Economist and longtime adviser to the UN Jeffrey Sachs has issued a scathing critique of President Trump’s decision to unleash yet more anti-Russia sanctions, giving Moscow just ten days to negotiate for peace with Ukraine or else the new punitive measures will go into effect.

Sachs called the new policy “dangerous” and a sign that the Trump administration is plagued by contradictions and lack of a coherent strategy for ending the war, despite constant early boasting that Trump would rapidly achieve peace. The ‘secondary sanctions’ aimed primarily at those nations still trading with Russia are doomed to be ineffective anyway, the Colombia University professor pointed out.

“If the sanctions are actually applied, they are an escalation of the conflict, and therefore very dangerous. I do not believe that they will be effective,” he said in an interview with Russian media.

“For example, I do not believe they will stop Russia from selling oil, gas, and other commodities to Asian markets. Yet, provocations and escalation often have unpredictable negative effects, and that could be true here as well,” he added.

The new restrictions are likely to backfire regardless, as they “could expose” the “incompetence” or even “accelerate the breakup” of US-led geopolitical and economic blocs.

“This is, in short, the wrong approach. We need diplomacy and negotiation to get to the root causes of the conflict, and solve them, not unworkable ultimatums based on the idea of an unconditional ceasefire,” Sachs added.

He further highlighted the West’s inability to acknowledge and come to terms with the real underlying causes of Ukraine war, such as historic NATO expansion east, the sham Minsk accords, or the coup events of 2014.

“Instead, the Western powers now demand an unconditional ceasefire. Russia will not agree to this, nor will a new round of US sanctions compel Russia to agree to this,” Sachs emphasized.

But top Trump admin officials are defending the freshly issued ultimatum given to the Kremlin. For example, White House special envoy to Russia and Ukraine Keith Kellogg has claimed the relative ineffectiveness of current sanctions thus far has largely been due to weak enforcement from the West.

However, Kellogg has asserted that “Putin will start feeling the pressure not just from within his military, but also from the oligarchs and internally” and that the sanctions will “start to bite”.

Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times,

The Senate voted on July 30 to reject two resolutions that would have blocked arms sales to Israel in response to concerns over civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip since Israeli forces began military action against the Hamas terror group.

Senators rejected two motions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have stopped the export of over 5,000 bombs and guidance kits and 20,000 firearms. The resolutions failed by 73–24 and 70–27, respectively, in the 100-member chamber.

Sanders, who aligns with the Democrats, said on the evening of July 30 before the vote: “American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb schools, kill civilians, and support the cruelty of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his criminal ministers. That, Mr. President, is why I have brought these two resolutions of disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel.”

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), who voted against both motions, called the resolutions misguided, and said before the vote that if they were adopted, it would “reinstate the failed policies of the Biden administration, and would abandon America’s closest ally in the Middle East.”

Risch said that the situation in the Gaza Strip and the impact on its residents was the fault of Hamas, who he said “use the people of Gaza as human shields.”

“These are not good people, and it is in the interest of America and the world to see this terrorist group destroyed,” he said.

Israel began its military operations against Hamas after the terror group’s deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 civilians in Israel and kidnapped 251. According to the Israeli government website, 49 of those who were abducted that day are still being held in captivity. One additional hostage is still being held in Gaza, who has been held since 2014.

The Gaza Strip’s Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health reported that more than 60,000 people have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in these casualty figures, and The Epoch Times cannot verify their accuracy.

Throughout the conflict, Israel has said that it tries to avoid harming the civilian population and only targets Hamas terrorists.

Palestinian Statehood

In recent weeks, a number of Western nations have indicated they plan to recognize a Palestinian state.

On July 25, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would formally announce the decision to recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly in September, citing the need to end the Israel–Hamas war.

Macron called for an immediate cease-fire and the release of all hostages, as well as for Hamas to disarm.

“Finally, the State of Palestine must be built, its viability ensured, and, by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel, it must contribute to the security of all in the Middle East,” he said.

Four days later, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the UK will recognize a Palestinian state by September, unless Israel agrees to a cease-fire and to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.

