You don’t have permission to access “http://www.imf.org/en/publications/technical-assistance-reports/issues/2026/02/06/tonga-technical-assistance-report-liquidity-management-and-forecasting-573683” on this server.
Reference #18.de641102.1770416845.13a6cc61
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.de641102.1770416845.13a6cc61
A trader works as the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpasses the 50,000 mark on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Feb. 6, 2026.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stocks surged on Friday as technology stocks recovered following several days of heavy selling in the sector and bitcoin rebounded following a rout that took the popular cryptocurrency down more than 50% at one point.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 1,206.95 points, or 2.47%, closing at 50,115.67. Friday marked the first time the Dow exceeded the 50,000 level. The S&P 500 jumped 1.97% and ended at 6,932.30, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.18% to 23,031.21. With those moves, the S&P 500 climbed back into the green for 2026.
Even with Friday’s pop, the S&P 500 posted a 0.1% decline for the week, while the Nasdaq fell 1.8% on the week. The 30-stock Dow rose 2.5% week to date, benefiting from some rotation into some economically cyclical stocks even as the overall market was weighed down by tech selling.
Dow Jones Industrial average, 5 days
Nvidia and Broadcom were two of the key winners Friday, with the former increasing by nearly 8% and the latter growing 7% following big declines earlier in the week. Other stocks such as Oracle and Palantir Technologies also bounced back as investors reconsidered some of the names at cheaper levels. Oracle and Palantir each rose 4%. Some key software stocks like ServiceNow — which has been the epicenter of the tech sell-off because of an artificial intelligence disruption fear of software — remained weak on Friday, however.
“We’re in a gold rush right now with AI,” said Falcon Wealth Planning founder Gabriel Shahin.
“You have the investment that Google is making, Nvidia is making, that Meta is making, that Amazon is making. There is money that will be deployed,” he also said. “It’s just the carousel [of money movement] sometimes scares people.”
Shahin believes the market is in the midst of a “great recalibration,” where investors are going to move further out of growth stocks and into value. Over the coming months, his bet is on large-cap value names. That played out Friday, with investors buying up shares in areas such as industrials and financials. In those sectors, Caterpillar and Goldman Sachs were standouts, supporting the Dow’s outperformance with their rise of 7% and 4%, respectively. Small-cap stocks also saw a boost, with the Russell 2000 index rallying 3.6%.
Bitcoin recouped some losses Friday, adding 10% and touching a session high of $71,458.01 after briefly sinking below $61,000 overnight to its lowest level since October 2024 — more than 52% off from its record high of $126,000 hit in early October 2025. Friday’s move higher helped ease some of the risk-off concerns among investors that recently plagued the broader market. The cryptocurrency has lost 16% this week, however.
The week was bleak heading into Friday, with the S&P 500 on pace for its worst week since last October and the Nasdaq Composite on track for its worst week since the tariff-related market plunge of last April. Friday’s pop pared those declines significantly.
Amazon was an outlier Friday, as shares sank more than 5% after the e-commerce giant posted earnings per share slightly under analyst expectations and told investors to expect $200 billion in capital expenditures this year.
Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, speaks at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival in New York City, U.S., May 22, 2024.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Healthy Returns newsletter, which brings the latest health-care news straight to your inbox. Subscribe here to receive future editions.
Pfizer made one thing clear this week: It’s officially back in the obesity race.
The drugmaker is laser-focused on bringing to market treatments from its $10 billion acquisition of the obesity biotech Metsera. On Tuesday, it released promising phase two trial data on one injection, called PF′3944, that’s furthest along in development.
The experimental drug drove solid weight loss when taken once a month in a mid-stage trial – offering early evidence that the injection can be administered less frequently than existing drugs without sacrificing efficacy. That could be a boon to Pfizer after it faced several setbacks in trying to win a slice of a market dominated by weekly injections from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, along with Novo’s new daily pill.
Patients with obesity or who are overweight lost up to 12.3% of their weight compared with placebo at week 28 in the ongoing phase two study. The company said no plateau was observed after patients transitioned to monthly dosing, which suggests that continued weight loss is expected as the study continues through week 64.
But investors are still looking for the full data from that trial, which is slated to be presented at a medical conference in June. Pfizer also plans to start 10 phase three studies on the injection, with the goal of achieving the first of several potential approvals in 2028.
I talked to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and other top execs about the data this week and the company’s broader obesity strategy. Here’s what they had to say.
Bourla told CNBC that the data shows the monthly product has a “very competitive profile in tolerability and efficacy.”
Pfizer plans to use a higher dose of the drug in phase three trials, and Bourla said it will produce efficacy and tolerability data that is “maybe best in class, so better than anything else,” while being taken less frequently. The company’s modeling predicts that the higher dose could result in 16% weight loss at week 28.
In the phase two trial, patients started on weekly injections of the drug for 12 weeks before switching to once-monthly dosing.
Pfizer also plans to study people who are taking existing weekly GLP-1s and give them the option to switch to the company’s monthly shot, said Dr. Jim List, Pfizer’s chief internal medicine officer.
List said that’s one of the selling points of the company’s injection: it can serve as a more convenient maintenance treatment for patients to switch to.
“If you say, listen, I can give you one of these drugs. This one, you’ll take once a week for the rest of your life. But this other one, you’ll take once a week, and you could also switch it to once a month. Which one do you want?” List said. “It’s always going to be the one with more options.
He added that “weekly doesn’t work for everybody,” since some patients need to travel and can’t keep their injections refrigerated.
Bourla said people who have been taking weekly injections are also more likely to switch to another shot rather than an oral option.
“The oral will be for people, but they didn’t start with the needle,” he said. “So as a result, I think the monthly or longer products will probably become a standard, and we are the first and hopefully the best.”
A key part of Pfizer’s strategy for the PF′3944 injection is to combine it with another drug targeting a gut hormone called amylin, List said.
“We’re expecting to get even more weight loss with that combination than we get with this GLP-1 alone,” he said.
Amylin is hormone co-secreted with insulin in the pancreas to suppress appetite and reduce food intake. Amylin treatments have a similar effect to GLP-1s like Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro, but some analysts and researchers say it could be easier for patients to tolerate and help them preserve lean muscle mass.
Pfizer on Tuesday said early data showed that the two drugs together caused an additive weight loss of 5% when compared to placebo at day 8. Amylin alone also showed weight loss of 8.4% at day 36.
Both drugs are ultra-long-acting, meaning they are engineered to remain active in the body for longer than existing treatments like Novo’s Wegovy and can be taken once a month.
Pfizer plans to share more data on the amylin drug during the medical conference in June. List said the company is advancing the product into phase two trials in the first half of this year.
Pfizer on Tuesday also teased a potential GLP-1 injection that is dosed quarterly – once every three months – rather than monthly or weekly.
List said the injection will be “ultra-ultra-long-acting,” so Pfizer will be finding a way for the drug to have “slower degradation in the human body so that it can certainly last longer” than PF′3944.
Chief Scientific Officer Chris Boshoff told CNBC that the vast majority of patients will prefer an injection, and “obviously, being monthly will be preferable over weekly, and likely three-monthly maybe better than monthly.”
But List said it’s still early days for that drug.
Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at a new email: annika.constantino@versantmedia.com.
Earn‑outs are a familiar tool in M&A transactions, often helping bridge valuation gaps by tying part of the purchase price to the future performance of the business. But they also generate some of the most common post‑closing disputes, especially around whether certain buyer actions trigger early payment of the remaining earn‑out.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s 2025 decision1 and the Court of Appeal’s 2025 confirmation in Project Freeway Inc. v. ABC Technologies Inc.2 provide practical guidance on how courts may interpret earn‑out acceleration clauses and the extent to which pre‑closing documents, such as letters of intent (LOIs), can influence that interpretation. See our summary of the case and its key takeaways below.
Project Freeway Inc. sold its business to ABC Technologies Inc. under a share purchase agreement (SPA) that included a potential US$26.4 million earn‑out and an acceleration clause requiring immediate payment of any remaining earn‑out if ABC sold a “material portion” of the business’s assets to a non‑affiliate without the seller’s consent. Project Freeway and ABC had, prior to entering into the SPA, entered into a non-binding LOI in respect of the transaction.
After closing, ABC completed two transactions without Project Freeway’s consent: (a) a sale‑leaseback of major operating real estate, and (b) an accounts receivable factoring arrangement. Project Freeway asserted that each transaction triggered automatic acceleration. The trial judge disagreed with Project Freeway, and the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial judge’s decision.
The key issue was the interpretation of “a material portion” of the assets. The courts found the phrase ambiguous and applied a contextual and purpose-based approach, focusing on the economic function of the earn‑out rather than a formal, size‑only trigger.
