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New suppliers race to plug in to electric car market

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WOKING, England, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The global auto industry has committed $1.2 trillion to developing electric vehicles (EVs), providing a golden opportunity for new suppliers to grab contracts providing everything from battery packs to motors and inverters.

Startups specialising in batteries and coatings to protect EV parts, and suppliers traditionally focused on niche motorsports or Formula One (F1) racing, have been chasing EV contracts. Carmakers design platforms to last a decade, so high-volume models can generate large revenues for years.

The next generation of EVs is due to hit around 2025 and many carmakers have sought help plugging gaps in their expertise, providing a window of opportunity for new suppliers.

“We’ve gone back to the days of Henry Ford where everyone is asking ‘how do you make these things work properly?’,” says Nick Fry, CEO of F1 engineering and technology firm McLaren Applied.

“That’s a huge opportunity for companies like us.”

Bought from McLaren by private equity firm Greybull Capital in 2021, McLaren Applied has adapted an efficient inverter developed for F1 racing for EVs. An inverter helps control the flow of electricity to and from the battery pack.

The silicon carbide IPG5 inverter weighs just 5.5 kg (12 lb) and can extend an EV’s range by over 7%. Fry says McLaren Applied is working with around 20 carmakers and suppliers, and the inverter will appear in high-volume luxury EV models starting January 2025.

Mass-market carmakers often prefer to develop EV components in-house and own the technology themselves. After years of pandemic-related parts shortages, they are wary of over-reliance on suppliers.

“We just can’t afford to be reliant on third parties making those investments for us,” said Tim Slatter, head of Ford (F.N) in Britain.

Traditional suppliers, such as German heavyweights Bosch and Continental (CONG.DE), are also investing heavily in EVs and other technologies to stay ahead in a fast-changing industry.

But smaller companies say there are still opportunities, particularly with low-volume manufacturers that cannot afford huge EV investments, or luxury and high-performance carmakers seeking an edge.

Croatia’s Rimac, an electric hypercar maker part-owned by Germany’s Porsche AG (P911_p.DE) that also supplies battery systems and powertrain components to other automakers, says an undisclosed German carmaker will use a Rimac battery system in a high-performance model – with annual production of around 40,000 units – starting this year, with more signed up.

“We need to be 20%, 30% better than what they can do and then they work with us,” CEO Mate Rimac says. “If they can make a 100-kilowatt hour battery pack, we must make a 130-kilowatt pack in the same dimensions for the same cost.”

NO TIME TO LOSE

Some suppliers like Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Actnano have had long relationships with EV pioneer Tesla (TSLA.O). Actnano has developed a coating that protects EV parts from condensation and its business has spread to advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), as well as other carmakers including Volvo (VOLCARb.ST), Ford, BMW (BMWG.DE) and Porsche.

California-based startup CelLink has developed an entirely automated, flat and easy-to-install “flex harness”, instead of a wire harness to group and guide cables in a vehicle. CEO Kevin Coakley would not identify customers but said CelLink’s harnesses had been installed in around a million EVs. Only Tesla has that scale.

Coakley said CelLink was working with U.S. and European carmakers, and with a European battery maker on battery wiring.

Others are focused on low-volume manufacturers, like UK startup Ionetic, which develops battery packs that would be too expensive for smaller companies to make themselves.

“Currently it costs just too much to electrify, which is why you see some manufacturers delaying their electrification launch,” CEO James Eaton said.

Since 1971, Swindon Powertrain has developed powerful motorsports engines. But it has now also developed battery packs, electric powertrains, e-axles and is working with around 20 customers, including carmakers and an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft maker.

“I realized if we don’t embrace this, we’re going to end up working for museums,” said managing director Raphael Caille.

But time may be running out.

Mate Rimac says major carmakers scrambled in the last three years to roll out EVs and now have strategies largely in place.

“For those who haven’t signed projects, I’m not sure how long the window of opportunity will remain open,” he said.

($1 = 0.8226 pounds)

Reporting by Nick Carey
Editing by Mark Potter

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Exclusive: Geely plans to turn maker of London black cabs into EV powerhouse

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COVENTRY, England, Jan 23 (Reuters) – China’s Geely (0175.HK) is planning a big investment to turn the maker of London’s iconic black taxis into a high-volume, all-electric brand with a range of commercial and passenger vehicles, executives at the unit told Reuters.

