Amazon Pharmacy Harnesses Anti-Obesity Craze

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Amazon Pharmacy Harnesses Anti-Obesity Craze

The e-commerce giant [AMZN] is expanding its same-day prescription medication delivery service to New York City and the greater Los Angeles area, and plans to roll it out to more than a dozen US cities by the end of the year. High demand for anti-obesity drugs is boosting Amazon’s online pharmacy; earlier this month Amazon signed a deal to distribute Eli Lilly’s [LLY] Zepbound. Viking Therapeutics’ [VKTX] share price was up 15% on a successful early-stage trial for its anti-obesity tablet.

CATL Boss: Solid-state Is a Long Way Off

Solid-state batteries are still years from commercialisation, Robin Zeng, Founder and CEO of Chinese market-leader CATL [300750:SZ], told the Financial Times. There are “a lot of showstoppers” in the way of their development, Zeng said —notwithstanding Toyota’s [TM] pledge to deliver them as early as 2027. Elsewhere, Ferrari NV [RACE] is partnering with South Korea’s SK On [096770:KS] to develop batteries for its electric supercars; the former is building a new electric vehicle (EV) factory in northern Italy.

Will Apple Unveil AI Plan in June?

The Cupertino company [AAPL] is expected to detail its hotly anticipated AI strategy at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on 10 June, Bloomberg reported. Announcements are also anticipated regarding software updates for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro headset and smartwatch. Meanwhile, government figures show iPhone shipments in China fell about 33% in February year-on-year, the second monthly slump in a row.

BYD Profit Growth Slows; GM Upbeat

On Tuesday, Chinese EV colossus BYD [1211:HK] reported an 18.6% rise in profit for Q4, a year-on-year slowdown in the face of a sales slump. For the full year, net profit climbed 80.7% to top RMB30bn. Meanwhile, General Motors [GM] Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said March sales were “looking really strong” after a strong February. Both GM and Ford [F] will reroute shipments after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

What’s New in Social Media?

Elon Musk has announced that all premium users of X will be able to access the Grok chatbot developed by xAI. Documents released as part of a court case have shown that in 2016 Meta’s [META] Facebook launched ‘Project Ghostbusters’, a secret project to decrypt network traffic between Snapchat users and its servers, with a view to competing with the rival app. Lastly, Reddit [RDDT] shares climbed 8.8% on Tuesday, taking it up 92% from last week’s IPO.