Because the earn‑out was calculated using contribution‑margin metrics, the courts examined whether the post‑closing transactions impaired the business’s ability to meet those targets. They concluded the transactions did not harm the earn‑out regime, and therefore, acceleration was not engaged in the absence of actual economic prejudice to the seller.
Although the SPA contained an entire agreement clause, the court considered the LOI and other surrounding circumstances in interpreting the ambiguous term “material,” serving as a reminder that early deal documents can inform the meaning of later provisions in definitive contracts, particularly where the drafting of definitive contracts is ambiguous.
The Project Freeway decisions underscore that earn‑outs function best when the parties share a clear understanding of their economic purpose and draft the mechanics with precision. In practice, this calls for alignment between preliminary documents (such as letters of intent or term sheets) and the definitive agreement, and where the parties intend to deviate from those preliminary documents, an express indication of that departure in the definitive agreement.
Thoughtful drafting at each stage of the negotiation process remains the most effective way to avoid disputes and preserve the intended economic balance of the deal. The NRF team is available to assist you in this regard.
On January 29, 2026, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael Selig held a rare joint “Project Crypto” summit. Project Crypto is the agencies’ joint effort to modernize the regulatory framework for cryptoassets.
Near the end of his remarks, CFTC Chairman Selig announced his plans to “support the responsible development of event contract markets,” laying out a four-part regulatory agenda.1 Chairman Selig’s remarks signal a new regulatory environment in the short term and a hotly contested regulatory and legal environment in the long term, with important implications for prediction markets, regulators, and market participants.
The key takeaways below distill the most significant themes emerging from Chairman Selig’s remarks and his evolving agenda.
Key Takeaways
The Slow, Then Fast, Development of Prediction Markets
Event contracts have a long and, for the most part, sleepy history. Dating back at least to the 19th century, event contracts present binary yes/no propositions on the outcome of certain future events, such as the closing price of oil, the amount of rainfall during the growing season, or the last freezing day of the year.
Beginning in the 1980s, academic institutions began offering election prediction markets as an alternative form of polling. The Iowa Electronic Markets, launched in 1988 as a small-scale research exchange at the University of Iowa, exemplified the field’s limited early profile with its low stakes and restricted participation. The University of Victoria (New Zealand), likewise in 2014, launched PredictIt, which also offered election prediction markets in the United States, again under rules that restricted its commercial upside.
In recent years, however, platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket have surged in popularity and visibility, each now handling billions of dollars in monthly trading volume. Although event contracts span a wide variety of subject matters, two have surged in popularity and controversy: (a) political event contracts and (b) sports event contracts. Political event contracts allow individuals to speculate on the outcome of a political event (e.g., who will win an election). Sports event contracts, on the other hand, allow trading on the outcome of a sporting event (e.g., who will win the Super Bowl).
Event contracts operate within the CFTC’s core derivatives framework. These contracts must be listed and traded on CFTC-registered designated contract markets (DCMs) and cleared through a derivative clearing organization (DCO). As a result, event contracts traded on DCMs are subject to the full panoply of CFTC-market integrity rules and may not be readily susceptible to market manipulation (e.g., wash trading, spoofing, etc.).2
Despite operating within this federally regulated framework, event contracts — particularly those tied to sports outcomes — have become the focus of increasing legal controversy. Much of the litigation on sports-related contracts centers on their perceived similarity to traditional gambling. Indeed, both state and federal courts are currently addressing disputes over whether these sports-related contracts — offered by prediction markets — constitute unlawful sports betting under state gambling laws. That question remains unsettled and may be destined for the Supreme Court.
Against this backdrop of legal uncertainty and active litigation, the CFTC has set a new regulatory agenda for prediction markets.
The CFTC’s New Agenda for Prediction Markets
1. Withdrawal of Prior Actions
Chairman Selig directed CFTC staff to withdraw the 2024 proposed rule that would have prohibited political and sports-related event contracts.3 Days later, the CFTC formally announced the withdrawal in a staff letter, explaining that developments in the event contracts market since the rule’s proposal had rendered it unnecessary.4
In addition, Chairman Selig directed CFTC staff to withdraw a 2025 staff advisory regarding sports-related event contracts. In that advisory, the CFTC cautioned that “state regulatory actions and pending and potential litigation, including enforcement actions, should be accounted for with appropriate contingency planning,” effectively taking a let-the-courts-decide position on whether sports-related event contracts fall within the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction.5 By directing staff to withdraw that advisory, however, Chairman Selig signaled a willingness to litigate the position that event contracts — including sports-related ones — belong exclusively within the CFTC’s jurisdiction.
2. New Rulemaking on Event Contracts
During his nomination hearing, Chairman Selig stated that given the complexity of distinguishing between gaming and sports-related event contracts, that determination is best left to the courts — and that the CFTC would follow the law as determined by judicial decisions. But instead of deferring to the courts, Chairman Selig directed CFTC staff to begin drafting a new event contract rule with the goal of establishing clear, workable standards and replacing what he described as a framework that has proven difficult to apply. Chairman Selig’s new agenda comes as the rapid growth of prediction markets shifts from traditional commercial hedgers to retail participants — raising questions about whether a regulatory framework built for institutional commodity markets adequately addresses retail-facing risks.
3. Reassessment of Pending Litigation
Building on its more aggressive jurisdictional posture, the CFTC will reassess its participation in matters currently pending before federal district and circuit courts, particularly where jurisdictional questions are at issue. Jurisdictional issues in pending litigation stem from disputes over whether contracts offered by prediction markets constitute unlawful sports betting under state gambling laws. Although that question remains unsettled,6 Chairman Selig made clear that the CFTC will defend its jurisdiction in ongoing litigation over commodity derivatives.
4. Joint SEC–CFTC Interpretation
Chairman Selig also directed staff to work with the SEC to develop a joint interpretation of Title VII definitions to clarify the boundaries among commodity options, security options, swaps, and security-based swaps. This coordinated effort aims to reduce regulatory uncertainty and avoid innovation’s falling into a “no man’s land” between the two agencies.
Predicting the Legal Landscape of Prediction Markets in Light of the CFTC’s New Agenda
It is impossible to anticipate when these steps will begin or be completed, much less how these developments will affect or be affected by the various prediction market lawsuits that may be destined for resolution by the Supreme Court. However, a few things seem certain.
First, prediction markets that bet on regulatory acceptance of sports-related and political event contracts appear to have been vindicated. Such DCMs as Kalshi and Polymarket may list for trading new contracts by self-certifying with the CFTC that the new contract complies with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). Although the CFTC previously declined to take an official position on the permissibility of such self-certifications,7 Chairman Selig’s new agenda suggests that the CFTC is now prepared to do so. That shift comes at a consequential moment: Even before the inauguration, prediction markets had begun offering contracts that increasingly tested the limits of CFTC Rule 40.11’s prohibition on gaming event contracts. And while it remains unsettled whether that regulation prohibits such contracts, it is now settled that the CFTC will not devote its limited resources to taking down sports prediction markets based solely on the subject matter of their contracts.
Second, litigation over prediction markets will continue — and perhaps intensify. Chairman Selig’s statements are likely to embolden both prediction markets to continue investing in the space and state gaming regulators to pursue regulatory action. And the anticipated rulemaking itself may draw legal challenges, regardless of its content.
Third, pending or forthcoming legal challenges will likely demonstrate the seismic shift in administrative law from Chevron to Loper Bright. The CEA’s use of the undefined term “gaming” is sufficiently broad to have granted regulators discretion to adopt broad or narrow definitions, creating the possibility that the CFTC’s interpretation could have vacillated wildly from administration to administration. Under Loper Bright, however, courts will now endeavor to identify the definition of “gaming” rather than the range of reasonable definitions.
Statutory Constraints on the New CFTC’s Agenda: Dodd-Frank as Gatekeeper
Although the CFTC signaled a more permissive approach to prediction markets, its discretion remains bounded by the CEA as amended by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Section 5c(c)(5)(C) of the CEA expressly authorizes the Commission to prohibit event contracts that involve enumerated activities — such as “gaming” — or that are deemed contrary to the public interest.8 So even if the CFTC promulgates a new rule or amends Rule 40.11(a), it will still need to reckon with its statutory mandate under the CEA and comply with the definition of “excluded commodity” under the CEA.9 As a result, any new rulemaking or revision must operate within statutory constraints and will require the CFTC to interpret — not rewrite — the governing provisions of the CEA, a task that will now receive heightened judicial scrutiny in the post–Loper Bright era.
Looking Ahead
Chairman Selig’s remarks mark the most definitive signal yet that prediction markets have moved to the forefront of the CFTC’s regulatory agenda. The rulemaking to follow will draw close attention from market participants, investors, and regulators alike, and any final rule is expected to prompt further litigation. Firms offering, developing, or considering trading event contracts should prepare for increased engagement with the CFTC through comment letters, compliance planning, and strategic regulatory analysis.