London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) also aims to expand its suite of services, which include cars arranging their own maintenance and recognising their owner’s interests to help them book activities.

“We need a developed product portfolio. We need to make big investments in terms of the technology and infrastructure,” LEVC Chief Executive Alex Nan said at the taxi maker’s headquarters in Coventry, central England. “Geely will make consistent investments into LEVC because this is a very unique project.”

LEVC builds a hybrid taxi model that starts at around 66,000 pounds ($81,500), which has a battery providing 64 miles (103 km) of range and a petrol range-extender giving it a total range of over 300 miles. The company’s business was hit hard by the pandemic and it laid off 140 staff in October.

Nan said LEVC and Geely would seek to attract other investors to its zero-emission portfolio and would look to partner with other carmakers to develop new technology.

Executives said the size of Geely’s investment would be disclosed later. So far the Chinese group, which took full control of LEVC in 2013, has invested 500 million pounds in it.

“Geely fully supports the new transition strategy laid out by LEVC’s board and executive team,” Geely said in a statement.

In 2021, Geely launched a 2 billion pound investment in another unit, niche British luxury sports carmaker Lotus, to massively expand production of its sports cars and build high-end SUVs and sedans in Britain and China. Geely is following a similar path in its plans to grow LEVC, executives said.

Britain’s EV ambitions were dealt a blow last week when startup Britishvolt, which had planned to build a major battery factory in northeast England, filed for administration.

“We need to make sure the UK environment as a whole is competitive and has its position on the world stage,” said LEVC managing director Chris Allen.

READY TO ACCELERATE

Geely owns multiple brands including Volvo (VOLCARb.ST) and – via a joint venture with Volvo – Polestar . Zeekr, another brand in the group, filed for a U.S. initial public offering last month.

As such, Geely faces a complexity that larger EV makers BYD (002594.SZ) and Tesla (TSLA.O) have avoided.

Allen said LEVC was exploring a range of commercial and passenger car models on a common electric platform. It can lean on other group brands that already have EVs to “move forward in a fast, agile way”.

The company already uses an infotainment system and software developed by Volvo and a steering wheel from the Swedish carmaker, allowing it to cut costs, Allen said.

“There’s nothing we couldn’t deliver in a very short time period if we needed to, but it’s just a question of timing,” he said, adding LEVC could easily have a full range of EVs on the road within five years.

“But in two years time, is the industry going to be ready, is the charging infrastructure going to be there, is consumer confidence going to be there?”

LEVC currently has the capacity to build 3,000 taxis a year running on a single shift at its Coventry factory. Allen said that could easily be increased to 20,000 and the plant had room to expand. It could also lean on production in China as Lotus has, Allen said. A major car plant produces on average around 300,000 vehicles per year.

“There’s a huge amount of value in our product that hasn’t ever really been maximised,” Allen said. “This is about growing LEVC into a much more recognizable brand on a global scale and expanding our product offering into as many spaces as we can.”

($1 = 0.8095 pounds)

Reporting by Nick Carey, Additional reporting by Zoey Zhange in Shanghai and Norihiko Shirouzu in Beijing
Editing by Mark Potter

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Protests in Stockholm, including Koran-burning, draw strong condemnation from Turkey

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STOCKHOLM, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Protests in Stockholm on Saturday against Turkey and Sweden’s bid to join NATO, including the burning of a copy of the Koran, sharply heightened tensions with Turkey at a time when the Nordic country needs Ankara’s backing to gain entry to the military alliance.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book … Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

Its statement was issued after an anti-immigrant politician from the far-right fringe burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish Embassy. The Turkish ministry urged Sweden to take necessary actions against the perpetrators and invited all countries to take concrete steps against Islamophobia.

A separate protest took place in the city supporting Kurds and against Sweden’s bid to join NATO. A group of pro-Turkish demonstrators also held a rally outside the embassy. All three events had police permits.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Islamophobic provocations were appalling.

“Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of expression, but it does not imply that the Swedish Government, or myself, support the opinions expressed,” Billstrom said on Twitter.

The Koran-burning was carried out by Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line. Paludan, who also has Swedish citizenship, has held a number of demonstrations in the past where he has burned the Koran.

