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- 📈 Lab-grown meat is now legal in the US | Thought Starters
📈 Lab-grown meat is now legal in the US | Thought Starters
A collection of our favourite articles from the past week
Equity Mates
July 02, 2023
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Meat cultivated in a lab is finally on the menu in the US
Lab-grown meat is getting closer to a plate near you. Lab-grown meat is biologically animal meat, it has just been grown in a lab from animal cells rather than harvested from an animal on a farm. It is different to plant-based meat, which is not biologically animal meat, but it designed to look, cook and taste like the real thing.
Singapore was the first jurisdiction to approve lab-grown meat, approving lab-grown chicken from the company Eat Just in 2020. But it never really took off after that. The jurisdiction to watch has always been the United States. That is where the majority of these companies are based and the majority of the funding for the sector comes from. And in big news a couple of weeks ago, two lab-grown meat startups Upside Foods and Good Meat both received approval from the US Department of Agriculture to produce and sell their lab-grown chicken in the US.
For any Americans reading this, don’t expect to see lab-grown meat next to the real thing in your supermarkets just yet. It seems that restaurants will be the first step in rolling out lab-grown meat. Upside Foods have announced they will start out by supplying a restaurant in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Good Meat will be served at a restaurant in Washington D.C.
When it comes to cutting edge technology, where the US leads the rest of the world often follows. So now that lab-grown meat can be sold in the United States, we wouldn’t be surprised if regulators around the world follow suit. The biggest question that remains, will consumers want to eat it?
Eli Lily experimental obesity drug could beat rivals in total weight loss for patients
Over the past six months it has been hard to miss, but we might still be underestimating the scale of what we’re living through. And no, we’re not referring to artificial intelligence. We are living through a revolution in weight loss treatments that may change the way we look at obesity forever. If we continue down this path, being overweight may be a choice.
It started with the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk that has spent the past 100 years working on diabetes treatments. They launched Ozempic which had seen patients lose an average of 15% of their body weight in 68 weeks in clinical trials. Ozempic was everywhere - Hollywood A-listers were swearing by it and Australia experienced a months long shortage of the drug. Novo Nordisk has followed up with a second drug, Wegovy, that is reported to work even more effectively.
Other pharmaceutical companies are looking to get into this space. Last week, Eli Lily published results for their experimental weight loss drug, retatrutide, that saw patients lose an average of 24% of their body weight after 48 weeks. These results give it the highest reduction of body weight seen in the obesity drug space so far.
The implications of these drugs are going to be profound. Huge cost savings for healthcare systems and improved quality of life for millions of people struggling with obesity. At the same time, they represent a dilemma. Offering a path to weight loss without any of the effort or care could have unintended consequences.
There’s no easy exit for companies backed by PE and VC
Imagine you’re a startup founder that took advantage of the boom years of 2020 and 2021. You raised more money than you need at a valuation that was ridiculous. Buy hey, investors were willing to give you the money. Who were you to say no?
Fast forward a few years, and many startups are starting to realise the downside of that deal. Many of them have spent most of that money, are still not profitable and are struggling to justify the valuations they enjoyed a couple of years ago. This article takes a look at many of these companies owned by private equity or part-owned by venture capital firms.
While companies in the S&P 500 index have an average profit margin of 20%, the companies examined in this article sat at an average of 5%. But that average obscures the fact, that 55% of companies backed by private equity were free cash flow negative and that two-thirds of them added more debt over the past 12 months. Not a great story when you consider that rising interest rates are making debt more expensive.
The biggest challenge for these companies (and their VC and PE sponsors) is a way out. Many of them are perfectly good companies and could list on public stock markets. But the public markets wouldn’t be willing to pay what they’re currently valued at, meaning the PE and VC funds would lose money. Similarly, selling these companies to larger companies would see multiples compressed and valuations cut.
All this adds up to a challenge for these companies. If they raise more money, list on the stock market or put themselves up for sale they will have to cut their valuations. Meaning those investors that backed them in the past few years and the company’s employees will lose money. There’s no easy exit in the world of VC- and PE-backed startups.
Humans approaching limits of ‘survivability’ as sweltering heatwaves engulf parts of Asia
The extreme temperatures being registered in parts of Asia are unbelievable. The most extreme was in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh registering 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit). Meanwhile parts of China and Pakistan were also registering temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
Heatwaves are a common feature of the Indian summer, but recently these heatwaves have been growing in severity and length. Usually confined to the summer months of May and June, last April India’s capital New Delhi saw seven consecutive days above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). And experts expect this trend of longer and more severe heatwaves to continue.
A study published by the University of Cambridge concluded, “Long-term projections indicate that Indian heatwaves could cross the survivability limit for a healthy human resting in the shade by 2050.”
And it is not just India. Much of North and Central Asia will feel the brunt of climate change. In June, China’s capital Beijing set its record for the city’s hottest day in June - 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit). And we only have to look back to 2018 to see the city of Nawabshah, Pakistan recording the hottest April temperature ever - 50.2 degree Celsius (122.4 Fahrenheit).