-1, is a heterogeneous mixture of peptides comprising 4 amino acids and is similar to myelin basic protein. Copolymer-1 was first discovered in the late 1960s during research to produce an antigen capable of inducing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS. [paper]
Following its discovery and the accumulation of preclinical data supporting its use as a therapeutic agent in MS, the clinical evaluation of GA was initiated in the late 1970s. Intensive clinical research has since been conducted on GA to establish its efficacy and safety as a DMT for MS, resulting in its initial approval for RRMS in 1996 and for clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) in 2009, followed by a subsequent label change to the current indication of relapsing forms of MS along with approval of a higher dose and less frequently administered version of GA in 2014. [paper]
Source: Two decades of glatiramer acetate: From initial discovery to the current development of generics
On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Why
“We cannot prevent an Iranian bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement…” “Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.”
[Vox] The problem, though, is that the deal wasn’t “rotten”: The best evidence we have suggests Iran was actually complying with the deal. Iran has dismantled a huge portion of its nuclear program and given international inspectors wide latitude to make sure it isn’t cheating; the country is significantly further from a nuclear weapon than it was when the deal came into force.
The rationale:
The first one is that the deal isn’t entirely permanent; the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program start to relax about 10 years after the deal was signed (though the agreement not to build a nuclear weapon is permanent).
The second is that the deal didn’t cover other problematic things Iran was doing, including ballistic missile development and its support for violent militias around the Middle East (like Hezbollah in Lebanon).
One year after
On 5/8 2019, one year after US President Donald Trump announced his country’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran says it is no longer committed to parts of the agreement. [aljazeera.com]
On 6/17, Tehran has sped up the countdown to its breach of the nuclear deal with the announcement that it will exceed its uranium stockpile limit in the next 10 days. The country’s atomic agency also said Tehran might also start the process of enriching uranium up to 20% from 7 July. Kamalvandi, the spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), said Iran needed 5% enrichment for its nuclear power plant in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr and 20% enrichment for a Tehran research reactor.
Iran also announced water supplies at the Arak water reactor would exceed a 130-tonne limit within the next two and a half months if the country did not find a client to buy heavy water byproducts.
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the aircraft had violated Iranian airspace, and that the incident sent a “clear message to America”.
But the US military insisted the drone had been over international waters at the time, and condemned what it called an “unprovoked attack” by the IRGC.
After President Donald Trump’s last-minute pullback from military retaliation, the American focus has shifted to diplomacy and an effort to build international support for Trump’s approach.
A deal, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached in 2015 between Iran and P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany).
The deal came after years of tension over Iran’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insisted that its nuclear programme was entirely peaceful, but the international community did not believe that. [BBC]
Uranium is required to produce nuclear power and create nuclear weapons. However, the naturally-occurring form of the element does not have a sufficient level of a common fissile isotope U-235 to set off a nuclear reaction.
The amount of U-235 in uranium must be increased through a process of enrichment.
Uranium enriched to between 3 and 4 percent can be used for nuclear power plant fuel, but it must be enriched to around 90 percent for use in weapons.
Iran previously reached a near 20% level enrichment before the deal.
When uranium is mined it typically has about 140 atoms of U-238 for every atom of U-235. Refining it to a purity of 3.67% means using centrifuges to remove 114 unwanted atoms of U-238 for every atom of U-235. Boosting its purity to 20% means removing 22 more unwanted atoms of U-238 per atom of U-235, while going from there to weapons-grade material means removing just four more per atom of U-235. [TheGuardian]
Cap: Stockpile of Low-enriched Uranium
JCPOA set a limit of 3.67 percent enrichment and a stockpile limit of 300kg (660lbs) for 15 years (until 2031).
The United States said in 2015 the deal reduced Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium by 98 percent, to less than the amount needed for one weapon from enough for about 10. [france24]
Limit: Enrichment capability
Iran had two facilities – Natanz and Fordo – where uranium hexafluoride gas was fed into centrifuges to separate out the most fissile isotope, U-235.
Much of Natanz is deep underground and Fordow is buried inside a mountain, which is widely believed to protect them from aerial bombardment.
The deal allows Iran to continue enrichment at Natanz but with constraints. It turns Fordow into a “nuclear, physics and technology centre” where centrifuges are used for purposes other than enrichment, like producing stable isotopes.
First-generation centrifuges installed in Iran is capped at 6,104, reduced from 19,138.
Plutonium Track
Spent fuel from a heavy-water reactor contains plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb.
Iran had been building a heavy-water nuclear facility near the town of Arak.
Under the JCPOA, the core of that reactor has been removed and filled with concrete to make it unusable
The reactor is being redesigned so as to “minimise the production of plutonium and not to produce weapon-grade plutonium in normal operation”
Iran will not be permitted to build additional heavy-water reactors or accumulate any excess heavy water until 2031.
Here to compare the % of population ages 65 and older and healthcare expenditure as a % of GDP.
United States
1960: 9.1%
2017: 15.4%
The number of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to more than double from 46 million today to over 98 million by 2060, and the 65-and-older age group’s share of the total population will rise to nearly 24 percent from 15 percent.
Healthcare expenditure mainly ranges from 4% to 5% from 2000 to 2016, rising constantly in recent years. Considering the rapid growth in its GDP, the healthcare expenditure in China is growing fast.
The percentage of GDP is expected to rise to more than 26% for elders’ caring related costs. [2015-2050年，我国用于老年人养老、医疗、照料等方面的费用占GDP的比例将从7.33％升至26.24％]
Just by comparing China to US, China’s healthcare expenditure percentage is a little lagging behind (~10% 65+ population for 7% healthcare GDP). But the opportunity is large as Chinese demographic is changing rapidly. With the historical “one child policy”, China’s working population will experience a “squeeze”.
