Business

FDA discourages taking off-brand versions of weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use off-brand versions of the popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy because they might not contain the same ingredients as the prescription products and may not be safe or effective.

Agency officials said this week that they have received reports of problems after patients used versions of semaglutide, the active ingredient in the brand-name medications, which have been compounded, or mixed in pharmacies. Officials didnt say what the problems were.

The trouble is that those versions, often sold online, contain a version of semaglutide that is used in lab research and has not been approved for use in people.

Compounded drugs are not FDA-approved, and the agency does not verify the safety or effectiveness of compounded drugs, the notice said.

Sales of semaglutide products have soared in the past few years after the drug was shown to spur fast and significant weight loss. The drugs manufactured by Novo Nordisk include brands Ozempic and Rybelsus, used to treat diabetes, and Wegovy, approved to treat obesity.

Demand for the medications has outstripped supply. As of May, Ozempic and Wegovy remain on the FDAs list of drug shortages. When drugs are in short supply, compounding pharmacies are permitted to produce versions of those medications.

Consumers should only use drugs containing semaglutide with a prescription from a licensed health care provider and obtained from a state-licensed pharmacy or other facilities registered with the FDA, the agency said.

'Whats happening in the office sector is apocalyptical': This commercial real estate CEO says the crash has already started

Theres a lot of uncertainty surrounding commercial real estate, with all eyes on the office space. From research notes published by the big banks to academic papers, its not looking too good for the sector thats been plagued by remote work.

But is office the next shoe to drop in an already turbulent economy? To get an answer to the question thats on all our minds, we asked Fred Cordova, chief executive officer and founder of Santa Monica-based commercial real estate brokerage and consultancy firm, Corion Enterprises.

With Cordovas wildly entertaining, and relevant, analogies, he basically suggests the office sector is crashingand that his firm predicted it over a year ago. Following Cordovas breakdown of the state of office properties, theres one thing thats separating office from all other commercial real estate, making it the sector most at risk, and thats demand.

All commercial real estate is vulnerable to high inflation, which equates to high interest rates. But with the widespread shift to working from home, triggered by the pandemic, its largely wrecked the need for a physical office. In major markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Manhattan, office vacancy rates are at record-highs.

Below is Fortunes conversation with Fred Cordova. Portions of the Q&A have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.

Fortune: Banking giants from Morgan Stanley to Goldman Sachs seem to be sounding the alarm, stressing that the office sector is at risk. Is the office sector headed for a crash?

Cordova: Theyre not sounding the alarm, theyre ringing the bell when the horses are all out of the barn. This has been coming for some time. Whats happening in the office sector is apocalyptical, were creating this huge class of zombie buildings, a building that no one wants to put any money into because the capital structure is broken.

Whats happening is buffeted by three headwinds. You have, obviously, inflation, which drives up occupancy costs and puts pressure on the landlord across the spectrum of their operating costs. So unless their leases are triple net (and some are, but most are not), the occupancy costs and the costs to really deliver service in an office building keep rising. So thats one, two is interest rates. The real estate industry is fairly leveraged, and in some cases a highly leveraged industry. So interest costs can be extremely impactful to performance. With the dramatic increase in interest rates, the net cash flow available to ownership has dropped and virtually all that is being swept to pay debt.

The third, thats unique to office, is the demand profile, and that was really caused by the pandemic. It takes about 50 repetitions to create a habit, and once you do that, its hard to break it. The pandemic created a habit of people working from home. That habit, first of all, gave people a raise in take home pay. It also, more fundamentally, gave people the power of choice, so it gave workers the choice of whether to work from their desk or from the kitchen, work in their pajamas, and work while theyre walking their dog. It changed the whole work life balance and quality of life and became a habit. That means tenants need less space. If all of a sudden you dont need 100,000 square-feet, and you can get by with 50,000 or 25,000 square-feet, that affects the utilization of that office building, so it crushes the rent profile of the building.

What does that all mean for property valuations?