Paludan could not immediately be reached by email for a comment. In the permit he obtained from police, it says his protest was held against Islam and what it called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to influence freedom of expression in Sweden.

Several Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait denounced the Koran-burning. “Saudi Arabia calls for spreading the values of dialogue, tolerance, and coexistence, and rejects hatred and extremism,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but all 30 member states must approve their bids. Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

At the demonstration to protest Sweden’s NATO bid and to show support for Kurds, speakers stood in front of a large red banner reading “We are all PKK”, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party that is outlawed in Turkey, Sweden, and the United States among other countries, and addressed several hundred pro-Kurdish and left-wing supporters.

“We will continue our opposition to the Swedish NATO application,” Thomas Pettersson, spokesperson for Alliance Against NATO and one of organizers of the demonstration, told Reuters.

Police said the situation was calm at all three demonstrations.

DEFENCE MINISTER’S VISIT CANCELLED

Earlier on Saturday, Turkey said that due to lack of measures to restrict protests, it had cancelled a planned visit to Ankara by the Swedish defence minister.

“At this point, the visit of Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson to Turkey on January 27 has become meaningless. So we cancelled the visit,” Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.

Jonson said separately that he and Akar had met on Friday during a gathering of Western allies in Germany and had decided to postpone the planned meeting.

Akar said he had discussed with Erdogan the lack of measures to restrict protests in Sweden against Turkey and had conveyed Ankara’s reaction to Jonson on the sidelines of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.

“It is unacceptable not to make a move or react to these (protests). The necessary things needed to be done, measures should have been taken,” Akar said, according to a statement by Turkish Defence Ministry.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry had already summoned Sweden’s ambassador on Friday over the planned protests.

Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of NATO. Sweden says it has fulfilled its part of the memorandum but Turkey is demanding more, including extradition of 130 people it deems to be terrorists.

(This story has been corrected to remove the erroneous reference to Morocco in the ninth paragraph)

Reporting by Omer Berberoglu in Istanbul and Niklas Pollard and Simon Johnson in Stockholm
Additional reporting by Moaz Abd-Alaziz in Cairo
Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun and Niklas Pollard
Editing by Toby Chopra and Frances Kerry

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Sweden, Finland must send up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey for NATO bid, Erdogan says

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ANKARA, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before the Turkish parliament will approve their bids to join NATO, President Tayyip Erdogan said.

The two Nordic states applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but their bids must be approved by all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to endorse the applications.

Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

“We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it (approval of the NATO application) through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan said in comments late on Sunday, referring to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November.

“For this to pass the parliament, first of all you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.

Finnish politicians interpreted Erdogan’s demand as an angry response to an incident in Stockholm last week in which an effigy of the Turkish leader was strung up during what appeared to be a small protest.

“This must have been a reaction, I believe, to the events of the past days,” Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto told public broadcaster YLE.

Haavisto said he was not aware of any new official demands from Turkey.

In response to the incident in Stockholm, Turkey cancelled a planned visit to Ankara of the Swedish speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlen, who instead came to Helsinki on Monday.

“We stress that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it,” the speaker of the Finnish parliament, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters at a joint news conference with Norlen.

Separately on Monday Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said that his country was in a “good position” to secure Turkey’s ratification of its NATO bid.

Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Saturday that time was running out for Turkey’s parliament to ratify the bids before presidential and parliamentary elections expected in May.

Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Biden’s climate agenda has a problem: Not enough workers

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Jan 11 (Reuters) – U.S. clean energy companies are offering better wages and benefits, flying in trainers from overseas, and contemplating ideas like buying roofing and electric repair shops just to hire their workers as firms try to overcome a labor shortage that threatens to derail President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda.

The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last year, provides for an estimated $370 billion in solar, wind and electric vehicle subsidies, according to the White House. Starting Jan. 1, American consumers can take advantage of those tax credits to upgrade home heating systems or put solar panels on their roofs. Those investments will create nearly 537,000 jobs a year for a decade, according to an analysis by BW Research commissioned by The Nature Conservancy.

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But with the U.S. unemployment rate at an historic low of 3.5%, companies say they fear they will struggle to fill those jobs, and that plans to transition away from fossil fuels could stall out. Despite layoff announcements and signs of a slowdown elsewhere in the economy, the labor market for clean energy jobs remains tight.

