December 10, 2022 • 19 mins
This is a compilation of some of the most compelling stories of the week.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend Edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explored the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready when you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. This week, the Biden administration struck a deal
with Russia to free w NBA star Britney Grinder. In
exchange for her freedom, the US released arms dealer Victor
Bout was known as the Merchant of Debt. This caps
a ten month or deal for Grinder after she was
arrested for possession of hash oil cartridges in Russia. For
(00:50):
more on what's to know about Grinder's release and what
happens to Paul Wheeling, another American and Russian custody for
espionage charges, will speak to Alex Ward, national security reporter
at Politic So. As you regularly noted, this has been
really going on, these negotiations since Griner was detained in
February for having you know, hash oil in her bag
at a Moscow airport. And what they've been really trying
(01:12):
to do, they being the Biden administration, was trade effectively
two Americans, Grinder and Paul Wheeland, a former marine who
has been detained in Russia for four years unproven charges
of espionage, in exchange for Victor Bout, who, as you said,
was a merchant of death, and he has been charged
in the US with trying to kill Americans as well
as hating the Taliban Afghanistan, recruiting child soldiers, mutilation, et cetera.
(01:36):
I mean, not not a great but the Russians pushed
back on this too for one deal, saying it really
needed to be Grinder for Boots. The decision basically came
to Biden the last couple of weeks saying, look, with
the Russian this is where the Russians are. They will
not budge from this. It's basically either Grinder come home
or no one comes home. And Biden decided to make
the decision to do the one for one deal, grant
(01:59):
clemency to Boot, who was going to be in prison
until and make this deal in the UAE where they
were exchanged at an Abu Dhabi. So that's sort of
what happened here, and that's why Britney Grinders, as we
speak at this moment, flying back to the United States.
And there's always already been some video that surface showing
that prisoner exchange, you know about and Grinder kind of
(02:20):
walking past each other as they go to their respective sides.
All very interesting and you know, the stuff of movies
even and the difficult decision that went into this. Right,
what are people saying, you know, is this a lopsided deal?
Because as you mentioned, you you detailed about and all
the stuff that he was done, known as the Merchant
of Death. You know, Brittney Grinder obviously a basketball star,
(02:40):
but we had this whole thing that happened with Russia
and Ukraine. There was you know, saying that she was
a political pond. You know, what are people saying about
the deal that was made? Well, I mean there's a
bit of concern because look, I mean there are many
people who are saying it is a basketball star in
exchange for an extremely prominent and likely dangerous man. They
(03:02):
are not equivalent, right, and so because of that, there
is concerned that maybe the US gave up too much
an exchange for Grinder as just as our cause. Maybe,
And of course it is not on the Biden administration,
but any administration's policy to work as diligently and as
hard as possible to bring any American rockidly detained abroad home.
And so you have to imagine the Biden administration had
(03:23):
a tough decision to me to try to call Russia's
bluffs as it possible. You know that if we decided
to keep Brittany in Russia, could we get Grinder and
we land for Bood down the line. The administration decided
not to take that risk. They decided to do the
eel on the table, which was one for one. But
now you see the administration not really speaking to legitimate
(03:44):
questions about what are the security concerns now that food
is freed. All you really heard Karine Jean Pierre, the
White House Press Secretary, say is Biden considered the security
risks and did not take the decision lightly, indicating that
there are some security risks now that Buddhist street, but
we're just not clear what those may right. And things
had escalated on Brittan Grinder's side, of things. She had
been sentenced to this penal colony for nine years. We
(04:07):
were hearing kind of the descriptions of daily life there,
and you know how hard it was going to be
for her, and she had just gotten shipped out there.
So I mean, you know, they had said all all
along they wanted at least get a deal done by Christmas,
but that kind of escalated things so obviously to the
point of the whole conversation, right, they had to weigh
all the options and figured, you know, we have to
get her out. As far as Paul Wheel and what
(04:28):
we're hearing, you know, his family did speak out. They
said it sucks that he couldn't come home too, but
it still was the right decision. Yes, but you also
haven't heard from Paul Whelan himself say you know, why
am I still sitting here? So he is anger. And
I talked to Elizabeth Wheel and his sister, who said, look,
he's just trying to be remembered, you know, who wouldn't
be upset. And we have to remember that in April,
the US was able to release Trevor Read, another former marine,
(04:52):
but did not bring Paul Whelan Holmes. So US now
twice this year that another American hostage in Russia has
come home, but Paul Whelan has stayed in prison, and
so he's he's naturally asking, you know, why not me?