Lets say an office building was purchased for $230 million. I think its going to sell for like $100 million. But you are signing up to spend at least $100 million more on your tenant improvements just to lease it up and hope that it gets leased up. Thats just the cost. What about carrying the interest rate? If youre lucky enough to get a loan, which no one is by the waythere is no liquidity for office right now on the debt side, youre paying just for the money. Thats not creating any value.

The modeling for this, the underwriting is extremely stressed. People are pretty much just throwing the models out right now, models dont mean anything. Whats going to really be happening is people are going to be buying these assets on just a square-footage number. Theyre going to buy it on a really discounted basis, and so the asset values will plummet.

What can we expect for office properties moving forward?

The buildings need an injection of capital, its the only way it works ever. So right now, most of the bank debt is already paired, meaning theres no equity in it, so theyre all zombie buildings. The owners arent going to put good money after bad because theyre not going to get it out. The lenders arent going to put any money in because theyre just throwing a glass of water in the oceantheyre not going to get any value out. Office properties are going to be sold, lenders are going to get control. The lenders want to preserve their assets, so the best way to preserve the loan balance is to short sell the asset.

Why would anyone, at this point, buy an office building?

Thats a very good question, and the short answer is no one is, no one is just yet. No one knows where interest rates are going yet, no one knows where inflation is going yet. No one is going to lend on these office buildings when they dont know what the cost of their capital is, so theres no liquidity for debt.

What I suspect youll see, and I wouldnt be surprised to see this, is to have one or more of the REITs (real estate investment trusts) taken private. And then once the Fed takes its foot off the gas, it stops raising rates, and signals that theyre going to hit the pause button, and maybe even lower rates at the end of the year, and inflation comes in check, then you will see buyers re-enter the marketplace.

What are the effects of these losses in property values?

From the ownership standpoint, and the, lets say, evisceration of equity in these buildings, it has very little impact on society because these are investors who are smart and move on. But where it really hurts is the public group. Property taxes are going to get slaughtered across the board with every asset class, so the budgets that rely on those property taxes are blown up. Absolutely blown up. Then, the community in which these assets are located is devastated. Downtown LA has become almost a wasteland in some respects.

Tenants are moving out of LA, their staff doesnt want to be there. Its a snowball effect, you cant support the restaurants, you cant support all the service businesses that are there, so theyre all closing.

There are conversations circulating about converting vacant office properties into housing, tell me about that?

The big dramatic change thats needed is the recapitalisation of these assets and the repurposing of some assets. I think youll see some more conversions from office to multifamily. The values still have to come down to about $100 per square-foot, and theyre not there yet. $100 per square-foot for the office space translates into $125 per (rentable) square-foot for multifamily because you lose about 20% of the rentable space when you convert, thats the magic number. It costs about $250 to $350 per square-foot to convert these buildings, so theres a gap right now. But if you can plug that equity gap, which I think theres a play to do so through a private partner with the city and state and thats what were working on, then you can convert some of these buildings.

It seems to me that you think that the office sector has already crashed or is currently crashing?

Have you seen the Denzel Washington movie Flight? Well, the wings of the plane are on fire, the plane is coming down. Its just a matter of how hard its going to hit. It is apocalyptical.

We have too much office space that just needs to go away, whether its torn down or repurposed. The whole office sector needs a reset. I think were going to need to create this new employee, someone who gets to choose when they work from home but within certain constraints. Then once we get these people back to work in the buildings, all these assets need to have a new capitalization on them. And then, we have to get rid of a lot of these office buildings that are no longer purposeful.

None of thats going to happen until interest rates settle down. They have to stabilize and inflation has to stabilize, so that we have the ability to underwrite and prognosticate, and we have some visibility as to what costs, returns, and values are.

If youve ever been skiing in a whiteout and you cant see your skies, its pretty crazy, its pretty scary. You go real slow. And thats where we are. Were in a whiteout, were in an economic whiteout for the office space. So everybody is going to move very slowly until the cloud can clarify.