“It feels like a big risk for this expansion. Where are we going to find all the people?” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group.

The shortage is anticipated to hit especially hard in electric vehicle and battery production and solar panel and home efficiency installations, forcing some of the companies into bold new approaches to find workers.

Korea’s SK Innovation Co Ltd, which makes batteries for Ford Motor Co’s (F.N) F-150 Lightning all-electric pickup truck in Commerce, Georgia, has pumped up pay and benefits as it ramps up its U.S. workforce to 20,000 people by 2025 from 4,000 today.

The battery maker is advertising pay between $20 and $34 an hour, above Georgia’s median hourly wage of $18.43, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is also covering 100% life insurance costs and matching retirement plan contributions up to 6.5%, above the national average of 5.6%, according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America. And the company is providing free food on the job.

“Georgia’s talent pool is not really massive. But we are trying to improve some of our policies to better source and retain workers,” said an SK official who declined to be named, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Georgia state officials said SK’s hiring has been a success considering how quickly production had to ramp up to meet the company’s obligations to automakers.

While national residential solar installer SunPower Corp (SPWR.O) is recruiting aggressively, Chief Executive Peter Faricy said the company is also looking at what he called “crazy ideas” to secure labor – including buying up companies just for their workers.

“I’m not suggesting we will do this, but I want to give you an order of magnitude of what we’re considering. Like, should we acquire a roofing company and make them all solar installers? Do we go buy an electrical company and acquire 100 electricians?” he said.

SunPower also held talks within the last year with panel manufacturer First Solar Inc (FSLR.O) about developing a solar panel that would be easier to install, enabling crews to outfit two homes a day instead of just one, Faricy said.

SunPower’s competitor, Sunrun Inc (RUN.O), is deploying drones to survey roofs ahead of installation, reducing the number of workers required to scale roofs. It is also rewarding top crews with office parties.

“As best you can game-ify the experience for the employee… it just makes the industry more fun, more attractive,” Chris McClellan, Sunrun’s senior vice president of operations, said in an interview.

Offshore wind developer Orsted (ORSTED.CO), a Danish company that is planning to build projects off the East Coast, hopes to fly in employees from projects in the United Kingdom and Asia to help train staff. State reports have indicated that New York and Massachusetts face large offshore wind workforce gaps.

“We’re creating sort of an ecosystem where we don’t just have an offshore wind academy, but really train the trainers of the future,” said Mads Nipper, Orsted’s CEO, told Reuters.

The Biden Administration has repeatedly promised that new green energy jobs would be well-paying union jobs.

But many of those jobs have lagged the fossil fuel industry in pay, according to a 2021 study by BW Research, as clean energy companies have sought to contain costs to compete with entrenched industries. The IRA seeks to address that by tying prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements to the subsidies.

Those provisions — and the hiring challenges — have put pressure on some employers to use unionized labor.

Learning from its earlier hiring challenges in Europe and Asia, Orsted signed an agreement with North America’s Building Trades Unions to secure workers.

Even Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), a company that has been embroiled in disputes with workers trying to organize, has used union labor to build the electric charging infrastructure for its fleet of electric delivery vehicles in Maspeth, Queens, NY.

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

Corrine Case, an electrician represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said she was paid $43 an hour to install the charging system at Amazon.

A single mother, Case said she was excited about the job security offered by the rising demand for electricians to install charging stations.

“Our field is constantly changing because of new energy sources and to be a part of that is amazing,” she said.

FREE WORKER TRAINING

In their hunt for workers, solar, wind and electric vehicle companies have expanded programs offering free and subsidized training to military veterans, women and the formerly incarcerated.

SK told Reuters that it has been recruiting at military job fairs and American Legion chapters and collaborating with programs like the Georgia National Guard’s Work for Warriors and the Manufacturing Institute’s Heroes MAKE America.

Some solar companies have tried to recruit veterans, saying the skills learned in military life translate well to the industry.

Utility scale solar developer SOLV Energy, SunPower and Nextracker last year teamed up with nonprofit Solar Energy International to fund a women-only training program for solar installers. More than 30 women attended the week-long course in Colorado.