Starmer said such a state is “the inalienable right of the Palestinian people,” and that Palestinian statehood is essential for Israel’s long-term security.

The following day, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his country would recognize Palestinian statehood at the U.N. in September if the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank, made reforms including holding an election in 2026 and refraining from militarization.

Carney said that Canada “will always steadfastly support Israel’s existence as an independent state in the Middle East, living in peace and security” and that “any path to lasting peace for Israel also requires a viable and stable Palestinian state.”

Some 146 U.N. member states already recognize a Palestinian state, according to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on X on July 24 that such recognition would “reward terror” and risk the creation of what he described as “another Iranian proxy.”

“A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel—not to live in peace beside it,“ Netanyahu said. ”Let’s be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel.”

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention of an illegal alien named Jesus Terán, who temporarily worked as a carpenter, has prompted left-wing media figures to draw comical parallels to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was also a carpenter. 

Teran was arrested during one of his ICE appointments on July 8. He had previously been denied entry to the U.S. in 2015 and was later allowed in under the Biden administration in 2021. 

While Teran’s case is no different from that of countless other illegal aliens who entered the country under the permissive immigration policies of the Biden administration, some media personalities fixated on his name, triggering the Christ comparisons. 

when’s the last time you attended church

— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) July 30, 2025

“His Name Is Jesus. He’s a Carpenter. ICE Arrested Him,” read a headline from The Bulwark’s self-described “author” Adrian Carrasquillo. 

The article, which unusually referred to Terán by his first name throughout, featured an image of a hand cuffed to a crucifix.  

The blatant invocation of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ prompted widespread mockery on X. 

X user Nick Rizzuto replied to The Bulwark’s Sam Stein with: “His name is Mohammed. He’s a Pedophile. Police arrested him.” 

Another user also mocked Stein, writing, “My name is Sam. I like MSNBC. I treat the Bible eisegetically.” 

Others circulated a meme mocking the left’s use of the Bible and Christ to defend illegal immigration. 

he did the meme https://t.co/7v0dB0SP18 pic.twitter.com/OCUvoY6hbY

— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) July 30, 2025

A Louisiana woman dubbed the “Medicaid millionaire” is facing fraud charges after allegedly buying a Lamborghini while illegally collecting Medicaid benefits, according to the state attorney general’s office, reported by Fox News.

Candace Taylor, 35, of Slidell, was arrested Monday after investigators found she underreported her income to qualify for the program. The Louisiana Bureau of Investigation launched its probe after a complaint from the state health department.

The Fox News report says court records say Taylor ran six businesses that brought in over $9.5 million between 2020 and 2024. Bank records show deposits of $480,994, including more than $325,000 linked to her businesses.

“From 2021 through 2024, Ms. Taylor continued to transfer tens of thousands of dollars between her personal and business accounts, with personal inflows consistently exceeding the eligibility thresholds for Medicaid,” the affidavit states.

Despite this, Taylor allegedly kept renewing her benefits—most recently claiming $4,000 in monthly income without disclosing she owned the business.

Authorities say her spending included $45,086 in Audi vehicle payments, a $100,000 wire to an exotic car dealer, and $13,000 for a 2022 Lamborghini Urus. She also allegedly withdrew multiple six-figure cashier’s checks for property, cosmetic surgery, jewelry, and luxury services.

Taylor’s first Medicaid application in 2019—filed under the name “Candace Sailor”—was denied. Less than a year later, she re-applied under the same name with inconsistent information about dependents.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Trump raged against India on Wednesday in a series of posts announcing his 25% tariff on its exports on the pretext of its trade barriers and close ties with Russia.

He then announced an oil deal with Pakistan and predicted that “maybe they’ll be selling Oil to India some day!”

His final post described India’s economy as “dead” and claimed that “We have done very little business with India” despite it being the fastest-growing major economy in the world and bilateral trade amounting to nearly $130 billion in 2024.

India’s Ministry of Commerce & Industry calmly responded to Trump’s tariff announcement by reaffirming its commitment to talks and declaring that the state “will take all steps necessary to secure our national interest”, which likely infuriated him since he probably expected Modi to anxiously call him.