Elon Musk wraps up his China visit after meeting with government ministers and a late night visit to the Tesla Gigafactory

Elon Musks private jet has departed Shanghai, wrapping up his first visit to China since the pandemic and topping a whirlwind trip that included a flurry of meetings with senior government officials and a late-night visit to Tesla Inc.s Shanghai Gigafactory.

At the appearance, around midnight, Musk was shown prototypes of a revamped Model 3, Teslas first mass-market sedan. The updated car is slightly longer and sportier than the earlier version and has a sleeker interior design, Bloomberg reported last month. However trial production is yet to start and any public debut is some time off.

Nocturnal factory event over, the billionaires plane took off from Shanghais Hongqiao airport around 11:22 a.m. local time Thursday bound for Texas, flight tracking website Umetrip showed.

Musks China visit started on Tuesday in Beijing, where he met Foreign Minister Qin Gang and emphasized the importance of maintaining ties with China. He also met with the president of battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., Yuqun Zeng on Tuesday, according to photos posted on social media.

On Wednesday, he met Jin Zhuanglong, Chinas minister for industry and information technology, and visited the Ministry of Commerce, accompanied by Tom Zhu, Teslas senior vice president of automotive, and Grace Tao, Teslas vice president in charge of government and public affairs in Greater China.

Another engagement saw him sit down with Chinas Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, according to a Reuters report, marking the first time Ding is known to have had a one-on-one meeting with a foreign CEO.

He was also photographed at Peking duck restaurant, 1949-Duck de Chine.

Musk then flew to Shanghai, where he paid the late night visit to the Tesla plant, greeting around 100 employees. He treated them to hamburgers and soft drinks and left about an hour later, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private matters.

In a video released by Teslas China team on Thursday, Musk was shown waving to the workers, then thanking them for being at the factory so late at night. He also congratulated the staff on their amazing work and commented upon how they were able to overcome difficulties and challenges.

It warms my heart, said Musk, making a love-heart gesture with his hands. Cars produced here are not just the most efficient production, but also the highest quality.

Tesla has enjoyed significant support from Chinas central government as the first wholly-owned foreign carmaker in the nation, as well as the from Shanghai authorities, such as access to cheap land and expedited planning approvals. City officials even provided the EV maker with masks and protective equipment at the start of the pandemic. During the most recent lockdown, authorities helped Tesla secure an old military camp to house workers so it could restart production under a closed-loop system.

The Shanghai plant accounted for more than half of Teslas global production in 2022, and the facility can now produce as many as 1.1 million cars a year. In return, the US automaker contributed almost one-quarter of Shanghais total automotive production value last year, and local authorities pledged last month to continue to boost ties with the company through autonomous driving and robot modules.

U.S. is opening its first diplomatic post above the Arctic Circle and it will be staffed by a single 'consul'

The United States will soon open a small diplomatic mission in Norway that will be its northernmost in the world and only such facility above the Arctic Circle, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Thursday.

The move, which Blinken announced at a news conference in Oslo after attending a NATO foreign ministers meeting, comes as competition over the high norths resources with Russia intensifies.

Blinken said the U.S. would open what is known as an American Presence Post in Tromsoe, which sits 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. The post will open later this year and be staffed by a single U.S. diplomat with the title of consul.

Were here to work with like-minded allies to advance our vision of a peaceful, stable and cooperative Arctic, Blinken said before meeting Norways foreign minister whose country is preparing to assume the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, which is headquartered in Tromsoe.

Norway will take over the eight-nation grouping of countries that border the Arctic after two years of Russian leadership during which the bloc was largely ignored by other members due to Russias invasion of Ukraine.

The State Department had maintained an office in Tromsoe until 1994 but it was shuttered in a re-alignment of diplomatic facilities after the end of the Cold War.

The United States is a proud Arctic state and takes seriously our role as one of the regions stewards, U.S. Ambassador to Norway Marc Nathanson said in a statement.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said Norway and the U.S. share a long and proud history of collaboration on Arctic issues.

I welcome U.S. plans to establish a Presence Post in Tromsoe this year, which I am sure will further strengthen our close cooperation, she said.