In October, the nonprofit Solar Hands-On Instructional Network of Excellence (SHINE) teamed up with the Virginia Department of Corrections on a pilot program to train 30 prison inmates and recently incarcerated people in solar panel installation. SHINE’s director David Peterson said the group is discussing expanding the program.

In California, the nonprofit Grid Alternatives has trained 150 inmates at the Madera County jail in solar installation since 2017 and is expanding its program this year to other facilities in the state. Potential employers are more open to hiring the formerly incarcerated once they see they have received some training, Tom Esqueda, the nonprofit’s outreach manager, said.

In Los Angeles, nonprofit Homeboy Industries, which works to rehabilitate former gang members, is using the potential job opportunities for solar panel installers to help recruits for its state-funded jobs program. Homeboy trains 50-60 people a year as solar panel installers.

More than 80% of the people who have gone through the training in the last year have found jobs in solar, according to Jackie Harper, who oversees the program.

“I’m going to be sticking with this,” said Marco Reyes, 28, who went through the program after his release from prison in February and earns $23 an hour as an installer in Valencia, California.

He now plans to train in the electrical end of solar installation, which would bump up his pay.

“Everyone has a chance to move up the ladder into a better position,” he said. “This job to me is a life changer.”

Read more:

Korea’s Hanwha Qcells to invest $2.5 bln in U.S. solar supply chain

U.S. solar installations to fall 23% this year due to China goods ban -report

Reporting by Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici; Edited by Richard Valdmanis and Suzanne Goldenberg

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World

Gare du Nord: at least six injured in an attack at central Paris railway station

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CNN
 — 

At least six people were injured in an attack at Paris’ Gare Du Nord train station early Wednesday, restricting access to one of the French capital’s major rail hubs.

An individual began attacking people at 6:42 a.m. local time and was neutralized a minute later, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. The individual was disarmed by off-duty police officers who were going home and by border police, Darmanin said in a press conference.

The attacker made the weapon himself, Darmanin added. Paris police had earlier said the individual started attacking people with a knife at 6:45 a.m. local time.

Several police officers opened fire, including a security agent working for rail operator SNCF, police said. Multiple shots were fired and the alleged attacker was injured.

A spokesman for the Paris Prosecutor’s Office said six people were injured, including a member of the French border police. One of the injured is in critical condition. The suspect is also in a critical condition, the spokesman said.

The motive for the knife attack is unknown, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.

The French national Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said it is “evaluating the facts” about the attack, but has not yet taken the case. The fact that the suspected attacker was injured may lengthen the time it will take to evaluate the facts about the case, the office added.

Darmanin arrived at Gare du Nord soon after the attack Wednesday morning. Earlier, he wrote on Twitter that the alleged attacker had injured several people before being “quickly neutralized.”

“Thankful to the police for their effective and courageous response,” Darmanin tweeted.

CNN affiliate BFMTV interviewed one woman, identified only as Lili, who witnessed the attack and helped injured victims.

“My friends and I were going on holiday this morning and we were at the entrance of the station when we heard people yelling,” she said.

“We saw two people on the ground. One was hitting the other. People tried to pull them apart and that’s when the attacker pulled out his weapon. People started yelling ‘knife!’ and began running away. I helped the first victim who had been attacked and I got the impression that the individual was attacking all the people who tried to get near him and overpower him.

“I helped the injured person who had been attacked and was in a state of shock. I brought them to the police and I then tried to find my friends and that’s when we heard the gunshots. The armed forces responded very quickly to the attack. It didn’t even last five minutes even though it felt like an eternity to me.

“We are all shocked by what we saw. We were two meters away. It could have been one of us because we were so close. It’s very traumatic.”

A few hundred people coalesced in the main concourse of the Gare Du Nord station, many looking for information about trains following the attack, according to CNN’s team at the station.

Several dozen police officers were posted around a security perimeter that blocked off a large portion of the station’s main concourse, blocking access to several intercity train platforms, according to CNN’s team. Access to the Eurostar terminal has since reopened, after it was cut off for several hours.

Police screens hid the scene of the attack from view but police officers could be seen collecting evidence in paper bags.

While residents of Paris had begun to relax after several years of heightened tensions around terror attacks, Wednesday’s incident, which currently is not being investigated as terror-related by French authorities, is the second in two months. In December, a man who was being investigated at the time by Paris’ Prosecutor’s Office for racist violence shot and killed three Kurdish activists in the north of Paris.