Now, as the CFTC looks poised to grant enhanced regulatory legitimacy on sports event contracts and prediction markets more broadly, such a permissive signal has not eliminated state-level resistance, particularly where prediction markets are perceived to encroach on traditional gambling regulation. Days after Chairman Selig’s remarks, and just a few days before the Super Bowl, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a pointed warning to New Yorkers: “Be careful about placing trades on prediction markets.”10 In doing so, she cautioned that such markets “do not have the same consumer protections as regulated platforms.”11 In her view, prediction markets platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket “are bets ‘masquerading’ as event contracts,” with the former regulated by state gaming and wagering laws while the latter by the CFTC.12 This warning came on the heels of AG James’s office issuing a cease-and-desist order to Kalshi, alleging that the company’s sports event contracts violated New York’s gambling law.
In parallel, federal prosecutors have issued a warning. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, recently stated that his office is actively evaluating how existing fraud statutes apply to prediction markets and expects prosecutions where participants exploit them.13 He emphasized that the prediction-market label does not insulate conduct from criminal liability, including conspiracies to manipulate underlying events.14
Finally, while the CFTC has adopted a new approach to prediction markets, the Commission’s evolving posture should not be understood as a wholesale retreat from enforcement. Even as regulatory focus centers on the permissibility of event contracts themselves, significant questions remain regarding insider trading and the misappropriation of material nonpublic information in prediction markets — especially when the conduct takes place outside the United States, by a non-U.S. citizen, on a non-U.S. platform such as Polymarket. Under CFTC guidance, an entity will generally be considered a “non-U.S. person” if it was formed outside the United States and its officers direct, control, and coordinate the firm’s activities from outside the United States.15 Although classification as a non-U.S. person has important regulatory ramifications for an entity, recent enforcement actions underscore that cross-border structuring alone is not a safe harbor; U.S. regulators may assert jurisdiction over and prosecute non-U.S. persons or entities if the trading activity has a connection to U.S. commerce.16
1Michael S. Selig, The Next Phase of Project Crypto: Unleashing Innovation for the New Frontier of Finance, Remarks of Chairman Michael S. Selig at CFTC-SEC Event on Harmonization (Jan. 29, 2026), CFTC (speech), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opaselig1.
2See 17 CFR § 38.200.
3See Michael S. Selig, The Next Phase of Project Crypto: Unleashing Innovation for the New Frontier of Finance, Remarks of Chairman Michael S. Selig at CFTC-SEC Event on Harmonization (Jan. 29, 2026), CFTC (speech), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opaselig1; see also 89 Fed. Reg. 48968 (June 10, 2024), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/06/10/2024-12125/event-contracts.
4See U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, CFTC Staff Advisory Letter – Withdrawal, No. 26-04 (Feb. 4, 2026). The CFTC was unable to finalize the 2024 proposed rule before the transition, and the proposal has now reached a predictable dead end. In remarks delivered at the Joint SEC-CFTC Harmonization Event, Chairman Selig announced that the Commission will not proceed with the 2024 proposal, signaling a recalibration of priorities in the prediction markets space. This shift appears to reflect concerns that the 2024 proposal (1) clashed head-on with constitutional principles; (2) adopted a broad definition of “gaming”; (3) categorically classified event contracts as contrary to the public interest, regardless of their specific terms and conditions; (4) relied on an antiquated “economic purpose test”; and (5) reflected a misunderstanding of the distinction between federal derivatives regulation and state gaming regulation.
5See U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, CFTC Staff Advisory Letter No. 25-36 (Sept. 30, 2025).
6Several recent cases highlight the divergent approaches emerging in different jurisdictions.
7See U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, CFTC Staff Advisory Letter No. 25-36 (Sept. 30, 2025).
8See 7 U.S.C. § 7a-2(c)(5)(A).
9See 7 U.S.C. § 1a(19)(iv), 7a-2(c)(5)(A).
10CNBC, New York Attorney General Warns Against Prediction Market Trades Ahead of Super Bowl (Feb. 2, 2026), https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/02/new-york-ag-prediction-markets-super-bowl-warning.html.
11Id. CFTC-regulated markets have extensive customer protections, including segregation of customer funds and limitations on permitted depositories for such funds.
12Id.
13Jessica Corso, SDNY Chief Says Office Has Eye on Prediction Markets, Law360 (Feb 6, 2026), https://www.law360.com/sports-and-betting/articles/2438607?nl_pk=66c6660d-02d0-4c8d-88b7-e422aeb64d17&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sports-and-betting&utm_content=2026-02-06&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=0.
14Id.
15“[P]rincipal place of business means the location from which the officers, partners, or managers of the legal person primarily direct, control, and coordinate the activities of the legal person.” Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n, CFTC Letter No. 25-14, Staff Interpretation Regarding Certain Cross-Border Definitions (May 21, 2025).
16See Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Charges Commodity Pool Operators and Their Co-Chief Investment Officer with Deception and Manipulation in Connection with Swaps and Supervision Failures, CFTC Release No. 8640-22 (Dec. 15, 2022), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8640-22 (announcing charges against Neil Phillips, a resident of the United Kingdom, “with engaging in a deceptive and manipulative scheme to illegally trigger payouts on two large binary option contracts”); see also Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Charges Binance and Its Founder, Changpeng Zhao, with Willful Evasion of Federal Law and Operating an Illegal Digital Asset Derivatives Exchange, CFTC Release No. 8680-23 (March 27, 2023), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8680-23 (announcing “a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois charging Changpeng Zhao and three entities that operate the Binance platform with numerous violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations”); see also Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Issues Order Against Crypto Prime Brokerage Firm for Unlawfully Providing U.S. Customers Access to Digital Asset Derivatives Trading Platforms, CFTC Release No. 8909-24 (May 13, 2024), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8909-24 (describing the “filing and settling charges against Falcon Labs, Ltd., an entity organized under the laws of the Seychelles, for failing to register with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant”).
Basel, February 6, 2026 – Novartis today broke ground on a new, state-of-the-art global Biomedical Research center in San Diego, California, designed to provide world-class scientific infrastructure and drug-discovery capabilities to advance the company’s pipeline for patients.
Once operational in 2029, the approximately 466,000-square-foot facility is expected to house about 1,000 Novartis employees and integrate seamlessly with Novartis global research sites including Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Basel, Switzerland, enabling integrated discovery efforts across regions.
“This new research center will strengthen our scientific leadership and accelerate the discovery of transformative medicines for patients worldwide, while deepening our connectivity with biotech, academic and technology partners across the region,” said Fiona Marshall, President of Biomedical Research at Novartis. “Designed to power future drug discovery, with a focus on genetics and human biology in key therapeutic areas such as neuroscience and oncology, it will create a single Novartis research center within one of the world’s premier life sciences ecosystems—accelerating our pipeline from discovery to patients.”
Government leaders and community partners joined Novartis employees in San Diego to mark the start of construction at the groundbreaking ceremony.
“This investment by Novartis reinforces San Diego as a place where breakthrough science happens and where innovation translates into high-quality jobs and life-changing medicines,” said Todd Gloria, San Diego Mayor. “San Diego is a global leader in life sciences because we bring together world-class talent, cutting-edge research and a collaborative ecosystem that turns discovery into impact. We’re proud to welcome this new research center and to continue building an economy rooted in innovation and results.”
The new facility builds on more than 25 years of Novartis research and development in San Diego and will support end-to-end drug discovery across core disease areas, including neuroscience, global health, oncology and age-related diseases and regenerative medicine. It will also expand the company’s capabilities in next-generation technology platforms, such as gene and cell therapies, RNA-based therapies, biologics and targeted protein degradation, and will advance novel delivery systems that open new therapeutic possibilities.
“Rooted in a strong legacy of innovation in San Diego and California, we are inspired to shape the future—driving new breakthroughs that will transform care for millions of patients worldwide,” said Thierry Diagana, California Sites Head and Global Head of Global Health, Biomedical Research, Novartis.
With advanced artificial intelligence, data and computational capabilities embedded throughout, the facility will be a key part of the global Novartis Biomedical Research network, helping share insights, scale innovation, and deliver meaningful breakthroughs for patients worldwide.
The San Diego research facility is a key pillar of the company’s USD 23 billion US investment. This includes a new flagship manufacturing hub in North Carolina; the opening of a radioligand therapy (RLT) manufacturing facility in Carlsbad, California; investments to expand existing facilities in Indiana and New Jersey; and plans to build new RLT manufacturing facilities in Florida and Texas.
