Arvind's Newsletter

1.India may have dengue vaccine by 2026; Takeda initiates clinical trials

India may have a dengue vaccine by 2026, said a top executive of vaccine manufacturer Indian Immunologicals (IIL), as several players have joined the race to develop the country’s first vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease that claimed 485 lives last year.

Dengue has become a major public health concern in India with 289,235 cases reported last year. According to data from the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control, there were 19,447 cases of dengue which resulted in 19 deaths till April 2024. Close to 3 lakh people get dengue a year, and cases have been rising. 

Speaking to Business Standard, K Anand Kumar, managing director, IIL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board, said they had finished the phase 1 clinical trials.

“We will apply for approvals for the phase 2 clinical trials soon. We can expect the vaccine to be commercially available in 2026-27 or so if things go according to plan,” Kumar said.

2.India’s HSBC composite purchasing manager index (PMI), compiled by S&P Global, stood at 61.4 for the month of July. It is a three-month high and indicates a sustained upswing in the country’s business activity. The index stood at 60.9 for the month of June, with services and manufacturing PMI rising from 60.5 and 58.3 in June to 61.1 and 58.5 in July, respectively. Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC, said in a statement that companies have turned more optimistic in July.

3.Big Tech selloff slams Nasdaq with worst day since 2022; WSJ

A stock-market selloff intensified Wednesday, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in value from the Magnificent Seven group of tech giants and pushing the Nasdaq Composite to its first decline of 3% or more in 400 trading days.

After a frenzy over artificial intelligence sent stocks to new heights in the first half of the year, investors have suddenly grown more skeptical of its potential payoffs. Traders trained those newfound doubts Wednesday on Tesla, where a delayed robotaxi rollout helped shares slide 12% in a move that reverberated across the technology sector.

The thrashing left the S&P 500 2.3% lower, its worst day since December 2022, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.2%, or 504 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq’s 3.6% decline was its largest skid since October 2022, when Federal Reserve officials were cranking up interest rates to tamp down inflation.

4.US Fortune 500 companies, excluding Microsoft, are facing a $5.4 billion loss due to the world’s biggest IT outage, a cyber insurer estimated.

Within 90 minutes, a glitch in CrowdStrike’s security software update last week crashed millions of computers running on Microsoft Windows, disrupting hospitals, banks, and airports. The outage’s global financial cost could be $15 billion, insurer Parametrix told Reuters, and it could well be “the biggest accumulation event” in cyber insurance history.

CrowdStrike on Wednesday vowed to improve its internal testing and introduce staggered releases of future updates. One games developer predicted that governments should expect IT companies to notify them of updates since “there will probably be many more situations like this” as automated systems proliferate.

5.Women VCs Make Gains in Tech Investing Amid Diversity Backlash

New report shows 18% of all US venture capital firms have one or more female leaders, double from 2018; however, total capital raised by female founders dropped to $34.4B in 2023 from $44.2B in 2022.

6.Amazon’s paid Alexa is coming to fill a $25 billion hole dug by Echo devices

Amazon’s plan to launch a paid version of Alexa is part of a strategy change to reverse the over $25 billion in losses that its devices business incurred from 2017 to 2021, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The AI-supercharged Alexa, which is rumoured to cost up to $10 / month, could arrive as soon as this month.

7.World’s most powerful passports 2024: Singapore tops the list (again)

London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners has released the list of the world's most powerful passports. As per the Henley Passport Index 2024 July Global Ranking, Singapore holds the top position, providing visa-free access to 195 countries. The second position is shared by five countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain, which provide visa-free access to 192 countries.

India is ranked at 82nd spot along with Senegal and Tajikistan giving visa-free access to 58 countries. Interestingly, Maldives, whose relations with India have been under strain since November last year, is ranked 58th, with its citizens having visa-free access to 96 countries. China is ranked at 59th position, as the country grants visa-free access to 85 countries.