The favorable trade deal that he clinched with Japan last week and the totally lopsided one with the EU that followed emboldened him into playing hardball with India upon thinking that it’ll fall into line too.

The US wants India to open its agricultural and dairy markets, stop its massive import of discounted Russian oil, and rapidly diversify away from Russian military equipment.

Complying with the first demand would be disastrous for the 46% of the Indian workforce employed in these industries, however, while the second would risk decelerating its economic growth and the third would make its security dependent on the US. The end result would therefore derail India’s rise as a Great Power and turn it into a US vassal.

Trump is hellbent on doing precisely that, which is the continuation of Biden’s policy, as explained below:

* 13 December 2022: “Will The US Sell India Out To China To Sweeten The Deal For A Sino-American New Détente?”

* 14 May 2025: “There Might Be A Method To The Madness Of Trump Unexpectedly Damaging Indo-US Ties”

* 16 May 2025: “Trump’s Desired Return To Bagram Airbase Could Reshape South Asian Geopolitics”

* 7 June 2025: “The US Is Once Again Trying To Subordinate India”

* 13 July 2025: “The US-Pakistani Rapprochement Could Have Far-Reaching Geostrategic Consequences”

These analyses will now be summarized for the reader’s convenience and placed in the current context.

In brief, India’s Russian-assisted rise as a Great Power hastens the coming of tri–multipolarity that’ll in turn help midwife complex multipolarity, which would greatly reduce the likelihood of ever restoring US-led unipolarity or the short-lived period of informal Sino-US bi-multipolarity (“G2”/“Chimerica”).

Russia’s special operation and the West’s reaction to it revolutionized International Relations and created the opportunity for India to make up for lost time in becoming a Great Power with truly global influence.

The US responded to these developments by attempting to subordinate India via election meddling, infowars, and dual geopolitical pivots to Bangladesh (whose prior long-serving leader it helped depose) and Pakistan to pile on the pressure in pursuit of this goal or to contain India if it still refuses to concede.

Complementary elements of this pressure campaign include political support for Delhi-designated “Khalistani” separatists-terrorists and spring 2023’s violent ethno-religious unrest in Manipur.

If Trump’s tariffs don’t coerce India into becoming a US vassal, which the US would then exploit to coerce concessions from China in advance of its ultimate goal of restoring unipolarity, then he might settle for letting China subordinate India instead as part of the “G2”/“Chimerica” scenario.

Either way, he doesn’t expect India’s rise as a Great Power to continue due to the zero-sum dilemma in which the tariffs were meant to place it between becoming the US’ or China’s vassal, but India might still surprise everyone.

The LiDAR vs. camera debate is a major battle in the autonomous vehicle and robotaxi race. 

Elon Musk has long insisted that using only cameras on driverless cars is the most efficient way to achieve true self-driving capability. All Tesla models, including the robotaxis, use external cameras to navigate, steer, and brake, while robotaxi competitors, such as Waymo, use far more expensive LiDAR. 

LiDAR is far more expensive, costing approximately $12,000 per vehicle, as compared with cameras, which come in at around $400 per car, according to Bloomberg. Musk has maintained that camera-only technology is the most “human” way to approach self-driving. In 2019, he said, “Lidar is lame,” adding, “In cars, it’s friggin’ stupid. It’s expensive and unnecessary.”

Musk’s insistence on a camera-only approach for self-driving has prompted critics to argue for the urgent need for LiDAR, with some calling Tesla’s reliance on cameras “Autopilot’s gravest flaw,” according to Car and Driver.

However, while Tesla critics continue to call for more LiDAR … two Waymo Jaguar SUVs equipped with LiDAR have crashed into each other this week. 

According to Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt, mainstream media is silent over two Waymos crashing into each other:

This is the sad state of news these days. Today, a Waymo car crashed into another Waymo, but the media hasn’t covered it at all. I’ve seen no articles. If this were two @Tesla Robotaxis, it would be all over the news. Negative headlines against Tesla generate clicks. Ones about Waymo don’t as much, so most of the media doesn’t bother to write about it. Is this crash the end of the world? Absolutely not. But the media would certainly paint it that way if it were Tesla Robotaxis. Nonetheless, the work toward a safer driverless future presses on.