Disclaimer
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as “potential,” “can,” “will,” “plan,” “may,” “could,” “would,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “look forward,” “believe,” “committed,” “investigational,” “pipeline,” “launch,” or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the investigational or approved products described in this press release; or regarding potential future revenues from such products; or regarding discussions of strategy, plans, expectations or intentions, including discussions regarding our continued investment into new US R&D or manufacturing capabilities. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the investigational or approved products described in this press release will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that such products will be commercially successful in the future. Neither can there be any guarantee that the expected benefits from the plans and investments described in this press release will be achieved in the expected timeframe, or at all. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures and requirements for increased pricing transparency; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general political, economic and business conditions, including the effects of and efforts to mitigate pandemic diseases; safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG’s current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
About Novartis
Novartis is an innovative medicines company. Every day, we work to reimagine medicine to improve and extend people’s lives so that patients, healthcare professionals and societies are empowered in the face of serious disease. Our medicines reach more than 300 million people worldwide.
Reimagine medicine with us: Visit us at https://www.novartis.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, X/Twitter and Instagram.
# # #
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and OCP Group, a global leader in plant nutrition solutions, have launched a five-year strategic partnership to accelerate scientific innovation for sustainable agriculture and resilient food systems. This collaboration will directly support the Atoms4Food initiative.
Under the agreement, the IAEA and OCP Group will launch a coordinated research project (CRP) applying nuclear and isotopic techniques to improve fertilizer efficiency, enhance crop nutritional quality and reinforce the sustainability of food systems. The project is designed to deliver practical, on‑the‑ground benefits for farmers, particularly in regions facing acute food security challenges.
“This partnership with OCP represents an important advancement in how strategic collaboration can amplify the impact of our Atoms4Food initiative”, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated. “OCP’s significant commitment and on-the-ground expertise, combined with the IAEA’s unique expertise in nuclear techniques, will translate advanced science into practical solutions for farmers. Together, we will generate the evidence and tools needed to use fertilizers more efficiently, cultivate more nutritious crops and strengthen climate-resilient food systems, particularly in the regions that need them most.”
Research will focus on optimizing the management of key macronutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as essential micronutrients including zinc, iron and selenium. Using isotopic techniques, the project will generate robust data to support the “4Rs” of nutrient stewardship – using the right source, at the right rate, at the right time and in the right place – providing farmers with actionable, evidence-based guidance.
“This collaboration marks a strategic milestone for OCP Group and a major step forward in our mission to strengthen global food security”, stated Meriem El Asraoui, Chief Global Affairs Officer of OCP Group. “By combining the IAEA’s world-class expertise with OCP Group’s deep experience and groundbreaking innovations in plant and soil nutrition, we will generate transformative knowledge, support researchers and farmers on the ground and advance agricultural practices that deliver higher yields, better nutrition and long‑term environmental stewardship.”
Benefits for IAEA Member States
This partnership will generate high-quality data to inform public policy, guide fertilizer innovation and support the transition to climate- and nature-positive agriculture. It will also reinforce scientific cooperation between Africa, the IAEA and global research networks, helping countries adopt nutrient stewardship best practices that improve soil health and crop yields at scale, directly contributing to global food security.
About the IAEA and Atoms4Food
The IAEA serves as the world’s foremost intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Established as an autonomous organization under the United Nations (UN) in 1957, the IAEA carries out programmes to maximize the useful contribution of nuclear technology to society while verifying its peaceful use.
The Atoms4Food initiative, jointly launched by the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in 2023, helps countries boost food security and to tackle growing hunger. The initiative seeks to provide countries with ground-breaking solutions tailored to their specific needs and circumstances by harnessing the advantages of nuclear techniques along with other advanced technologies to enhance agricultural and livestock productivity and natural resources management, reduce food losses, ensure food safety, improve nutrition and adapt to the challenges of climate change.
For more information, visit www.iaea.org.
To keep abreast of the IAEA’s latest developments, follow the IAEA on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and Weibo.
About OCP Group
OCP Group is the trusted custodian of one of the most vital natural resources – phosphate – and a global leader in plant nutrition and phosphate-based solutions. Founded in 1920, headquartered in Morocco and anchored in Africa, the Group operates globally with more than 17,000 employees and over 350 customers across five continents.
We harness the full potential of phosphate to produce customized fertilizers, and deploy competitive industrial products and solutions, transforming a natural resource into a source of economic and strategic value.
Our US$13 billion Investment Plan (2023-2027) is designed to help us produce cost-competitive, low carbon electricity, water, ammonia and hydrogen to power our operations, while advancing our ambition to spearhead a decarbonized and circular industrial model.
The Group’s innovation ecosystem – catalyzed by UM6P and INNOVX – drives cutting-edge research, talent development and industrial ventures across Africa and beyond. Our strategic entities, OCP Nutricrops and OCP SPS (Specialty Products & Solutions), and our strategic business unit, Rock Solutions, maximize the value of Morocco’s phosphate reserves while creating shared prosperity.
By bringing phosphorus to life, OCP Group is turning custodianship into a model of competitive and sustainable industrial transformation – delivering resilient growth for Morocco, Africa and the world.
For more news and information: www.ocpgroup.ma
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the most common cause of death worldwide []. In Malaysia [], NCDs particularly impact lower-income households []. Therefore, health surveillance in this population is required to better understand policy interventions that may improve health outcomes in Malaysia. Dietary risk factors accounted for 10% of all deaths globally in 2021 []; therefore, measuring eating is a crucial component of health surveillance. Traditional methods for measuring eating and dietary intake include food diaries, 24-hour recalls, diet histories, or food frequency questionnaires. While methods relying on memory of past behavior are subject to error like recall bias, prospective methods like diaries are affected by reactivity, where real or reported behavior is altered owing to the process of documenting food intake in real time. Underreporting is common in all existing methods, with an estimated 263 kcal per day typically missing from self-reported intakes compared with objective measures []. Underreporting varies with food type and eating occasion, with snacks and snack foods more likely to be left out of a self-reported record [-]. Online tool, such as Intake24 (Newcastle University), that guide users through a 24-hour recall process aim to reduce researcher burden in coding data collected. Photographic methods, where participants are asked to take pictures of their meals rather than write down each food and drink along with its portion size, aim to offer a more objective approach to add portion size estimation and reduced participant burden for capturing real-time food intake [-]. However, moving 24-hour recall online has not yet altered estimated underreporting [,], and issues with remembering to take photos before consuming foods as well as automating the estimation of foods and nutrients [] in photos mean that outstanding challenges in dietary assessment methods remain []. Therefore, the feasibility of using alternative methods needs to be considered.
Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is the repeated sampling of current behaviors in real-time in a natural environment []. EMA has evolved to be primarily delivered using mobile phones (mEMA), which have improved response rates compared with original pen and paper methods [-]. There is a large volume of literature on EMA using smartphones (n=796 studies) []. While diet is the second most commonly studied topic, it still only accounts for 4% (35/796) of these studies. Studies of diet using EMA in young people are primarily in the United States and Europe, with just 2 studies in Asia, in China, and Taiwan [,].
Liao [] highlighted that response rates and compliance with EMA protocols were rarely reported. Since then, reporting of compliance has improved, but the response latency remains unknown from many studies []. Response rates to mEMA of diet are a median of 74% [], which is similar to mEMA of all topics (mean 75% (IQR 64%-84%) []. A review of mEMA for diet in young people (16-30 years) showed response rates mostly exceeded 80% [], whereas at younger ages poorer responses <80% are more often observed []. Lower response rates have also been associated with weekends versus weekdays [], when participants receive more prompts during the day [,], and in males versus females [].
Smartwatches are an emerging technology for collecting data alongside sensor data using micro-EMA (μEMA) protocols. This captures information using single-tap responses to brief questions, which is suitable for the small screens on these devices [,]. In adults, μEMA has been found to yield higher compliance rates despite more frequent sampling than mEMA and is perceived by users as less distracting []. Further, the use of μEMA significantly improves response rate (mean 72% vs 82%) but remains rare, with only 12 studies on any topic in any age group []. Despite these advantages, some limitations of μEMA have been reported in the literature, including limited battery life and technical problems such as problems with charging [].
In children and adolescents, the use of pen and paper EMA to measure diet has typically been implemented outside of school hours []. Internet-connected devices such as mobile phones are often used for mEMA data collection []. These may be less suitable for child and adolescent populations, where 40% of education systems now ban the use of smartphones in school []. Further, devices such as smartwatches that can function without an internet connection may be better suited to rural, semirural, and low-resource settings where communication infrastructure may be less well-developed []. Therefore, smartwatches offer the potential to implement EMA across the whole day, with the potential for additional advantages such as improved compliance and response rates [,]. To our knowledge, only two diet studies involving adults in the United Kingdom and the United States have reported on EMA with smartwatches, and none have involved children [,,].