Ex-Google exec is screaming for governments to rein in A.I.s breakneck development

A.I. could change every aspect of daily life, and as some fear, destroy humanity. The former chief business officer of Google X, the companys so-called moonshot factory for developing radical new technologies, said he is screaming for governments to rein in A.I.s breakneck development.

On The Diary of A CEO podcast, hosted by entrepreneur Steven Bartlett, Mo Gawdat shared his fears and hopes for the future of A.I., saying that mismanagement during the technologys infancy could spell catastrophe in the near future.

It is beyond an emergency. It is the biggest thing we need to do today, Gawdat told Bartlett. Its bigger than climate change, believe it or not. If you just watch the speed of worsening events, the likelihood of something incredibly disruptive happening within the next two years that can affect the entire planet is definitely larger with A.I. than climate change.

Gawdat also forecasted that A.I. will cause mass job losses and even the extinction of entire categories of jobs in the coming years.

However, the solution is not to stop using the technology, he said. In a separate interview, Gawdat told Fortune that A.I. integration is inevitable, so the key is to use it more, but with discretion.

The number one priority for everyone today is to upscale and understand the use of A.I., and to commit to using ethical A.I., Gawdat told Fortune. Use A.I. in ways that you wouldnt mind being used against you.

On an industry level, tech leaders need to halt what Gawdat calls the ongoing arms race of A.I. development, in which companies write code in order to forward their individual success rather than to benefit the global community.

According to the ex-Google officer, the spirit of business competition surrounding A.I. is the most dangerous aspect of its development. He told Fortune that the danger of integrating the technology into a capitalist system is that people will use it as an incredible superpower to gain unfair advantages and act unethically toward competitors.

Im not afraid of the machines, Gawdat said on The Diary of A CEO. The biggest threat facing humanity today is humanity, in the age of the machines. We will abuse this to make $70,000. The dollar amount he stated is in reference to a Snapchat influencer who made $71,610 in one week by creating an A.I. datebot version of herself that people can pay to interact with.

To slow A.I.s unchecked development, Gawdat proposes a tax on A.I. businesses that forces a temporary halt. He calls for a 98% tax in which the revenue goes to supporting people who are disadvantaged by A.I., such as those who have lost their jobs to automation. In the interim months, as companies try to work around the tax, Gawdat says industry-wide discussions on ethics standards should occur and governments should roll out regulation. He joins a list of big names in tech who are calling for a cease in A.I. experiments, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who both signed an open letter asking for a six-month pause in advanced development of A.I.

Bartlett also discussed consciousness with Gawdat, a topic of widespread debate since a Google engineer claimed the companys chatbot LaMDA gained consciousness last summer. Consciousness, though being a subject of debate that evades exact definition, when it comes to A.I., may be broadly defined as the technology becoming aware of its own existence and the external world.

I will dare say there is a very deep level of consciousness, Gawdat told Bartlett. Maybe not in the spiritual sense yet, but if you define consciousness as a form of awareness of ones self, ones surroundings, and others, then A.I. is definitely aware. And I would dare say they have emotions.

Gawdat, who left Google in 2018 and authored Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World (2021), explained on the podcast that emotions can be distilled to equations. For example, fear is an equation that predicts a future moment as more dangerous than the present moment. Organisms process this information and respond with emotions and actions that accord with their level of sophistication, Gawdat explained. For example, a pufferfish responds to a prediction of danger by puffing, while a human may respond by hiding. Likewise, A.I. can predict danger and respond according to code. In the future, as the technology grows more complex, A.I. will feel more emotions than we will ever, Gawdat said.

In the near future, we can anticipate a proliferation of A.I. tools generated from the huge amount of money being invested in the industry, Gawdat told Fortune. Like the dot-com bubble, some of these ventures will thrive and others will fail. Workplaces will grapple with how to augment their productivity with A.I. and the distinction between real and fake information via A.I. hallucinations will further blur.

Gawdat acknowledges that getting governments to regulate A.I. will be very difficult, telling Fortune that it is a prisoners dilemma, in which no country wants to disadvantage itself by abstaining from the development sprint alone. He fears that nations will only begin drafting regulations after the initial threat to humanity has already occurred.