This is the sad state of news these days. Today, a Waymo car crashed into another Waymo, but the media hasn’t covered it at all. I’ve seen no articles. If this were two @Tesla Robotaxis, it would be all over the news. Negative headlines against Tesla generate clicks. Ones about… https://t.co/XsdJvTRbsW pic.twitter.com/jOjhGccRal

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2025

“Waymo car crashed. Not a single headline. If Tesla Robotaxi had even a tiny intervention, it would’ve been all over the news,” X user DOGE Designer wrote, with Elon Musk chiming in with a “Hmm.” 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The State Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This comes as U.S. officials arrived in Israel to hold further cease-fire talks.

“It is in our national security interests to impose consequences and hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments and undermining the prospects for peace,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

The department further said that the PA and PLO aren’t “in compliance with their commitments under the PLO Commitments Compliance Act of 1989,” as well as the Middle East Peace Commitments Act of 2002, because they have taken “actions to internationalize its conflict with Israel, such as through the International Criminal Court [ICC],” and other means.

The statement also accused both organizations of “continuing to support terrorism, including incitement and glorification of violence (especially in textbooks),” and “providing payments and benefits in support of terrorism to Palestinian terrorists and their families.”

The sanctions come as special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Israel on Thursday in a bid to save the Gaza cease-fire talks and tackle a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave. Israel faces growing world pressure over the war in Gaza, and several Western powers have said they will recognize a Palestinian state.

In the statement, the State Department did not say what individuals associated with the PLO or PA would face sanctions.

Earlier in July, the State Department announced it had placed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the area, over efforts to have the ICC act against the United States and Israel, along with officials, executives, and companies.

“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on July 9 in a post on X.

Last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.

In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump wrote that the nearly two-year Israel–Hamas conflict could be ended if Hamas surrenders and releases the remaining hostages the terrorist group took during its October 2023 attack on Israel.

“The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” Trump wrote, referring to international concerns over reports of mass starvation in Gaza.

The president has said that he was impacted by watching footage of starving children in Gaza, telling reporters during his visit to Scotland this week that “there’s nothing you can say other than it’s terrible when you see the kids,” adding in another interview that the United States would set up food centers in the area.

It comes as the top leaders in Canada, the United Kingdom, and France have said they would recognize a Palestinian state separate from Israel.

On Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement that the country would recognize a Palestinian state in September at the U.N. General Assembly.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced Canada’s move in a post on Wednesday, saying it would boost Hamas.

Trump also suggested that the move could make it difficult for the United States and Canada to reach a tariff agreement.

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

In the next few days, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) will issue its annual report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). For alarmists promoting the Net Zero fantasy the news has been dire over the last three years, with record coral reported across the largest reef in the world.

Such is the obvious despair even daft excuses suggesting it is the wrong type of coral have been heard.

Faced with inconvenient facts, the usual groomed game plan in mainstream media has been to issue dire warnings of possible imminent collapse and then keep schtum when the sensational figures surface.

Recently the BBC gave us its “’underwater bushfire’ cooking Australia’s reefs”. Alas, the Australian Government’s Reef Authority is less cataclysmic in its reporting, noting indications in June this year that there were “no current heat stresses across the Reef”. Between April 14th and May 31st, 342 impact inspections were carried out which found coral bleaching on just three of the 34 reefs surveyed.

We must wait for a fuller picture from the upcoming 2024/25 AIMS survey but available details suggest another healthy year for the GBR. The BBC agitprop reported on dire conditions at the Ningaloo Reef off the Australian north-west coast, but it linked the GBR by noting a “worrying superlative”. Reefs on both sides of the continent have been bleached for what is claimed to be the first time. “It’s like a raging bushfire that has persisted for months now, wreaking harm right across the coast”, said Paul Gamblin, who heads up the Australian Marine Conservation Society. “It’s an absolutely devastating event and people are reeling from it. It is enormous. It’s unprecedented. It’s absolutely not normal”.