You know, why am I still here? And so yes,
you know, when you talk to the Whelan family, they
will say, of course, you know, are we happy about
Britney reading returned? Of course, every you know, every American
should be returned home. But they are understandably upset and
(05:14):
as is Paul understandably upset um that Paul Whelan still
remains in a Russian prison. Stuff. The situations were obviously different.
Brittney Grinder had drugs on her, she the these hash
oil cartridges. Paul Whelan's in there for espionage, that's what
they they got him on. And obviously he you know,
he's saying, hey, how was this is completely untrue? All that?
So obviously the situations are different. Do we have any
(05:35):
indication of what Russia wants for Paul Wheeland? Now, well,
we've heard that they would like a Russian who is
currently detained in Germany, who is they're charged with killing
a Georgian citizen in twenty nineteen. There's also been talking
that the Russians would like the US to hand over
a Russian spy to them, but the US that says
(05:57):
that it is not and she does not detain one.
There's not one to give. So, you know, it's unclear
if maybe the U S was talking to Germany and
the Germans didn't want to give up that Russian or
the U S isn't being forthright, or there really isn't
someone to trade. But this is sort of complicating the issue,
right because there were a lot of people that were
saying the price should be very high for Bood, it
should be Grinder and Wheeland. The fact that Grinder's you know,
(06:19):
no longer on the table, that she's you know, gratefully
and rightfully coming home, you know that that makes it harder,
very likely to bring Paul Wheeland home. It's unclear what
else the US could give at this point. There may
be some other deal they're working on. I mean, Paul
Whelan's lawyer in in Russia seems pretty optimistic that there
might be a deal down the line. Elizabeth Wheeland again
(06:39):
all sister told me that the way that the Russians
were providing paula phone to call the family in the morning,
which is a rare time. The access to US officials
gave her the sense that maybe the Russians are trying
to loosen up a little bit on Paul, but that
of course remains to be seen. It is completely unclear.
They could just be more open now because of course
there's there was a big deal just made. Well, Brittney
(07:00):
Grinder coming home. Hopefully a deal can be made for
Paul Wheel and will keep an eye out for all
of that. Alex Ward, national security reporter at Politico, thank
you very much for joining us absolutely this week. We
also kicked off the chip manufacturing boom in the US.
President Biden towards a Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company plant in
(07:24):
Arizona that is tripling its investments to build new semiconductive chips.
As the relationship between China, Taiwan and the US continues
to be strained, we're rushing to build our own local supply.
For more on how the U S semi conductor industry
is just getting started, we'll speak to Matt Phillips, markets
correspondent at Axios. There's kind of two separate things that
we're seeing. We all remember the shortages of chips that
(07:47):
we saw after the COVID reopening began and it became
so expensive to try to find cars and spiraled into
a whole bunch of other products. So that's one thing
that's a bit more of an inconvenience type issue. What's
going on in Arizona is really interesting because that's a
bit more strategic. It's a bit less about having an easy,
steady supply of relatively low value chips to put in
(08:10):
things like cars. It's more about the really high end,
cutting edge chips that we rely on for technologies that
are really important for cell phones but also for national
security applications. So what's happening now is a bit more
concern less about sort of access to any chips and
(08:32):
more concern about specifically relying on a small country like
Taiwan that is increasingly imperiled by China. Like that's kind
of what's going on with this one. Yeah, and tell
us a little bit more about that front right now,
because we do get a lot of chips from Taiwan,
but we're seeing the tensions that are happening between China
and Taiwan even and uh, you know, we don't want
(08:52):
to get kind of lost in the shuffle. There, that's right.