Even so, the atmosphere at Gare du Nord was calm Wednesday around lunchtime and passengers seemed hopeful of being able to catch their trains.

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World

Sweden says Turkey is asking too much over NATO application

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STOCKHOLM, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but cannot fulfil all the conditions Ankara has set for its support, Sweden’s prime minister said on Sunday.

“Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defence think-tank conference in Sweden.

Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

They applied in May to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey objected and accused the countries of harbouring militants, including from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party

One sticking point has been extraditions of people Turkey regards as terrorists. Ankara expressed disappointment with a decision late last year from Sweden’s top court to stop a request to extradite a journalist with alleged links to Islamic scholar Fetullah Gulen, blamed by Turkey for an attempted coup.

Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson; editing by Barbara Lewis

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Eisai, Biogen receives U.S. FDA approval for Alzheimer’s drug, applies for full approval

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Jan 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab developed by Eisai Co Ltd (4523.T) and Biogen Inc (BIIB.O) for patients in the earliest stages of the mind-wasting disease.

Eisai and Biogen said on Saturday the Japanese drugmaker had applied for full FDA approval of the drug.

The drug, to be sold under the brand Leqembi, belongs to a class of treatments that aims to slow the advance of the neurodegenerative disease by removing sticky clumps of the toxic protein beta amyloid from the brain.

Nearly all previous experimental drugs using the same approach had failed.

“Today’s news is incredibly important,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. “Our years of research into what is arguably the most complex disease humans face is paying off and it gives us hope that we can make Alzheimer’s not just treatable, but preventable.”

Eisai said the drug would launch at an annual price of $26,500. Biogen shares, which had been halted, were up 3% at $279.40.

The Japanese company said it also plans to apply for marketing authorization for Leqembi in Japan and the European Union by the end of its business year on March 31.

Eisai estimated the number of U.S. patients eligible for the drug would reach around 100,000 within three years, increasing gradually from there over the medium to long term.

Dr. Erik Musiek, A Washington University neurologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the drug’s price.

“Considering the marketplace and the fact that we have no other good disease-modifying treatments, I think it’s in the ballpark of what I would expect,” he said.

Initial patient access will be limited by a number of factors including reimbursement restrictions by Medicare, the U.S. government insurance program for Americans aged 65 and older who represent some 90% of individuals likely to be eligible for Leqembi.

“Without Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and insurance coverage … access for those who could benefit from the newly-approved treatment will only be available to those who can pay out-of-pocket,” the Alzheimer’s Association said in a statement.

Leqembi was approved under the FDA’s accelerated review process, an expedited pathway that speeds access to a drug based on its impact on underlying disease-related biomarkers believed to predict a clinical benefit.

“This treatment option is the latest therapy to target and affect the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s instead of only treating the symptoms of the disease,” FDA neuroscience official Billy Dunn said in a statement.

CMS said on Friday that current coverage restrictions for drugs approved under the accelerated pathway could be reconsidered based on its ongoing review of available information.

If the drug receives traditional FDA approval, CMS said it would provide broader coverage. Eisai officials have said the company plans to submit data from a recent successful clinical trial in 1,800 patients as the basis for a full standard review of Leqembi.

The CMS decision was largely in response to a previous Alzheimer’s treatment from Eisai and Biogen. Aducanumab, sold under the brand name Aduhelm, won accelerated approval in 2021 with little evidence that the drug slowed cognitive decline and despite objections by the FDA’s outside experts.

Biogen initially priced Aduhelm at $56,000 per year before cutting the price in half. With limited acceptance and insurance coverage, sales were only $4.5 million in the first nine months of 2022.

Lecanemab is intended for patients with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s dementia, a population that doctors believe represents a small segment of the estimated 6 million Americans currently living with the memory-robbing illness.

To receive the treatment, patients will need to undergo testing to show they have amyloid deposits in their brain – either through brain imaging or a spinal tap. They will also need to undergo periodic MRI scans to monitor for brain swelling, a potentially serious side effect associated with this type of drug.

The medicine’s label says doctors should exercise caution if lecanemab patients are given blood clot preventers. This could be a safety risk, according to an autopsy analysis published this week of a lecanemab patient who had a stroke and later died.

