Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
Feb 27 (Reuters) – U.S. packaged food makers and retailers have rolled out plans to eliminate the use of ingredients such as FD&C colors — a category of synthetic dyes — and sweeteners like corn syrup from their products, responding to the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative and changing consumer preferences. Retail giant Target on Friday became the latest, saying it will only carry cereals made without certified synthetic colors. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the U.S. health regulator had said in April last year the agency aims to remove ingredients, including artificial food colors, citing concerns about…
Feb 27 (Reuters) – Merck will lay off about 150 employees across its facility in North Carolina that manufactures its human papillomavirus vaccine, Gardasil, according to a notice filed in the state’s database this week. Shares of Merck were up 3% in afternoon trading. Gardasil has been one of Merck’s top growth drivers after blockbuster cancer immunotherapy Keytruda, and much of its international growth has come from China. But the company halted shipments of the vaccine to China last year due to weak demand, driving a 39% slump in the shot’s global sales in 2025. The vaccine protects against HPV…
Feb 27 (Reuters) – Target said on Friday it would sell only cereals made without certified synthetic colors by the end of May, becoming the latest retailer to tighten standards amid a crackdown on artificial dyes. The big-box retailer said it has worked closely with national and owned-brand partners to reformulate products where needed, and the decision applies to cereals sold both in-store and online. Packaged food makers such as PepsiCo, Campbell’s and Conagra Brands had announced last year that they would cut artificial dyes, responding to the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative and Health Secretary Robert F.…
Target will stop selling cereals containing synthetic colors by the end of May. The Minneapolis-based discounter said Friday it had been phasing out synthetic colors in cereals for several years. Right now, 85% of its cereal sales already come from products made without synthetic dyes. Target said it has worked with national brands and its private brands to reformulate products as needed. Some cereals — including Trix and Lucky Charms, which are made by General Mills — will have updated formulations, Target said. Target said it will no longer carry brands that don’t reformulate, but it didn’t name the brands.…
By Amina Niasse NEW YORK, March 2 (Reuters) – Telehealth company Hims & Hers Health, known for its weight-loss drug business, is promising it can diversify away from its reliance on compounded GLP-1 sales in the U.S., but that may not happen soon enough for investors who are growing impatient. Hims drew regulatory scrutiny last month with its plan to launch a $49 version of Novo Nordisk’s brand-new Wegovy pill. It quickly reversed course after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration referred the company to the Department of Justice and threatened to restrict the ingredients that pharmacies mix to make…
March 3 (Reuters) – Diagnostics firm Droplet Biosciences said on Tuesday it is collaborating with Nvidia to use the chipmaker’s AI infrastructure to speed up post-surgery cancer test results. The company has been using Nvidia Parabricks, a GPU-accelerated software suite, to drastically speed up genomic data analysis for DNA sequencing. * Droplet said its method can detect residual disease in 24hours by analyzing lymphatic fluid collected post surgery,compared to the four to six weeks it typically takes for tumorremnants to appear in blood-based tests. * “By leveraging NVIDIA Parabricks’ acceleration, we’ve beenable to compress some of our most computationally intensivesteps…
March 3 (Reuters) – Moderna has agreed to pay Genevant Sciences, a subsidiary of Roivant Sciences, and Arbutus Biopharma up to $2.25 billion to settle a long-running legal fight over the technology that made its COVID-19 vaccine possible, the companies said on Tuesday. Under the deal, Moderna will pay $950 million upfront in July 2026, with an additional $1.3 billion that depends on the outcome of a separate legal appeal. In extended trading, Moderna’s shares jumped more than 10%, Arbutus rose 11%, while Roivant was up about 1%. The deal resolves all U.S. and international legal actions accusing Moderna of…
It’s official: Elon Musk is combining SpaceX and xAI as he overhauls his sprawling business empire.Musk told workers in a Monday memo that SpaceX has acquired xAI, his AI company, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to Business Insider.The CEO wrote that the deal would create “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform.”SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002, is reportedly gearing up for an initial public offering this year that could value the Starship maker at $1.5 trillion.In the…
Moltbook, a new Reddit-style social network made entirely for AI agents, can be read in a few different ways.It might be an ominous glimpse of an AI-driven future. Or a clever meta-commentary on how humans behave online. Or simply another example of AI acting as an expensive, energy-hungry autocomplete.Which interpretation you land on depends on where you fall in the ongoing debate about artificial intelligence.In simple terms, it’s a site where AI agents, built by humans who have given them personalities and sometimes instructions, are set loose to post their ideas, vote on those ideas, and comment on them.One of…
At an Amazon Fresh store in New York, some customers would walk in and ask employees: Do you have products from Amazon’s other grocery store here?”I would run into people looking for a specific product from Whole Foods,” one employee at the store told Business Insider.Amazon opened Fresh in 2020 after acquiring Whole Foods in 2017. Some assumed that Amazon Fresh would offer their favorite organic yogurt or premium meat because of the shared ownership. While Fresh stores did stock some Whole Foods 365 products, store employees said, Amazon sought to offer more affordable groceries and showcase its technology, such…