You know, we're living in an interesting time where, really,
since the end of the Cold War, the assumptions that
global business leaders operated with were that goods, people, capital
could all largely flow across borders relatively easily. War was
(09:15):
kind of a thing of the past of the twentieth century,
and we could basically all put that behind us and
focus on building these really sprawling networks of supply chains
all around the world that could deliver really really high
end products at a really low price. That kind of
era is increasingly looking like it's over between the war
(09:36):
and Ukraine, with Russia's invasion and the really extreme response
that we saw to Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, where
China was really for the first time doing exercises about
how to enforce a blockade of Taiwan. It's really not
lost on business leaders and political leaders that we really
need to have access to some of these super high
(09:57):
end chips, you know, within the United States, within our
own control, because as we're seeing, like Germany built its
entire economy around having a relatively steady flow of access
to Russian natural gas. Now that's over, you know, and
they can then the economy is really struggling to figure
out how to adjust to that. So we're trying to
(10:18):
not to make those kind of strategic missteps, and that's
a big part of what's going on. And it was
interesting when we saw President Biden traveling to Arizona earlier
in the week. They said, hey, why are you traveling
to a border state without actually visiting the border, and
he said something, you know, we got other big things
to do there, and so this was what that trip
was tell us a little bit about what they're gonna
be doing there in Arizona. They're gonna be creating a
(10:39):
lot of jobs, and then obviously what we're talking about,
you know, hopefully uh creating a lot of these high
value chips that we need. The actual plant that he
was visiting is being opened by Taiwan Semi Conductor. They're
arguably the biggest producer of chips in the world and
have about fifty percent of the share of what's called
foundry business that's essentially contract chip making for other companies,
(11:04):
and they produced some of the world's most sophisticated chips.
And previously we relied on their operations in Taiwan, and
as we said before, that's looking like that island of
twenty three million people next to this one point four
billion population, Behee myth is looking increasingly imperiled. So the
government passed this act in August. Biden signed it into law.
(11:26):
It's called the Chips and Science Act, and that includes
about fifty billion dollars in subsidies to try to coax
these chip manufacturing plants to build new plants all around
the US. And that's really been happening. A couple in Arizona, actually,
Taiwan Semiconductor basically tripled the size of their original investment
that they announced, um yesterday, so they're gonna be spending
(11:48):
about forty billion dollars there. Samsung, which is a big
Korean chip maker they're talking about, may be spending two
billion dollars building out there basically chip making enterprise in
near in and around US in Texas area. So, I mean,
it's really a huge amount of business that it could,
you know, go into the U. S. Economy. It's great news,
it's jobs that will stay here. But uh, and you
(12:10):
made the mention at the end of the article too,
it's still going to take a long time to kind
of ramp that up. So while it's great that we're
doing it now, really that shift and balance is going
to happen for some time as you need to build
out these things really get things rolling, yeah, for sure,
and it could. It requires a lot of highly trained people,
So people have to be trained up. I mean literally,
we make zero of these kinds of chips and needed
(12:31):
seats right now, so they're going to have to bring
in a lot of people from Taiwan to train Americans
on how to make these things, how to operate the machinery,
how to install the machinery. So it's a huge long
term investment, but hopefully one that will result in steady
jobs and economic and national security totally. And and you
know maybe as we do start getting into the game more,
(12:52):
maybe some more innovation might even be occurring. So it's
an exciting time for the US to really start finally
getting into all of it, and we could tinue to
watch out. Matt Phillips, markets correspondent at Axios, thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks so much for having
me this week. We're also continuing to hear more about
(13:13):
the hot weight loss drug we go Vi. It's in
short supply and very high demand. The drug has proven
to help people lose as much as of their weight
by suppressing appetite, but the company expected more of a
gradual adoption of the drug and has lost out on
a ton of potential cash, selling only seven million dollars
to date. Analysts had projected two billion in sales for
(13:35):
two For more and why you can't find we go Vi,
will speak to Peter loftus farmer reporter at the Wall
Street Journal. One of their early factors was that before
Novo Nordis came out with we go Vi, which was
in the middle, they had one view of what kind
of a market it was going to be, and that
view was more conservative. They thought, you know that eventually
(13:57):
it could be a big selling drug and that there
could be a lot of prescriptions written, but that that
would take time. And this was sort of based on
their experience with an older weight lost drug, sex and
as well as other older weight loss drugs. Those older
drugs had more modest weight loss effects and a lot
(14:17):
of insurers didn't cover them, and so Novo Nordis went
into this thinking, Okay, we we like what we have
with vigovi. We know it can help people lose up
to of their body weight, but just based on our
experience with this market, we think it's going to take
some time for it to grow. And so as a result,
they set up a certain level of manufacturing capacity that
(14:39):
was in line with that more conservative view of how
quickly this market would grow. And then what happened was
once it came on the market, the demand was was huge.