Therefore, this study investigates the feasibility of using smartwatch-based μEMA to record eating patterns in Malaysian children and adolescents. The collected μEMA data are used to examine the completeness of the collected data and factors associated with response rates, alongside survey responses assessing participants’ experience during the study. Establishing the feasibility of this novel dietary measurement tool is an important first step to inform utility and any required refinement prior to deployment for dietary measurement more widely.
The South-East Asian Community Observatory (SEACO) health and demographic surveillance cohort is a dynamic cohort of 13,335 households in Segamat, a semirural region in the state of Johor Darul Takzim, Malaysia. The cohort was established in 2012, with surveys, blood tests, and physical measurement data collected from participants. In 2013 and 2018, health surveys were conducted on ~25,000 adults and children, 25,168 in 2013 and 24,710 in 2018.
All households (18,602) in 5 subdistricts, which SEACO operates, were invited to participate in the 2017 census. Altogether 11,617 households (40,184 residents) accepted our invitation. In 2018, participants who were involved in the 2017 census and were older than 5 years were invited to participate in the 2018 health round data survey, to which a total of 24,710 participants agreed. Potential participants from 3 subdistricts were preselected and approached via telephone using the existing health database (HR 2028). Participants’ parents were approached via telephone for recruitment before the home visit.
Children and adolescents aged 7-18 years who were part of the SEACO cohort were invited to participate in the SEACO Child Health 2020 update (SEACO-CH20) study; a systematic review of EMA studies in youth recommended 7 as a lower age limit for EMA []. The eligibility of households was limited by location due to the safety measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the risk to participants, households, and fieldworkers. Therefore, the 1993 children and adolescents invited to participate were from only 3 of the 5 SEACO subdistricts (Jabi, Sungai Segamat, and Gemereh) in the Segamat district.
Data collection visits to individual households were performed in person from November 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022. The data were collected as part of a larger study and included surveys, physical measurements, such as height, weight, blood pressure, waist and hip circumference, and blood sample collection. Participants were given wrist-worn Axivity AX6 6-axis accelerometers to monitor their physical activity, which were worn 24 hours per day over 7 days []. A random subset of the participants were also given TicWatch C2 (Mobvo) Android smartwatches to record eating and drinking with μEMA as part of this feasibility study, using a smartwatch μEMA system developed within the research team. The smartwatch system used was an adaptation of a µEMA system first used in a study involving high-temporal density longitudinal measurement of alcohol use [] by a subset of the research team who developed this system. Participants wore these devices over the same 7-day period as the accelerometers. As they are both wrist-worn devices, this may have affected the acceptability of the smartwatch. Participants were briefed on the use of these devices by the data collectors, including how to charge them and how to replace them after charging. The original data collection plan can be seen in Figure S1 in . A completed Checklist for Reporting Ecological Momentary Assessment Studies (CREMAS) [] can be found in .
Participants for the SEACO-CH20 study were selected from the larger SEACO cohort. Parents of participants provided consent for their children to participate in SEACO-CH20. A random subsample of 100 participants were each invited to wear a smartwatch.
SEACO-CH20 fieldworkers performed 2 home visits to collect the data. The smartwatch was distributed on the initial visit, and the participants were briefed on how to use and charge it. They were instructed to wear the device for the next 8 days, on “the wrist that [they] use to write.” The smartwatches were collected during the second home visit, and the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on their experience with the devices. Questionnaires assessed the participants’ attitudes toward several aspects of the smartwatch study, including ease of use, their attitude toward charging, and their overall experience. Since children as young as 10 were asked to complete the questionnaires, a reduced set of acceptance questions was used to reduce burden. This was based on similar pilot work using novel methods in the ALSPAC G2 study [] and included the following questions:
Parents of participants aged 7-9 years completed the survey on behalf of their children, while participants aged 10 years and older filled out the survey themselves. The full text of the survey can be found in Figure S2 in .
During the study, the smartwatch prompted participants once every hour to enter any food or drink that they had consumed in the last hour. These prompts were scheduled to appear once every hour from 9 AM to 8 PM, so participants were expected to interact with the smartwatch 12 times throughout the day. We chose this hourly prompt frequency to maximize the chance that eating and drinking events were less likely to be missed and to capture more fine-grained temporal patterns in eating behavior. As this was a feasibility study, this choice was justified, given that μEMA has been shown to improve compliance despite more prompts than mEMA in adults []. The smartwatch interface included the following 5 questions that the participants completed for each item consumed:
A possible future use of this methodology, once fully refined, could include automated eating detection []. Therefore, we included a question on the type of cutlery used (“What did you use to eat?”), as lack of information on utensil type has been highlighted as a limitation of some datasets used for algorithm development related to automated eating detection [].
After entering this information for one item consumed, they were asked, “Any more food or drink to record?” and could then start again to add another entry. Therefore, each consumption entry either indicates that the participant did not eat or drink in the last hour or contains the answers to the above questions for a particular meal, drink, or snack, linked to an hour period within a day. If participants ignored the prompts, they would receive a reminder prompt after 1 minute; if they continued to ignore the prompt for a further 1 minute, the prompt would disappear and “no response” would be recorded by the smartwatch.
Participants could choose “back” on each question screen to return to a previous question and update their response. However, after submitting their answers for a particular item (ie, completing the “where were you” question for that item), they would not be able to return to that entry.
An additional prompt (the “catch-up”) was scheduled every morning at 8 AM asking if they had consumed any food or drink on the previous day that had not been recorded on the smartwatch. If they indicated “yes,” they were asked the same questions as above. Catch-up entries did not have an associated eating time but were labeled as catch-up–type events, indicating that they applied to the previous day.
The smartwatch study was co-created and piloted with the Malaysian research team and the English was translated into Malay for use on the smartwatch. All the original data collection was in Malay. The smartwatch protocol, including the prompts and possible responses, can be seen in Tables S1-S3 in .
Smartwatches were distributed by fieldworkers partway through the day, and μEMA responses on this distribution day were removed from analyses. The study period is taken to be the subsequent 7 days after this distribution day.
The version of the EMA software we used did not save the hour period to which each entry belonged. Therefore, we needed to infer this from the submission timestamp, the date and time a particular entry was submitted. As entries for the same hour period are submitted one after the other, we used a time window to group nearby entries into a single “eating event,” which is intended to capture the participants’ responses to one prompt. A 30-minute window was chosen to group nearby prompts, as we expect this to collect entries from the same eating event without grouping prompts from adjacent hours. Previous work from diet diaries suggests that 30 minutes is a reasonable cut-point to distinguish independent eating occasions []. Occasionally, there may be participants with more than 12 eating events per day, for example, if they took more than 30 minutes to finish responding to a prompt. This occurred on 26 occasions, less than 5% of the total 574 (82 participants multiplied by 7 days) study days.
The μEMA data used was restricted to the 7 days after the distribution day. During the data review, we identified an issue with the collected data where there were sometimes multiple identical entries for a given intake event due to an issue with the μEMA software. Therefore, duplicate entries were identified as any pair of entries with identical contents (same meal type, portion size, utensil, and location), for the same hour period, and entered within 5 minutes of each other. The first such entry was kept in each case. Around 588 duplicate responses were removed of 10,539. Data cleaning was performed in Python (version 3.10.0; Python Software Foundation).
The response rate was calculated as the proportion of prompts responded to (with either at least one item consumed or an entry stating that they did not eat or drink anything in the previous hour). The response rate tells us the extent that participants engaged with the smartwatch app throughout the day but not the extent that the data entered are complete, that is, whether all intake events were recorded. We therefore summarized the number of each type of meal entry (meal, drink, snack, or no food or drink) submitted per day across our sample. For these summaries we included only participants who took part in the study outside the Ramadan fasting period (April 3, 2022-May 1, 2022; n=67), since fasting participants are likely to enter fewer eating events during the day. The mean of participants’ response rates per day was recorded, and the median and quartiles of these were reported.
Attrition from the study was examined by identifying the last day each participant responded to any smartwatch prompt; participants who had ceased responding to the prompts are referred to as “inactive.”
We summarized response rates to each individual prompt of the smartwatch μEMA and the participants’ experiences based on the survey questions. We used mean for continuous variables, n (%) for categorical variables, and median and IQR for ordinal or nonnormally distributed continuous variables.
We used a mixed-effect logistic regression model for the response (yes or no) to an individual prompt on a specific study day of data collection for each participant. A fixed effect term was included for study day (from the first to the seventh day) as a continuous linear trend. The time of day was also included as a fixed effect to capture nonlinearity in response throughout the day, grouping the prompts by the nearest hour as follows to decrease the number of parameters in the model:
Random intercept and random slope terms were included for study day within each participant. Estimates are provided as odds ratios (OR) and 95% CIs, interpreted as the multiplicative change in the odds of a participant responding to an individual prompt. The degree of difference between participants was summarized in the intraclass correlation coefficient.