In the large trial of lecanemab, which is given by infusion, the drug slowed the rate of cognitive decline in patients with early Alzheimer’s by 27% compared to a placebo. Nearly 13% of patients treated with Leqembi in the trial had brain swelling.

Dr. Babak Tousi, a neuro-geriatrician at the Cleveland Clinic, said the approval will make a “big difference” in the field because it is based on biomarkers rather than just symptoms.

“It’s going to change how we make a diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease, with more accuracy,” he said.

Tousi acknowledged that the benefit of the drug will likely be modest. “Still, it is a benefit that we were not able to achieve” before this approval.

Reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru, additional reporting Jaiveer Shekhawat; Editing by Bill Berkrot, David Gregorio and William Mallard

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Fog-shrouded Kyiv recovers after Russia strikes, power restored to 6 million

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KYIV, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Basic services were being restored in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Saturday after the latest wave of Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure, as residents navigated a city gripped by fog and girded for a holiday season marked by uncertainty.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a quarter of Kyiv remained without heating but that the metro system was back in service and all residents had been reconnected to water supply by early morning.

Only around one-third of the city remained without electricity, he said, but emergency outages would still be implemented to save power. “Because the deficit of electricity is significant,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukrainian officials said Russia fired more than 70 missiles on Friday in one of its heaviest barrages since the Kremlin’s Feb. 24 invasion, forcing emergency blackouts nationwide.

Ukraine has managed to restore power to almost 6 million people in the last 24 hours, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address.

“Repair work continues without a break after yesterday’s terrorist attack. … Of course, there is still a lot of work to do to stabilize the system,” he said.

“There are problems with the heat supplies. There are big problems with water supplies,” Zelenskiy added, saying Kyiv as well as Vinnytsia and Lviv further to the west were experiencing the most difficulty.

Earlier this month, Kyiv Mayor Klitschko had warned of an “apocalypse” scenario for the capital if Russian air strikes on infrastructure continued, though he also said there was no need yet for people to evacuate.

“We are fighting and doing everything we can to make sure that this does not happen,” he told Reuters on Dec. 7.

In a gloomy winter haze on Saturday, officials reopened a popular pedestrian bridge that had been damaged during an earlier air strike and were setting up a smaller-than-usual Christmas tree in a central square.

The vast space in front of the centuries-old St. Sophia Cathedral is traditionally anchored by a hulking evergreen at Christmas. But officials this year opted for a 12-metre (40-foot) artificial tree festooned with energy-saving lights powered by a generator.

Orthodox Christians make up the majority of Ukraine’s 43 million people.

Klitschko said the tree was funded by donors and businesses, and that no public celebrations would take place.

“I doubt this will be a true holiday,” said Kyiv resident Iryna Soloychuk, who arrived with her daughter to see the tree just hours after another round of air-raid alerts wailed across the country.

“But we should understand that we’re all together, that we should help one another.”

Additional reporting by Yurii Khomenko and David Ljunggren
Editing by Frances Kerry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

California offshore wind auction bids top $460 mln on day two

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Dec 7 (Reuters) – The first ever auction of offshore wind development rights off the coast of California entered its second day on Wednesday, with high bids topping $460 million.

The Biden administration’s sale is a major milestone in the its goal to put turbines along every U.S. coastline and a critical test of developer appetite for investment in floating wind turbines, an emerging technology necessary in locations where the ocean floor is too deep for fixed equipment.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is auctioning five lease areas equal to a combined 373,267 acres (151,056 hectares) off the state’s north and central coasts. Previous federal offshore wind auctions have all been for leases in shallower waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

After 22 rounds of bidding, high bids totaled a combined $462.1 million. Two leases off the central coast had commanded high bids of more than $100 million, with the remaining leases attracting high bids in a range of $62.7 million to $98.8 million, according to live auction results on the BOEM web site.

The identities of the bidders are not disclosed during the auction, but 43 companies had been approved to participate.

They include established offshore wind players like Avangrid Inc (AGR.N), Orsted (ORSTED.CO) and Equinor (EQNR.OL), which are all developing projects on the U.S. East Coast, as well as potential new entrants including Swedish floating wind developer Hexicon (HEXI.ST) and Macquarie (MQG.AX) unit Corio.

Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Alexander Smith

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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