It was really above what they had expected. And I
think I think that was a combination of that, it
did have a better benefit for weight loss than most
(14:59):
drugs before, and I think social media had become so
much more established since the last time a weight loss
drug came out that the words started to spread virally,
really with no help from Novo Norths. They weren't actually
necessarily promoting it. It just kind of spread on its own,
and so that that really led to an increase in demand.
(15:22):
And so let's talk a little bit about the money,
because that's always such an important part, right So the
market for anti obesity drugs right now is worth two
point four billion dollars worldwide. They say it could be
fifty billion. So when they were talking about we go Vi,
they've made around seven hundred million dollars in sales to date,
but what they were projecting just for we go Vie
(15:42):
sales for two was two billion dollars. So they kind
of blew it on that front, just a miss opportunity
when it comes to making boatloads of cash. Analysts were
predicting that that figure two billion, and yes they've fallen short.
And I should say that another factor year that came
up later was that a contract manufacturer that Novo Nordis
(16:05):
was working with help with one step of the production
process had some issues where they were having basically quality
problems at their plan and they had to scale back manufacturing.
And so that was something that that made it an
even worse situation than might have been the case even
with Novo's conservative outlook for how quickly this market would grow.
(16:27):
So it was really kind of one factor was planning
for a more cautious outlook, a more conservative growth pattern,
but then this totally unplanned manufacturing snaff who that that
also kind of compounded the matter. And as you mentioned,
you know, social media played a huge part in and
people were seeing it all over the place on TikTok
and YouTube and they said, hey, I want to get
(16:48):
in on this weight loss drug. You mentioned that other
um that other drug Sex and death right. So in
five weeks it took doctors to write new prescriptions for
Rigo vi added the same weekly volume that it took
other drug sex and that four years to reach. That's
how quick this thing is shot up. And so what
is Novo nordis doing now. They're saying that they're going
to kind of do a relaunch early next year. They
(17:12):
will have enough supply to meet that demand. They say
they've taken steps to build an inventory of you know
that this drug comes in a range of doses, and
so they've they've had to make sure that they've got
an equal amount of all doses out there, and they're
lining up more manufacturing capacity both internally and externally, so
(17:33):
that at some point I think they think by early
they should be able to say, Okay, really any new
patient can get this, because that's really been the net
effect so far as that patients who had started on
we Go by a certain point, many of them were
able to continue on sort of the maintenance dose. But
(17:55):
for many people, if they hadn't started on it by
a certain point, they just weren't going to start on
it at all. So that's what Novo is expecting soon
to be able to say, like anyone can can start
to get this drug and we should have a sufficient supply.
And what a happy I mean happy side effect, I
guess you can call it right for unexpected for what
was supposed to be diabetes drug. That's why you know
(18:17):
people are looking to the week of either looking to ozempic,
they were looking to another one as alternatives too we
go because they couldn't get it. But these are diabetes drugs,
which is kind of one of the most interesting parts
of it. Yeah, it's like it's kind of like drugs
for for two diseases in one drug. And these companies,
(18:38):
Novo and their competitors, they did find in the past
that studying these types of drugs for diabetes, they did
see this effect of weight loss. But I think it's
really just in the past few years where the magnetis
by by sort of refining these drugs and coming up
with better versions of them, they've seen that the magnitude
(18:58):
of the weight loss has become really striking, to the
point where it's not just the happy side effects for
people with diabetes to lose weight, but it's a drug
specifically to lose weight, including for people who don't even
have diabetes. And so that's where there's been the real shift,
and I think why there's such a big market opportunity
for these drugs. Well, if you're looking for we go vie,
(19:20):
maybe next year. Peter loftus farmer, reporter the Wall Street Journal,
thank you very much for joining us. Thanks thanks for
having me. Don't forget to join us on social media
at Daily Dive Pod on Twitter and Daily Dive Podcast
on Facebook. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
(19:41):
us on I Heard Radio, or subscribe wherever you get
your podcasts. Hi'm Oscar Ramirez and this is the Daily
Dive Weekend edition
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend Edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explored the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready when you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. This week, the Biden administration struck a deal
with Russia to free w NBA star Britney Grinder. In
exchange for her freedom, the US released arms dealer Victor
Bout was known as the Merchant of Debt. This caps
a ten month or deal for Grinder after she was
arrested for possession of hash oil cartridges in Russia. For
(00:50):
more on what's to know about Grinder's release and what
happens to Paul Wheeling, another American and Russian custody for
espionage charges, will speak to Alex Ward, national security reporter
at Politic So. As you regularly noted, this has been
really going on, these negotiations since Griner was detained in
February for having you know, hash oil in her bag
at a Moscow airport. And what they've been really trying
(01:12):
to do, they being the Biden administration, was trade effectively
two Americans, Grinder and Paul Wheeland, a former marine who
has been detained in Russia for four years unproven charges
of espionage, in exchange for Victor Bout, who, as you said,
was a merchant of death, and he has been charged
in the US with trying to kill Americans as well
as hating the Taliban Afghanistan, recruiting child soldiers, mutilation, et cetera.