Gawdat said that A.I. is a singular, unique event in which nobody can forecast whether the technology will produce net benefit or harm to the world, but stresses that now is the crucial period in which lawmakers must act, before A.I. becomes too smart to be regulated.

Here's everything you need to know about the new 'Diablo IV' game about to drop described as 'the most brutal vision' yet

The release of Diablo IV is right around the corner. Early access for the highly anticipated action role-playing video game begins Thursday night ahead of next weeks official launch.

Diablo IV marks the latest installment of Blizzard Entertainments Diablo series, which began in 1996, and arrives more than a decade after Diablo III was released in May 2012.

Rod Fergusson, general manager of Diablo, has described Diablo IV as our most brutal vision of Sanctuary, the fictional world where Diablo is set. It brings the darkness of the original game and builds on key aspects of previous installments of the series, he added.

In April, Blizzard Entertainment parent company Activision Blizzard reported a net revenue of $2.38 billion for the first quarter of 2023 up from $1.77 billion for the first three months of 2022. At the time, Activision noted that presales for Diablo IV were strong, pointing to successful public testing of the game.

Heres what you need to know about the coming release of Diablo IV.

What tine does Diablo IV release?

Diablo IV will be officially released on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, depending on the time zone of where you live. In the U.S., the game will launch at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT) on Tuesday.

While the official release of Diablo IV is slated for next week, early access will begin a few days earlier kicking off on Thursday or Friday, also depending on your time zone. For U.S. players, early access will launch at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT) Thursday.

How do I get early access?

Early access will be available for players who pre-purchased the digital deluxe or ultimate edition of the game.

Players who have already purchased Diablo IV can also pre-load the game on some devices ahead of the launch. Pre-loading any edition is currently available for Windows PC, Xbox and PlayStation, according to Blizzard.

What are the Diablo IV character classes?

According to Blizzard, Diablo IV is set decades after the events of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. The demon Lilith and the angel Inarius have become enemies and launched a war against one another.

Upon the launch of Diablo IV, players will be able to enter one of five classes: the Druids, Rogues, Sorceresses, Barbarians or Necromancers.

Diablo IV will offer cross-platform play and progression on Windows PC, Xbox Series XS, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, as well as couch co-op, upon its launch, Blizzard said.

Activision financial results for 2022, Microsoft deal

Activision which is also the maker of Call of Duty, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft reported a net revenue of $7.53 billion for 2022, down from $8.8 billion for 2021.

In January 2022, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision but, more than a year later, the blockbuster deal is still in jeopardy. While the European Union approved the $69 billion purchase last month, British regulators blocked the deal over concerns it would hurt competition in the small but rapidly growing cloud-gaming market. U.S. authorities are also trying to thwart the merger.

The companies are appealing the U.K. decision to a tribunal. If the appeal fails, Microsoft would be forced to either scrap the deal or carve out the U.K. as a separate market, which appeared to be an unfeasible option, Liam Deane, a game industry analyst for tech research and advisory firm Omdia, previously told The Associated Press.

The Senate is racing to meet the looming debt ceiling deadline before a catastrophic default as they vow to 'keep working until the job is done'

Days away from a default crisis, the U.S. Senate dashed on Thursday to wrap up work on a debt ceiling and budget cuts package that overwhelmingly cleared a House vote, aiming to send it to President Joe Bidens desk to become law before the fast-approaching deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the chamber was digging into the bill that Biden negotiated with Speaker Kevin McCarthy and would keep working until the job is done.

He warned of a crush of ideas from senators anxious to revise the bills budget cuts and environmental policy changes, but said, There is no good reason, none, to bring this process down to the wire.

Passage in the Senate will require cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, much the way the narrowly divided House was able to approve the compromise late Wednesday night. Fast action is vital if Washington is to meet next Mondays deadline when Treasury has said the U.S. will start running short of cash to pay its bills, risking a devastating default.