To evaluate if changes in participation across wear days differed in boys versus girls, we repeated this base model, adding a fixed term for sex and an interaction term between sex and study day. Similarly, we explored differences by age group (Malaysian primary school age: 7-12 years versus secondary school age: 13-18 years) by adding a fixed term for age group and an interaction term between age group and study day to the base model.
Analyses were performed in Python version 3.10.0 and R (version 4.2.2; R Core Team) []. All of our analysis code is publicly available []. Git tag 3.0 (The Git Project) corresponds to the version of the analyses presented here.
Written informed consent was obtained from parents or guardians on behalf of the participants. Children and adolescents were also asked to provide their written assent to participate in the study. Ethical approval was obtained from the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee on March 17, 2020 (Project ID: 23271) and the University of Bristol REC Case no. 2020–4208 (ID nr: 1304255) prior to any data collection. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki for experiments involving humans.
Participants were given a token worth up to RM25 to compensate for their time participating in the study. This was divided into RM5 for completion of each of the following components: (1) questionnaires, (2) health check, (3) blood sample, (4) activity monitor, and (5) smartwatch. They were also given a free health screen and a direct referral to the government primary health care clinic if they were identified as high risk.
Study data have been deidentified and can be freely requested from SEACO, Monash University Malaysia Institutional Data Access at “mum.seaco@monash.edu” for researchers meeting the criteria for access to confidential data. Please refer to the web resource hosted on Monash University’s website [] for more information.
A flowchart showing the study participants can be seen in . Parents of 728 participants consented to their children’s participation in SEACO-CH20, of which 626 provided demographic (age, sex, and ethnicity) and accelerometer data for the larger study. Of these, 100 participants were randomly invited to wear a smartwatch for this smaller feasibility study. Of the 100 participants invited to participate in the smartwatch substudy, 83 participants agreed. The reasons for nonparticipation included concern the device was not comfortable (n=3) and allergies (n=2). The remaining participants rejected the smartwatch without comment. One further participant accepted the smartwatch study but removed the EMA app from the watch during the study period, rendering their data unrecoverable, resulting in 82 participants who provided smartwatch data.
The sex, ethnicity, and age breakdown for all participants who took part in the smartwatch study can be seen in .
| Participant characteristic | Smartwatch participants, n (%) | ||
| Sex | |||
| Female | 53 (64) | ||
| Male | 30 (36) | ||
| Ethnicity | |||
| Malay | 73 (88) | ||
| Non-Malay | 10 (12) | ||
| Age (years) | |||
| 7-12 | 24 (29) | ||
| 13-15 | 28 (34) | ||
| 16-18 | 31 (37) | ||
The median prompt response rate was 69% (IQR 52%-82%).
The number of participants who became inactive on each day can be seen in . The majority (55/82, 67%) of participants were active until day 7, that is, they responded to at least 1 prompt on day 7.
The median and IQR in the number of entries of each type made by each participant per day are summarized in . Fifteen participants took part (at least partially) during Ramadan and so were excluded from these summaries. Only a minority of intake events were submitted as catch-up entries (N=125 catch-up entries versus 4705 noncatch-up).
| Study day | Meal, median (IQR) | Drink, median (IQR) | Snack, median (IQR) |
| 1 | 2 (2-4) | 3 (1-5) | 1 (0-2) |
| 2 | 2 (1-3) | 2 (1-5) | 1 (0-2) |
| 3 | 2 (1-3) | 2 (0-3) | 0 (0-1) |
| 4 | 2 (1-3) | 1 (0-3) | 1 (0-1) |
| 5 | 1 (0-2) | 1 (0-3) | 0 (0-1) |
| 6 | 1 (0-2) | 1 (0-2) | 0 (0-1) |
| 7 | 1 (0-2) | 0 (0-2) | 0 (0-1) |
The response rate for individual prompts had a median (IQR) of 67% (50-83). The response rate on each day ranged from 83% (66-92) on day 1 to 58% (33-75) on day 7.
shows the response rate with study day and time. The response rate decreased across study days (OR for each additional day of the study: 0.73 (95% CI 0.64-0.83). The response rate was lowest at the beginning of the day; the OR and 95% CIs are summarized in . The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.207, which indicates that approximately 21% of the total variance in prompt response behavior was attributable to between-participant differences.
| Time | Odds ratio (95% CI) |
| Breakfast (9-11 AM) | 1a (0-0) |
| Lunchtime (12-2 PM) | 1.69 (1.43-2.12) |
| Afternoon (3-5 PM) | 1.49 (1.25-1.76) |
| Evening (6-8 PM) | 1.27 (1.07-1.51) |
aReference level.
The results of analyses estimating differences due to sex and age are shown in . Girls responded more often to the μEMA prompts compared with boys (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.03-2.84). However, the daily patterns were similar for both sexes (interaction term OR 1.07, 95% CI 0.93-1.23). Response rate did not differ between age groups (OR 0.73, 95% CI 0.42-1.27), and daily response patterns were similar for the 2 age groups (study day-by-age interaction OR 1.11, 95% CI 0.95-1.29).
A summary of responses to questions about smartwatch acceptability and wear time is provided in .
A total of 54 out of 83 (65%) participants rated their experience using the smartwatch positively (a rating of 4 or 5 out of 5), 20 out of 83 (24%) gave a neutral rating (3 out of 5), and 8 out of 83 (10%) rated it negatively (1 or 2 out of 5). In addition, 27 out of 83 (33%) participants said that they would be happy to participate in future studies using the smartwatch, while 39 out of 83 (47%) said maybe, and 12 out of 83 (14%) said no. The majority of participants who responded (61/83, 73.5%) reported wearing the smartwatch for the entire duration of the study (8 days).
| Question and response | Participants, n (%) | ||
| Overall, how would you rate your experience of using the smartwatch during the study, on a scale from 1 (didn’t like it at all) to 5 (really liked it)? | |||
| Negative (1 or 2) | 8 (10) | ||
| Neutral (3) | 20 (24) | ||
| Positive (4 or 5) | 54 (65) | ||
| If you were asked to use the smartwatch again in another study, would you participate? | |||
| No | 12 (14) | ||
| Maybe | 39 (47) | ||
| Yes | 27 (33) | ||
| How many days in total did you wear the smartwatch for? | |||
| 5 or fewer | 7 (9) | ||
| 6 | 7 (8) | ||
| 7 | 8 (10) | ||
| 8 | 61 (73) | ||
For those who reported that they did not wear the smartwatch for the entire duration of the study (22 participants), the most common reason was that they did not find it comfortable to wear (9/22, 41%). Other reasons included forgetting, that they did not see the benefit when they could not see the data, they were forbidden to wear it by school, and it ran out of battery (all 3 or fewer responses).
Summaries of the participants’ responses to the remaining survey questions can be found in Tables S4-S8 and Figure S3 in . Further summary statistics, including catch-up events and participants who took part during Ramadan, can be found in Tables S9-S11 in .
In this feasibility study of a smartwatch-based μEMA method to collect data on eating habits over 7 days in Malaysian children, we found that most participants (55/83, 67%) remained responsive to prompts up to the last day of the study. Participants were least likely to respond to prompts between 9 and 11 AM and most likely between 12 and 2 PM. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 20.7%, suggesting that while some variation in response pattern is attributable to between-participant differences, the majority of the variation (79.3%) was due to within-participant differences. The response rate dropped off day-on-day and was higher for female than male participants; no association was found between participant age group and response rate.
Our average response rate of 69% was lower than the average of 78% found in a meta-analysis of EMA in children and adolescents, including studies that prompted between 2 and 9 times daily []. That study found that prompting participants more often had a large negative effect on completion rate, which is further supported by Kraft et al [], which found a negative correlation of –0.12 between increased number of prompts and response rate (P=.009). Participants in our study were prompted 12 times a day, plus an additional catch-up prompt in the morning. We justified our original prompt frequency choice, as μEMA has been shown in adults to improve compliance despite a higher number of prompts than mEMA. However, in our study using a child and adolescent population, it is likely a higher prompt frequency may have had a negative effect on response rate, especially in the case of repeated “No food/drink” entries. It has been reported [] in nonclinical studies that “a higher average compliance rate was observed in studies that prompted participants 2-3 times daily (91.7%) compared with those that prompted participants more frequently (4-5 times: 77.4%; 6+ times: 75.0%).” This suggests that compliance may be improved by prompting participants less frequently, for example, by having 3 prompts daily at 11 AM, 3 PM, and 7 PM, although longer time intervals increase the reliance on memory, potentially affecting the completeness of recorded consumption events. It is also possible that our lower response rate might have been related to the number of questions asked in our μEMA protocol. A study that compared the deployment of 6 back-to-back multiple-choice questions delivered via a smartwatch versus a mobile phone found no difference in compliance between these 2 modalities. However, compliance was improved when single questions requiring a one-touch response were asked via a smartwatch, despite an increase in prompt frequency []. While on average, the participants (65%) rated the study protocol positively (either 4 or 5 out of 5), the response rate fell day-on-day. Participants were less likely to respond to prompts at the beginning or end of the day, compared with the middle of the day. Focus group or interview discussions were not feasible in this study due to COVID-19 restrictions but should be explored in future studies to determine the reasons for missing event prompts and nonresponses, which may include forgetting or being involved in a competing activity when the prompt is sent [].