(01:36):
I mean, not not a great but the Russians pushed
back on this too for one deal, saying it really
needed to be Grinder for Boots. The decision basically came
to Biden the last couple of weeks saying, look, with
the Russian this is where the Russians are. They will
not budge from this. It's basically either Grinder come home
or no one comes home. And Biden decided to make
the decision to do the one for one deal, grant
(01:59):
clemency to Boot, who was going to be in prison
until and make this deal in the UAE where they
were exchanged at an Abu Dhabi. So that's sort of
what happened here, and that's why Britney Grinders, as we
speak at this moment, flying back to the United States.
And there's always already been some video that surface showing
that prisoner exchange, you know about and Grinder kind of
(02:20):
walking past each other as they go to their respective sides.
All very interesting and you know, the stuff of movies
even and the difficult decision that went into this. Right,
what are people saying, you know, is this a lopsided deal?
Because as you mentioned, you you detailed about and all
the stuff that he was done, known as the Merchant
of Death. You know, Brittney Grinder obviously a basketball star,
(02:40):
but we had this whole thing that happened with Russia
and Ukraine. There was you know, saying that she was
a political pond. You know, what are people saying about
the deal that was made? Well, I mean there's a
bit of concern because look, I mean there are many
people who are saying it is a basketball star in
exchange for an extremely prominent and likely dangerous man. They
(03:02):
are not equivalent, right, and so because of that, there
is concerned that maybe the US gave up too much
an exchange for Grinder as just as our cause. Maybe,
And of course it is not on the Biden administration,
but any administration's policy to work as diligently and as
hard as possible to bring any American rockidly detained abroad home.
And so you have to imagine the Biden administration had
(03:23):
a tough decision to me to try to call Russia's
bluffs as it possible. You know that if we decided
to keep Brittany in Russia, could we get Grinder and
we land for Bood down the line. The administration decided
not to take that risk. They decided to do the
eel on the table, which was one for one. But
now you see the administration not really speaking to legitimate
(03:44):
questions about what are the security concerns now that food
is freed. All you really heard Karine Jean Pierre, the
White House Press Secretary, say is Biden considered the security
risks and did not take the decision lightly, indicating that
there are some security risks now that Buddhist street, but
we're just not clear what those may right. And things
had escalated on Brittan Grinder's side, of things. She had
been sentenced to this penal colony for nine years. We
(04:07):
were hearing kind of the descriptions of daily life there,
and you know how hard it was going to be
for her, and she had just gotten shipped out there.
So I mean, you know, they had said all all
along they wanted at least get a deal done by Christmas,
but that kind of escalated things so obviously to the
point of the whole conversation, right, they had to weigh
all the options and figured, you know, we have to
get her out. As far as Paul Wheel and what
(04:28):
we're hearing, you know, his family did speak out. They
said it sucks that he couldn't come home too, but
it still was the right decision. Yes, but you also
haven't heard from Paul Whelan himself say you know, why
am I still sitting here? So he is anger. And
I talked to Elizabeth Wheel and his sister, who said, look,
he's just trying to be remembered, you know, who wouldn't
be upset. And we have to remember that in April,
the US was able to release Trevor Read, another former marine,
(04:52):
but did not bring Paul Whelan Holmes. So US now
twice this year that another American hostage in Russia has
come home, but Paul Whelan has stayed in prison, and
so he's he's naturally asking, you know, why not me?