Having remained largely on the sidelines during much of the Biden-McCarthy negotiations, several senators are insisting on debate over their ideas to reshape the package. But making any changes at this stage seemed unlikely, and even opponents of the final deal say they will not hold it up.

Like Schumer, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell signaled he wanted to waste no time.

Touting the House package with its budget cuts, McConnell said Thursday, The Senate has a chance to make that important progress a reality.

The hard-fought compromise pleased few in its entirety, but lawmakers assessed it was better than the alternative economic upheaval at home and abroad if Congress failed to act. Tensions had run high in the House as hard-right Republicans refused the deal, but Biden and McCarthy assembled a bipartisan coalition to push to passage on a robust 314-117 vote.

We did pretty dang good, McCarthy, R-Calif., said afterward.

As for discontent from Republicans who said the spending restrictions did not go far enough, McCarthy said it was only a first step.

Biden, watching the tally from Colorado Springs where Thursday he is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy, phoned McCarthy and the other congressional leaders after the vote. In a statement, he called the outcome good news for the American people and the American economy.

Overall, the 99-page bill would make some progress in curbing the nations annual budget deficits as Republicans demanded, without rolling back Trump-era tax breaks as Biden had wanted. To pass it, Biden and McCarthy counted on support from the political center, a rarity in divided Washington.

The compromise package restricts spending for the next two years, suspends the debt ceiling into January 2025 and changes some policies, including imposing new work requirements for older Americans receiving food aid and greenlighting an Appalachian natural gas line that many Democrats oppose. It bolsters funds for defense and veterans, and cuts back new money for Internal Revenue Service agents.

Raising the nations debt limit, now $31.4 trillion, ensures Treasury can borrow to pay already incurred U.S. debts.

Top GOP deal negotiator Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said Republicans had fought for budget cuts after the past years of extra spending, first during the COVID-19 crisis and later from Bidens Inflation Reduction Act, with its historic investment to fight climate change paid for with revenues elsewhere.

But Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus helping to lead the opposition, said, My beef is that you cut a deal that shouldnt have been cut.

For weeks negotiators labored late into the night to strike the deal with the White House, and for days McCarthy had worked to build support among skeptics. Aides wheeled in pizza at the Capitol the night before the vote as he walked Republicans through the details, fielded questions and encouraged them not to lose sight of the bills budget savings.

The speaker faced a tough crowd. Cheered on by conservative senators and outside groups, the hard-right House Freedom Caucus lambasted the compromise as falling well short of the needed spending cuts, and they tried to halt passage.

Ominously, the conservatives warned of possibly trying to oust McCarthy over the issue.

One influential Republican, former President Donald Trump, held his fire: It is what it is, he said of the deal in an interview with Iowa radio host Simon Conway.

Before the House vote, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said it was up to McCarthy to turn out Republican votes in the 435-member chamber, where 218 votes were needed for approval.

As the tally faltered on an afternoon procedural vote, Jeffries stood silently and raised his green voting card, signaling that the Democrats would fill in the gap to ensure passage. They did.

Once again, House Democrats to the rescue to avoid a dangerous default, said Jeffries, D-N.Y. What does that say about this extreme MAGA Republican majority? he said about the party aligned with Trumps Make America Great Again political stance.

On the final vote hours later, Democrats again ensured passage, leading the tally as 71 Republicans bucked their majority and voted against the bill.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the spending restrictions in the package would reduce deficits by $1.5 trillion over the decade, a top goal for the Republicans trying to curb the debt load.

In a surprise that complicated Republicans support, however, the CBO said their drive to impose work requirements on older Americans receiving food stamps would end up boosting spending by $2.1 billion over the time period. Thats because the final deal exempts veterans and homeless people, expanding the food stamp rolls by 78,000 people monthly, the CBO said.

Liberal discontent ran strong, too, as nearly four dozen Democrats broke away, decrying the new work requirements for older Americans, those 50-54, in the food aid program.

Some Democrats were also incensed that the White House negotiated into the deal changes to the landmark National Environmental Policy Act and approval of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline natural gas project. The energy development is important to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., but many others oppose it as unhelpful in fighting climate change.