Quite how the BBC can witness a current underwater “bush fire” raging across the GBR is not immediately clear. Nor is it clear how the BBC can report first time bleaching across all of Australia’s main reefs when the process is a natural event that has certainly occurred over hundreds of millions of years of coral development. The BBC reports that the “heatwaves” in Australia are all part of something called the “fourth global bleaching event” which “experts say” has swept across large areas of the globe affecting more than 80% of the world’s coral reefs.

Meanwhile, back in the world of observational science, the Reef Authority reports that in June 2025 most of the observed GBR coral bleaching was at low levels of 1–10% and only in the northern region. No bleaching was observed in the central and southern regions. The biggest current threat appears to be the ever-lurking crown-of-thorns starfish, with outbreaks impacting a number of regions. Work continues on culling operations. Drops in ocean temperatures have been reported across the Reef, although they are still said to be above average – an average, of course, based on just a few decades of measurement. Short-term rises in temperature can induce coral bleaching but they appear to quickly recover. Tropical coral grows in waters between 24°C and 32°C, and growth is generally quicker in warmer seas. Short-term natural spikes come and go, leaving a politicised trail of shrieking headlines in their wake.

The AIMS annual survey usually runs up to June so it is of interest to observe what the Reef Authority has been reporting during the year. In February, summer sea temperatures were falling across most of the Reef with impact surveys showing low levels of bleaching across almost the entire area. Back in September 2024, the surveys revealed that most of the 31 individual reefs observed “showed no signs of coral bleaching, with very few cases of minor bleaching reported in each region”. In October, it was noted that temperatures across the marine park were around 0.6°C higher than average but they were “not at levels that typically cause impacts such as coral bleaching”.

The mainstream grooming over coral on the Great Barrier Reef, once a poster event for inducing mass climate psychosis, is plain for all to see. Ahead of 2024’s third record-breaking growth year, a convenient non-story appeared in Nature that claimed “climate change” posed an “existential threat” to the GBR. “The science tells us that the GBR is in danger – and we should be guided by the science”, Professor Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong told Victoria Gill of BBC News. The existential threat is “now realised” reported the gibbering Guardian. In fact the Nature paper used proxy temperatures and climate models to suggest temperatures around the vast reef area were the highest recorded in 400 years.

Your correspondent might have missed subsequent reports in both the Guardian and BBC about the three record-breaking years of coral growth. I asked Grok for help and the reply came back: “I couldn’t find reports from the Guardian and the BBC specifically stating that the Great Barrier Reef has shown ‘three record-breaking years of growth’.” Grok further noted that there was no coverage of last year’s performance but rather it focused on challenges due to “global heating”. Just four months before last year’s announcement, the Guardian noted that the GBR faced its worst summer on record with widespread bleaching.

Will this be a record fourth year of a news blackout on the amazing resilience of one of the great wonders of the natural world?

Israeli officials have reportedly warned Hamas that if it rejects the latest ceasefire proposal, Israel will begin annexing parts of Gaza, according to a fresh Times of Israel report.

The report cites Israel’s Channel 12 which indicated Israel submitted its response to Hamas’s latest counteroffer on Tuesday night, but does not expect the group to accept the terms. Already talks based in Doha had been stalled or essentially called off, after Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this month recalled his negotiating team.

Israeli forces have established and for many months overseen a de facto ‘buffer zone’ in Gaza which cuts deep into the Palestinian territory.

“Israel will not be patient for much longer,“ a senior Israeli official was quoted in the report as saying.

The Times of Israel report spells out, “With negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal having stalled, Israel has sent a message to Hamas that if it doesn’t accept the proposal on the table in the coming days, Jerusalem will begin to take punitive measures against it, including the annexation of territory on Gaza’s outer perimeter,” citing senior Israeli officials.

As for specifics on where this threatened annexation could begin, the report says:

According to the report, Israel told Hamas that it will not leave the Phildelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border or the buffer zone around the Gaza border; will not allow the opening of the Rafah Crossing; and will not agree to Hamas demands for a prisoner release so far-reaching it will leave few bargaining chips in Jerusalem’s hands to compel Hamas to release the last batch of hostages in a potential ceasefire.