You know, why am I still here? And so yes,
you know, when you talk to the Whelan family, they
will say, of course, you know, are we happy about
Britney reading returned? Of course, every you know, every American
should be returned home. But they are understandably upset and
(05:14):
as is Paul understandably upset um that Paul Whelan still
remains in a Russian prison. Stuff. The situations were obviously different.
Brittney Grinder had drugs on her, she the these hash
oil cartridges. Paul Whelan's in there for espionage, that's what
they they got him on. And obviously he you know,
he's saying, hey, how was this is completely untrue? All that?
So obviously the situations are different. Do we have any
(05:35):
indication of what Russia wants for Paul Wheeland? Now, well,
we've heard that they would like a Russian who is
currently detained in Germany, who is they're charged with killing
a Georgian citizen in twenty nineteen. There's also been talking
that the Russians would like the US to hand over
a Russian spy to them, but the US that says
(05:57):
that it is not and she does not detain one.
There's not one to give. So, you know, it's unclear
if maybe the U S was talking to Germany and
the Germans didn't want to give up that Russian or
the U S isn't being forthright, or there really isn't
someone to trade. But this is sort of complicating the issue,
right because there were a lot of people that were
saying the price should be very high for Bood, it
should be Grinder and Wheeland. The fact that Grinder's you know,
(06:19):
no longer on the table, that she's you know, gratefully
and rightfully coming home, you know that that makes it harder,
very likely to bring Paul Wheeland home. It's unclear what
else the US could give at this point. There may
be some other deal they're working on. I mean, Paul
Whelan's lawyer in in Russia seems pretty optimistic that there
might be a deal down the line. Elizabeth Wheeland again
(06:39):
all sister told me that the way that the Russians
were providing paula phone to call the family in the morning,
which is a rare time. The access to US officials
gave her the sense that maybe the Russians are trying
to loosen up a little bit on Paul, but that
of course remains to be seen. It is completely unclear.
They could just be more open now because of course
there's there was a big deal just made. Well, Brittney
(07:00):
Grinder coming home. Hopefully a deal can be made for
Paul Wheel and will keep an eye out for all
of that. Alex Ward, national security reporter at Politico, thank
you very much for joining us absolutely this week. We
also kicked off the chip manufacturing boom in the US.
President Biden towards a Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company plant in
(07:24):
Arizona that is tripling its investments to build new semiconductive chips.
As the relationship between China, Taiwan and the US continues
to be strained, we're rushing to build our own local supply.
For more on how the U S semi conductor industry
is just getting started, we'll speak to Matt Phillips, markets
correspondent at Axios. There's kind of two separate things that
we're seeing. We all remember the shortages of chips that
(07:47):
we saw after the COVID reopening began and it became
so expensive to try to find cars and spiraled into
a whole bunch of other products. So that's one thing
that's a bit more of an inconvenience type issue. What's
going on in Arizona is really interesting because that's a
bit more strategic. It's a bit less about having an easy,
steady supply of relatively low value chips to put in
(08:10):
things like cars. It's more about the really high end,
cutting edge chips that we rely on for technologies that
are really important for cell phones but also for national
security applications. So what's happening now is a bit more
concern less about sort of access to any chips and
(08:32):
more concern about specifically relying on a small country like
Taiwan that is increasingly imperiled by China. Like that's kind
of what's going on with this one. Yeah, and tell
us a little bit more about that front right now,
because we do get a lot of chips from Taiwan,
but we're seeing the tensions that are happening between China
and Taiwan even and uh, you know, we don't want
(08:52):
to get kind of lost in the shuffle. There, that's right.