Female participants had a higher response rate than male participants, consistent with previous findings [,]. There was little evidence of difference in the relationship between response and study day for male versus female participants. An analysis of the SEACO-CH20 accelerometer dataset [] found that a similar proportion of males and females had usable accelerometer data, suggesting that this was specific to the smartwatches rather than a difference with wrist-worn devices generally. Little evidence of a difference was found between response rates in the 7-12 years old and 13-18 years old age groups.
Although the subjective indicators suggested that most participants enjoyed wearing the smartwatch, only a minority of participants (27/83, 33%) indicated that they would be willing to participate in a similar study again; 39 out of 83 (47%) responded “Maybe.” Potential changes to the protocol that may improve compliance could include only wearing the smartwatch instead of both the smartwatch and accelerometer.
This is the first study exploring the feasibility of using smartwatch-based EMA in a population of children and adolescents from a low-to-middle-income country. This study was part of the SEACO study, using the SEACO-CH20 dataset, and lays the foundation for an improved understanding of the potential for wearable devices for measuring relationships between eating and cardiometabolic health. Data on 24-hour eating behaviors are important for informing future policy that may reduce cardiometabolic risk among children and adolescents and prevent progression to cardiometabolic disease in adulthood. While a food frequency questionnaire was completed as part of the larger SEACO-CH20 study and reported elsewhere [], this current study has assessed an alternative for recording behavior in real time.
However, this study did have some limitations. The number of questions in prompts may have affected compliance and should be discussed with participants to optimize the protocol for future studies in this population. It has been suggested [] that compliance can be improved by incentivizing participants with a monetary reward or raffle entries. Since this study concerns young people, one potential incentive method could be to gamify the EMA process using a level-up or promotion system in the app []. Previous studies have explored adding an end-of-day catch-up prompt, which has been found to improve the reporting of dinner []. Replacing the morning catch-up prompt with one in the evening may improve response rate, especially given that we found that participants were more likely to respond to prompts in the evening than in the morning. Future studies may additionally consider using the catch-up entries to impute missed entries on the previous day, which could give more complete data. Another suggestion could be to incorporate a short period of training to improve response rates, where responses are monitored in real time by researchers and participants are prompted directly by researchers if missing responses are common. Such an approach has been used to improve the accuracy of real-time food photography methods [].
The questionnaires used for acceptability and acceptance were not standard because we were motivated to use a reduced set of questions (that have been used in a previous publication []) to reduce the burden on the young participants. Future studies should consider if the emerging, more standard approaches to exploring acceptability and acceptance for wearable devices (eg, those based on Technology Acceptance Models) have been developed to the point at which varying levels of participant burden can be accommodated.
Unbalanced statistics limited our ability to assess differences across age, sex, and ethnic group. The larger SEACO-CH20 accelerometer study [] from which participants for this study were selected had more balanced statistics (49% female, 67% Malay, and 44% <13 years old), which suggests that the cohort used for smartwatch data may not represent the overall SEACO-CH20 cohort. In particular, we only had 4 participants aged 7-9 years, so further studies are required to better understand the feasibility of dietary μEMA in the younger participants. Participants in this study began wearing the devices on different days of the week, and it is possible that the day of the week could affect participation; for example, whether it is a weekend or weekday. A lower response rate on weekends has been previously documented by Battaglia []. We did not account for study start day due to the small sample size, and because schooling was disrupted throughout the study period due to the COVID-19 pandemic [].
An issue with entry duplication meant that some entries may have been removed that were actual events, not due to the software issue. This bug with the smartwatch software has since been fixed. Additionally, only the response time of the participant was recorded, and not the time that the prompt was sent. This means we had to infer which hour window the entries corresponded to; this could be programmed in the software.
Discomfort was the most common reason for nonwear cited by the participants, which may be unique to our study protocol that required participants to wear 2 wrist-worn devices on the same arm. Furthermore, the smartwatch used in our study was not specifically designed to fit smaller children. Efforts to make smartwatches less intrusive, for example, by making them smaller, may further improve response rate and study uptake.
Ramadan, a culturally important event in Malaysian society, which includes fasting in some population groups, took place during the course of the data collection period. This is likely to have affected the eating behaviors of participants who took part during this time. To ensure that the number of EMA entries was not influenced by Ramadan, we excluded participants from our analyses who wore the smartwatch during the Ramadan period, thereby further limiting our sample size.
This study extends previous eating behavior studies by exploring the use of μEMA in a population of children and adolescents in Malaysia and is the first such study to do so. Willingness to take part in the μEMA study was high, but poor response rates suggest that the number of questions asked per prompt or the high number of prompts per day may be too burdensome. While our smartwatch-based EMA app was largely based on the μEMA methods originally developed by Intille et al [], a key aspect of true μEMA implementation is the presentation of only one question at a time. In our approach, we chained questions to capture details on food and drink type, size, and consumption context, making it more accurately described as a modified μEMA. Further work is needed to explore different μEMA variations, including using fewer questions and/or fewer prompts, and identify devices that may be more comfortable for child and adolescent participants. The growing use of smartwatches amongst children, particularly in Southeast Asia may offer more opportunities for further study [].
For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission.
The authors would like to express their appreciation to the SEACO Field Teams and survey participants. The SEACO [] funded the research detailed in this paper. The authors’ opinions, however, are their own, and there is no real or implied sponsorship from SEACO.
The Medical Research Council (MR/T018984/1) and the Ministry of Higher Education/UK-MY Joint Partnership on Non-Communicable Diseases (2019/MR/T018984/), both provided funding in support of this research. The SEACO health and demographic surveillance system is supported by Monash University. The funders had no involvement in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or the writing of the manuscript. Sophia M Brady is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC; NIHR200173). The NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre funds Miranda EG Armstrong (NIHR203315). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
Data cannot be shared publicly for confidentiality and ethical reasons. Deidentified data are available and can be freely requested from the South East Asia Community Observatory, Monash University Malaysia Institutional Data Access at “mum.seaco@monash.edu” for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data. For more information, please refer to [].
None declared.
Edited by A Mavragani; submitted 01.May.2025; peer-reviewed by C Wang, P Delir Haghighi; comments to author 17.Aug.2025; revised version received 18.Nov.2025; accepted 30.Dec.2025; published 06.Feb.2026.
©Richard Lane, Louise A C Millard, Ruth Salway, Chris J Stone, Andy L Skinner, Sophia M Brady, Jeevitha Mariapun, Sutha Rajakumar, Amutha Ramadas, Hussein Rizal, Laura Johnson, Tin Tin Su, Miranda Elaine Glynis Armstrong. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 06.Feb.2026.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (ISSN 1438-8871), is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
Transaction to support continued growth of leading provider of engineered solutions for electric transmission, telecom, and data center infrastructure
Existing investor Blackstone will retain significant minority stake
Alvarado, Texas; San Francisco & Fort Worth, Texas; New York – February 6, 2026 – TPG, a leading global alternative asset management firm, today announced that it has signed definitive agreements to acquire a majority stake in Sabre Industries, Inc. (“Sabre” or the “Company”). TPG will make the investment through TPG Rise Climate, the firm’s dedicated climate investing platform. Funds managed by Blackstone Energy Transition Partners (“Blackstone”), which first invested in Sabre in 2021, will retain a significant minority stake and continue Blackstone’s partnership with the Company.
Sabre is a leading provider of highly-engineered critical infrastructure solutions for power utilities, telecom, and data centers. Founded in 1977 and headquartered in Alvarado, Texas, the Company designs, engineers, and manufactures advanced electrical transmission and distribution structures, wireless towers and associated components, integrated electrical enclosures, and related structures through a fully integrated engineering and manufacturing platform. Sabre’s utility business, its largest segment, supports the modernization and reliability of America’s electrical grid. Its integrated enclosures are increasingly used to meet the demands of large-scale data center projects, supporting the nation’s buildout of digital infrastructure. With approximately 2,800 employees and over 2.3 million square feet of purpose-built domestic manufacturing space, Sabre is trusted by leading utilities and infrastructure partners to deliver high-reliability execution for projects that modernize and strengthen the U.S. electrical grid, telecom, and data center infrastructure.
