Category: 3. Business

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Virtu Financial has come out against rival Citadel Securities’ attempts to block the opening of a new US options exchange, as the high-speed trading giant wades into a dispute over market structure that has sucked in some of Wall Street’s biggest names.

The disagreement hinges on the implementation of a 350-microsecond so-called “speed bump” that US exchange operator IEX — made famous by the Michael Lewis’s bestseller Flash Boys — hopes will protect traders on its proposed exchange from buying and selling options at stale prices.

This mechanism will allow IEX to cancel and reprice a small proportion of orders, but critics of the plan, including billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities, say it would end up harming ordinary investors while enriching IEX’s shareholders and market makers.

New York-headquartered Virtu on Wednesday wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission in support of IEX, which says it wants to shield investors from the cost of latency arbitrage — the exploitation by high-frequency traders of the microseconds it takes prices to reflect broader market moves.

Virtu’s intervention comes three weeks after Citadel Securities criticised what it described as IEX’s “nefarious” and “unlawful” plan “to introduce an unprecedented quote cancelling scheme” into the ballooning US options market, in a letter to the SEC.

Retail broker Charles Schwab, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have also said that IEX’s plan to launch a new equity options exchange should not be approved. 

But in its letter, Virtu said IEX’s proposal “represents a well-intentioned effort to advance” market transparency and improve “the investor experience”. 

It added: “The introduction of new trading venues has the potential to promote competition, foster innovation and possibly deliver better trading outcomes for all market participants.” Virtu was co-founded by Doug Cifu and Vincent Viola, former chair of the New York Mercantile Exchange and the owner of ice hockey team the Florida Panthers.

Citadel Securities and IEX have clashed before. In 2015, Citadel Securities sought to block IEX’s application for registration as a national securities exchange, writing at the time that a new entrant would “create confusion for the marketplace, and for retail investors in particular”. 

Citadel’s attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, although 11 years later IEX remains a small player in US equities, with a market share of roughly 2.6 per cent, according to the firm.

Citadel’s latest attempt to shut down IEX’s planned move into the options market has drawn the ire of pressure group We The Investors, which wrote to the SEC on the subject earlier this month.

“Almost 10 years since the first comment letters were filed against the IEX Equities exchange application, and all we have are the same tired, recycled arguments,” said WTI chief technology office Dave Lauer in the letter.

“It has become clear that despite critics’ attempts to rewrite history and pretend that there is no such thing as latency arbitrage, such arbitrage does exist, and exploits both geographical and technological latencies in order to earn profits for the fastest traders to the detriment of slower traders,” he added.

John Ramsay, chief market policy officer at IEX, said: “For the people who complain that the quotes will be inaccessible, it’s worth asking inaccessible to whom and for what purpose. If the answer is they’ll be inaccessible to people who are using latency arbitrage, that is exactly the point.”

Additional reporting by Jennifer Hughes

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JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon warned European leaders they have a competitiveness problem and that they are currently “losing” the battle to rival the US and China. 

“Europe has gone from 90 per cent US GDP to 65 per cent over 10 or 15 years. That’s not good,” Dimon said at an event in Dublin organised by the Irish foreign ministry. “You’re losing.” 

The comments from Dimon, one of the most influential voices in global finance, underscores the challenges facing the EU as it battles to invigorate its economy.

Mario Draghi, the continent’s former top central banker, last year demanded a new industrial strategy for Europe with annual investment of €800bn to maintain competitiveness with the US and China.

“We’ve got this huge strong market and our companies are big and successful, have huge kinds of scale that are global. You have that, but less and less,” Dimon said.

It is an even blunter message from Dimon than he made in his most recent annual shareholder meeting in April, where he said “Europe has some serious issues to fix”, and urged European nations to “significantly reform their economies so they can grow”. 

Dimon, who has run JPMorgan since 2006, also warned that financial markets had become too relaxed about Donald Trump’s repeated threat of tariffs.