This would effectively ensure that remaining hostages wouldn’t be returned through a deal, as Israel would shut the door on having anything more to offer in terms of enticing Hamas to reach a new exchange agreement.

Channel 12 has observed of the US stance that there is currently “no appetite” within the White House to approve any big Israeli move to formally annex parts of Gaza.

France, the UK, and most recently Canada have said they plan to recognize a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN assembly meeting in September, in a diplomatic blow to the Netanyahu government.

Still, there’s there’s as yet no indication Washington is pressuring Israel to make concessions, and if anything Trump’s earlier rhetoric on turning Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ could easily be taken as a green light to annex from Tel Aviv’s point of view.

But at the moment the majority of countries and leaders throughout the world have lambasted Israeli actions in Gaza, particularly for the lack of aid getting in amid the worsening humanitarian catastrophe as civilians starve to death.

Shares of Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk have experienced a sharp sell-off this week after slashing its full-year sales and profit guidance, citing softening Wegovy demand driven by compounded GLP-1 headwinds. If losses hold through Friday, the magnitude of the drawdown will mark the largest weekly decline ever for the stock trading in Copenhagen.

A key question right now among some institutional investors: Has the correction created a compelling entry point in Novo?

Let’s start with the technicals: Shares on the week are down about 29%, the largest weekly decline ever for shares trading in Copenhagen. This followed the surprise sales and profit warning earlier this week. 

Novo shares peaked in early June 2024 and have since tumbled 69%. Much of the GLP-1 hype cycle has now unwound, with the stock trading back at January 2022 levels.

Much of the downturn in Novo shares was accompanied by Goldman analysts repeatedly telling clients how compelling the stock was at every dead-cat bounce. Now, with the stock back at 2022 levels, we ask the same question, this time, with patience … for the first time.

A new note from UBS analysts led by Matthew Weston outlines what’s next after the profit warning earlier this week. 

“Following a surprise sales and profit warning for 2025, we place our Rating and Price Target for Novo Nordisk under review,” Weston told clients. 

Here’s more from the analyst:

We were previously at the bottom end of the FY25 guidance range and had cautioned that a significant inflection in US GLP-1 growth was needed to meet guidance expectations. But the magnitude of the FY25 cuts was well ahead of UBS and market expectations. Novo now targets 8-14% CER sales growth (from 13-21%) versus UBSe 13.4%, cons c.15.8%. For EBIT, new guidance is 10-16% CER growth (from 16-24%) versus UBSe 18.9% and cons c.19.5%.

The debate between Weston and his fellow analysts centers on the issue of unapproved GLP-1 compounds on the market. He estimates that at least one million Americans are currently using these compounded versions.

Here are some of those key questions:

1. How can Novo address the threat of U.S. compounding? Novo’s market intelligence estimates 1 million U.S. patients still take unapproved compounded sema. Compounded product acts as a drain on the potential patient pool at a price point well below branded levels ($150 vs $499/month). We have been assuming compounding would wind down over 3Q25, returning to a normal branded competitive market. If widespread compounding remains, the outlook for US Wegovy would seem uncertain.

2. What is a reasonable exit rate for sales growth into 2026? 2026 will balance the impact of compounding & LLY competition vs launch opportunities from MASH & oral Wegovy 25mg obesity. What is the valuation baseline and blue/grey sky scenarios?

3. What is the long-term NPV impact of compounding threats and IRA price cuts versus the significant potential of the global obesity patient population?

What’s critical from Novo’s earnings report is this line:

“Novo Nordisk is pursuing multiple strategies, including litigation, to protect patients from knockoff ‘semaglutide’ drugs. Novo Nordisk is deeply concerned that, without aggressive intervention by federal and state regulators and law enforcement, patients will continue to be exposed to the significant risks posed by knockoff ‘semaglutide’ drugs made with illicit or inauthentic foreign active pharmaceutical ingredients.” 

A resolution to the widespread availability of compounded GLP-1 products in the U.S. marketplace could mark a potential bottom for Novo shares. This could occur through “multiple strategies,” as outlined by Novo above. Such a development would help lift the clouded outlook for Wegovy sales and potentially slow the ongoing erosion of U.S. market share to unapproved alternatives. This has yet to occur.