You know, we're living in an interesting time where, really,
since the end of the Cold War, the assumptions that
global business leaders operated with were that goods, people, capital
could all largely flow across borders relatively easily. War was
(09:15):
kind of a thing of the past of the twentieth century,
and we could basically all put that behind us and
focus on building these really sprawling networks of supply chains
all around the world that could deliver really really high
end products at a really low price. That kind of
era is increasingly looking like it's over between the war
(09:36):
and Ukraine, with Russia's invasion and the really extreme response
that we saw to Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, where
China was really for the first time doing exercises about
how to enforce a blockade of Taiwan. It's really not
lost on business leaders and political leaders that we really
need to have access to some of these super high
(09:57):
end chips, you know, within the United States, within our
own control, because as we're seeing, like Germany built its
entire economy around having a relatively steady flow of access
to Russian natural gas. Now that's over, you know, and
they can then the economy is really struggling to figure
out how to adjust to that. So we're trying to
(10:18):
not to make those kind of strategic missteps, and that's
a big part of what's going on. And it was
interesting when we saw President Biden traveling to Arizona earlier
in the week. They said, hey, why are you traveling
to a border state without actually visiting the border, and
he said something, you know, we got other big things
to do there, and so this was what that trip
was tell us a little bit about what they're gonna
be doing there in Arizona. They're gonna be creating a
(10:39):
lot of jobs, and then obviously what we're talking about,
you know, hopefully uh creating a lot of these high
value chips that we need. The actual plant that he
was visiting is being opened by Taiwan Semi Conductor. They're
arguably the biggest producer of chips in the world and
have about fifty percent of the share of what's called
foundry business that's essentially contract chip making for other companies,
(11:04):
and they produced some of the world's most sophisticated chips.
And previously we relied on their operations in Taiwan, and
as we said before, that's looking like that island of
twenty three million people next to this one point four
billion population, Behee myth is looking increasingly imperiled. So the
government passed this act in August. Biden signed it into law.
(11:26):
It's called the Chips and Science Act, and that includes
about fifty billion dollars in subsidies to try to coax
these chip manufacturing plants to build new plants all around
the US. And that's really been happening. A couple in Arizona, actually,
Taiwan Semiconductor basically tripled the size of their original investment
that they announced, um yesterday, so they're gonna be spending
(11:48):
about forty billion dollars there. Samsung, which is a big
Korean chip maker they're talking about, may be spending two
billion dollars building out there basically chip making enterprise in
near in and around US in Texas area. So, I mean,
it's really a huge amount of business that it could,
you know, go into the U. S. Economy. It's great news,
it's jobs that will stay here. But uh, and you
(12:10):
made the mention at the end of the article too,
it's still going to take a long time to kind
of ramp that up. So while it's great that we're
doing it now, really that shift and balance is going
to happen for some time as you need to build
out these things really get things rolling, yeah, for sure,
and it could. It requires a lot of highly trained people,
So people have to be trained up. I mean literally,
we make zero of these kinds of chips and needed
(12:31):
seats right now, so they're going to have to bring
in a lot of people from Taiwan to train Americans
on how to make these things, how to operate the machinery,
how to install the machinery. So it's a huge long
term investment, but hopefully one that will result in steady
jobs and economic and national security totally. And and you
know maybe as we do start getting into the game more,
(12:52):
maybe some more innovation might even be occurring. So it's
an exciting time for the US to really start finally
getting into all of it, and we could tinue to
watch out. Matt Phillips, markets correspondent at Axios, thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks so much for having
me this week. We're also continuing to hear more about
(13:13):
the hot weight loss drug we go Vi. It's in
short supply and very high demand. The drug has proven
to help people lose as much as of their weight
by suppressing appetite, but the company expected more of a
gradual adoption of the drug and has lost out on
a ton of potential cash, selling only seven million dollars
to date. Analysts had projected two billion in sales for
(13:35):
two For more and why you can't find we go Vi,
will speak to Peter loftus farmer reporter at the Wall
Street Journal. One of their early factors was that before
Novo Nordis came out with we go Vi, which was
in the middle, they had one view of what kind
of a market it was going to be, and that
view was more conservative. They thought, you know that eventually
(13:57):
it could be a big selling drug and that there
could be a lot of prescriptions written, but that that
would take time. And this was sort of based on
their experience with an older weight lost drug, sex and
as well as other older weight loss drugs. Those older
drugs had more modest weight loss effects and a lot
(14:17):
of insurers didn't cover them, and so Novo Nordis went
into this thinking, Okay, we we like what we have
with vigovi. We know it can help people lose up
to of their body weight, but just based on our
experience with this market, we think it's going to take
some time for it to grow. And so as a result,
they set up a certain level of manufacturing capacity that
(14:39):
was in line with that more conservative view of how
quickly this market would grow. And then what happened was
once it came on the market, the demand was was huge.