“Sabre’s platform leverages engineering, manufacturing, and technical expertise to support the mission-critical infrastructure that utility, data center and telecom companies, and their customers, count on,” said Timothy Rossetti, Chief Executive Officer and President of Sabre Industries. “TPG Rise Climate’s expertise in grid modernization, power equipment, electrification solutions, and data centers, along with their understanding of the needs facing the businesses we serve, makes them the right partner to support the continued scaling and manufacturing enhancements across all aspects of our business. We look forward to continuing the success we have achieved with Blackstone as we move ahead to strengthen America’s power and communications networks.”
“Sabre’s diverse offerings play a vital role in strengthening the infrastructure that underpins America’s rapidly changing power landscape, at a time when reliability and resilience are more critical than ever,” said Steven Mandel, Partner at TPG. “We believe there is a significant opportunity for leading equipment providers to meet rising electricity demand and modernize a grid increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Sabre’s leadership in transmission and distribution, combined with its specialized enclosures for the data center market, positions the Company at the heart of these essential trends. We look forward to partnering with Tim and the Blackstone team in this next chapter.”
JP Munfa, Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, said: “During Blackstone’s investment, Sabre has advanced its longstanding position as a trusted provider of highly engineered, mission-critical solutions for the infrastructure that support our daily lives – significantly increasing production capacity in its utility segment, expanding its integrated enclosure offering into the data center sector, and growing backlog to record levels, all while maintaining the company’s longstanding track record of superior quality, customer service, and engineering certainty. We look forward to continuing our partnership, together with Tim, the management team, and TPG, to support Sabre’s continued growth and innovation.”
The transaction is expected to close by the second quarter of 2026, subject to customary approvals and closing conditions. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Latham & Watkins LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to TPG. Harris Williams, Jefferies, and Wells Fargo acted as financial advisors and Vinson & Elkins acted as a legal advisor to Sabre and Blackstone.
About Sabre Industries, Inc.
Sabre Industries is a leading provider of highly-engineered critical infrastructure for power utilities, data center, and telecom. Recognized for precision engineering, unrivaled quality, and elite service, Sabre delivers engineered structures mission-critical service providers can count on to power communities and connect people. For more information, please visit www.sabreindustries.com.
About TPG Rise Climate
TPG Rise Climate is the dedicated climate investing platform of TPG, a leading global alternative asset management firm. With dedicated pools of capital across private equity, transition infrastructure, and the Global South, TPG Rise Climate pursues climate-related investments that benefit from the diverse skills of TPG’s investing professionals around the world, the strategic relationships and insights developed across TPG’s broad portfolio of climate companies, and a global network of executives, advisors, and corporate partners. As part of TPG’s $31 billion global impact investing platform, TPG Rise Climate invests broadly across the climate sector, with a focus on building and scaling leading climate solutions across the following thematic areas: clean electrons, clean molecules and materials, and adaptive solutions.
About Blackstone Energy Transition Partners
Blackstone Energy Transition Partners is Blackstone’s strategy for control-oriented equity investments in energy-related businesses, with a successful long-term record, having committed over $27 billion of equity globally across a broad range of sectors within the energy industry. Our investment philosophy is based on backing exceptional management teams with flexible capital to provide solutions that help energy companies grow and improve performance, thereby delivering more reliable, affordable and cleaner energy to meet the growing needs of the global community. In the process, we work to build stronger, larger scale enterprises, create jobs and generate lasting value for our investors, employees and all stakeholders. Further information is available at https://www.blackstone.com/our-businesses/blackstone-energy-transition-partners/.
About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Blackstone seeks to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which the firm invests. Blackstone’s $1.3 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, credit, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, secondaries and hedge funds. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and Instagram.
Contacts
For TPG:
Ari Cohen
[email protected]
For Blackstone:
Matt Anderson
[email protected]
Hallie Dewey
[email protected]
Jennifer Heath
[email protected]
Late-breaking data presentations showcase the safety and efficacy of Abbott’s ablation catheters to treat people with atrial fibrillation
ABBOTT PARK, Ill., Feb. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Abbott (NYSE: ABT) today announced new clinical data from two late-breaking presentations at AF Symposium in Boston (February 5-7, 2026) that demonstrate the strong safety and efficacy of the company’s minimally invasive therapies to treat people with atrial fibrillation (AFib). The results include 12-month findings that reinforce the long-term safety and performance of Abbott’s Volt™ Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) System, which were simultaneously published in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology. Positive results were also presented on Abbott’s TactiFlex™ Duo Ablation Catheter, Sensor Enabled™, a dual-energy, focal ablation catheter engineered to allow physicians to tailor how they deliver AFib therapy.
Sustained performance of the Volt PFA System
Twelve-month data from the VOLT-AF Global IDE study found that the Volt PFA System had an industry-leading success rate (84.2%) of freedom from documented rhythm recurrence among all competitive PFA products to treat AFib episodes that come and go (Paroxysmal AFib or PAF).1
Volt also delivered strong results as a treatment option for AFib episodes that last longer than seven days (Persistent AFib or PersAF), with nearly 68% of patients remaining free from an additional episode following a Volt ablation.1
Additional key findings of the single-arm trial conducted at approximately 40 centers in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia through one year include: 1
“The data for Volt confirms what I see firsthand in the procedure room with this next-generation PFA device,” said Atul Verma, M.D., director of the Division of Cardiology at McGill University Health Centre and McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who treated patients as part of the VOLT-AF IDE study and presented the late-breaking data at AF Symposium. “The system’s unique design enables a high degree of freedom from AFib for patients, and its impressive safety profile reduces PFA-specific complications such as hemolysis, which negatively impacts other parts of the body.”
The Volt PFA System secured U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval and CE Mark in Europe last year. Commercial cases have begun in the U.S. and expansion in Europe continues.
Strong data supports TactiFlex Duo Ablation Catheter, Sensor Enabled
Six-month data presented from the FOCALFLEX Global CE Mark trial confirmed the safety and effectiveness of TactiFlex Duo for treating more complex cases of AFib. The trial found a clinically meaningful success rate (81%) of freedom from documented rhythm recurrence among PAF patients. 2
Patient self-reported quality-of-life scores also climbed from 64.4 to 86.4.2 This data from more than 20 centers in the European Union, United Kingdom and Australia contributed to the device’s recent CE Mark approval.
TactiFlex Duo is designed for focal ablation, using a dual-energy platform, which gives physicians the ability to tailor AFib therapy delivery in two ways instead of a single energy mode. Experts use the catheter to target and treat an irregular heart rhythm with either extreme heat (radiofrequency) or high-energy electrical pulses (PFA) based on a patient’s individual needs and anatomy, including the most challenging cases.
In addition to the CE Mark study, Abbott also completed enrollment last year for the FLEXPULSE Global IDE trial to evaluate TactiFlex Duo as an AFib therapy. Last October, the FDA granted Breakthrough Device Designation for TactiFlex Duo to treat Ventricular Tachycardia – a potentially life-threatening fast heart rate requiring immediate medical attention – using PFA.
“With the rising rates of AFib around the world, data from the Volt PFA and TactiFlex Duo trials help empower physicians with further confidence in using these devices to treat people with AFib – from the recently diagnosed to the most complex cases,” said Christopher Piorkowski, M.D., chief medical officer of Abbott’s electrophysiology business. “These studies help solidify our treatment offerings for AFib as we strive to challenge the status quo to develop even better tools that physicians can rely on to care for their patients.”
In addition, a late-breaking data presentation on Abbott’s Amulet device will be presented on Friday, Feb. 6 between 5:30 – 7 p.m. Eastern from the VERITAS Amulet 360 Pivotal Study.
For U.S. important safety information go to:
Volt™ PFA System
https://www.cardiovascular.abbott/us/en/ep-clinical-evidence/volt-clinical-evidence.html
TactiFlex™ Duo Ablation Catheter, Sensor Enabled™ is approved for investigational use only in the U.S.
About Abbott:
Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 115,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.
Connect with us at www.abbott.com and on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.
1 Verma, A. (2026, February 5) 12-Month Safety and Effectiveness of a balloon-in-basket PFA system for de novo PVI to treat PAF and PsAF: Results from the VOLT-AF IDE Study [Late Breaking Presentation]. AF Symposium 2026, Boston MA, USA.
2 Deisenhofer, I. (2026, February 5) Safety and Effectiveness of the TactiFlex Duo System: 6-Month Results of the FOCALFLEX Study [Late Breaking Presentation]. AF Symposium 2026, Boston MA, USA.
SOURCE Abbott
For further information: Abbott Media: Cole Heath, (651) 421-3655; Abbott Financial: Michael Comilla, (224) 668-1872