It was really above what they had expected. And I
think I think that was a combination of that, it
did have a better benefit for weight loss than most
(14:59):
drugs before, and I think social media had become so
much more established since the last time a weight loss
drug came out that the words started to spread virally,
really with no help from Novo Norths. They weren't actually
necessarily promoting it. It just kind of spread on its own,
and so that that really led to an increase in demand.
(15:22):
And so let's talk a little bit about the money,
because that's always such an important part, right So the
market for anti obesity drugs right now is worth two
point four billion dollars worldwide. They say it could be
fifty billion. So when they were talking about we go Vi,
they've made around seven hundred million dollars in sales to date,
but what they were projecting just for we go Vie
(15:42):
sales for two was two billion dollars. So they kind
of blew it on that front, just a miss opportunity
when it comes to making boatloads of cash. Analysts were
predicting that that figure two billion, and yes they've fallen short.
And I should say that another factor year that came
up later was that a contract manufacturer that Novo Nordis
(16:05):
was working with help with one step of the production
process had some issues where they were having basically quality
problems at their plan and they had to scale back manufacturing.
And so that was something that that made it an
even worse situation than might have been the case even
with Novo's conservative outlook for how quickly this market would grow.
(16:27):
So it was really kind of one factor was planning
for a more cautious outlook, a more conservative growth pattern,
but then this totally unplanned manufacturing snaff who that that
also kind of compounded the matter. And as you mentioned,
you know, social media played a huge part in and
people were seeing it all over the place on TikTok
and YouTube and they said, hey, I want to get
(16:48):
in on this weight loss drug. You mentioned that other
um that other drug Sex and death right. So in
five weeks it took doctors to write new prescriptions for
Rigo vi added the same weekly volume that it took
other drug sex and that four years to reach. That's
how quick this thing is shot up. And so what
is Novo nordis doing now. They're saying that they're going
to kind of do a relaunch early next year. They
(17:12):
will have enough supply to meet that demand. They say
they've taken steps to build an inventory of you know
that this drug comes in a range of doses, and
so they've they've had to make sure that they've got
an equal amount of all doses out there, and they're
lining up more manufacturing capacity both internally and externally, so
(17:33):
that at some point I think they think by early
they should be able to say, Okay, really any new
patient can get this, because that's really been the net
effect so far as that patients who had started on
we Go by a certain point, many of them were
able to continue on sort of the maintenance dose. But
(17:55):
for many people, if they hadn't started on it by
a certain point, they just weren't going to start on
it at all. So that's what Novo is expecting soon
to be able to say, like anyone can can start
to get this drug and we should have a sufficient supply.
And what a happy I mean happy side effect, I
guess you can call it right for unexpected for what
was supposed to be diabetes drug. That's why you know
(18:17):
people are looking to the week of either looking to ozempic,
they were looking to another one as alternatives too we
go because they couldn't get it. But these are diabetes drugs,
which is kind of one of the most interesting parts
of it. Yeah, it's like it's kind of like drugs
for for two diseases in one drug. And these companies,
(18:38):
Novo and their competitors, they did find in the past
that studying these types of drugs for diabetes, they did
see this effect of weight loss. But I think it's
really just in the past few years where the magnetis
by by sort of refining these drugs and coming up
with better versions of them, they've seen that the magnitude
(18:58):
of the weight loss has become really striking, to the
point where it's not just the happy side effects for
people with diabetes to lose weight, but it's a drug
specifically to lose weight, including for people who don't even
have diabetes. And so that's where there's been the real shift,
and I think why there's such a big market opportunity
for these drugs. Well, if you're looking for we go vie,
(19:20):
maybe next year. Peter loftus farmer, reporter the Wall Street Journal,
thank you very much for joining us. Thanks thanks for
having me. Don't forget to join us on social media
at Daily Dive Pod on Twitter and Daily Dive Podcast
on Facebook. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
(19:41):
us on I Heard Radio, or subscribe wherever you get
your podcasts. Hi'm Oscar Ramirez and this is the Daily
Dive Weekend edition
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