Investors on Thursday brushed off the US president’s latest threat of a 50 per cent tariff on copper, 200 per cent tariffs on the pharmaceutical sector and levies on countries including Japan and South Korea.

“Unfortunately, I think there is complacency in the market,” Dimon said. 

He said Trump had so far been correct in backing down from his biggest threats on tariffs, invoking the so-called Taco trade based on the premise that “Trump always chickens out”. 

“I hate to use the word ‘Taco trade” because I think he did the right thing to chicken out,” Dimon said.

Dimon saw trouble ahead for Trump if the economy struggled. “I think if the [US] economy weakens at all, he’s going to have a tough time.”

But he also blasted the opposition Democrats, saying: “What were they thinking in their wokeness?” He also called Zohran Mamdani — who won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York, where JPMorgan has its headquarters — a “Marxist”.

Dimon said worrying about whether Trump would seek a third term would be “premature”. US presidents are limited to two terms.

However, the JPMorgan boss said he thought the vice-president, JD Vance, would not agree to any deal in which he headlined the ticket alongside Trump: “He’ll say, ‘Hey buddy, get in the basement. You’ve had your day in the sun!’”

But Dimon said Trump may eventually prefer his son Eric as a candidate. Despite saying he harboured no political aspirations, Dimon said: “If he did [that], I might consider it too.”

More than 1 in 5 US adults with arthritis do not know their specific subtype, with a lack of awareness disproportionately affecting certain racial and ethnic groups, as well as individuals with lower income, less education, and no health insurance, according to a study published in the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease.¹

Arthritis is one of the most common chronic diseases in the US, affecting an estimated 53.2 million adults.² This number is projected to increase to 78.4 million by 2040.³ The term “arthritis” encompasses over 100 conditions, each with different symptoms, treatments, etiologies, and pathogeneses.⁴

Consequently, the researchers emphasized the importance of individuals with arthritis knowing their specific subtype to support effective disease management. They added that having up-to-date prevalence estimates for various arthritis subtypes can help inform public health policies, support prevention programs, and allocate resources effectively.

Despite its importance, limited research has examined the prevalence and distribution of arthritis subtypes among US adults. To fill this gap, the researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected between 2017 and March 2020.

The study found that the overall crude prevalence of any diagnosed arthritis among US adults aged 20 or older was 27.9%, affecting about 67.1 million individuals (95% CI, 23.5%-30.6%). The overall age-standardized prevalence was 24.9% (95% CI, 23.2%-26.7%).

Osteoarthritis was the most common subtype, affecting an estimated 33.2 million US adults (crude prevalence, 49.6%; age-standardized prevalence, 44.5%). This was followed by rheumatoid arthritis, which impacted 10.6 million people (crude, 15.8%; age-standardized, 18.9%), and psoriatic arthritis, which affected 1.0 million people (crude, 1.4%; age-standardized, 1.7%).

Additionally, more than 1 in 10 individuals with arthritis reported having an unlisted type of arthritis (n = 7.7 million; crude, 11.5%; age-standardized, 15.6%), and about 1 in 5 affected adults did not know their specific arthritis type (n = 14.4 million; crude, 21.6%; age-standardized, 22.3%).

The age-standardized prevalence of not knowing one’s arthritis type was higher among certain racial and ethnic groups. Among adults who self-identified as Mexican American, 31.9% were unaware of their arthritis type, compared with 20.2% of non-Hispanic White adults (P = .03). Similarly, the prevalence was 26.7% among non-Hispanic Black adults and 29.5% among other Hispanic adults.

The data also showed a clear association between educational attainment and arthritis type awareness, with the prevalence of not knowing increasing as educational attainment decreased (P = .006). Adults with a college degree (14.8%) had a lower prevalence of not knowing their arthritis type compared with those with some college education (23.4%; P = .02), a high school education (24.1%; P = .03), or less than a high school education (31.8%; P = .005).

Income level also played a role. Adults with a family income at or below 125% of the federal poverty level (FPL) had a higher prevalence of not knowing their arthritis type (26.7%) than those with a family income above 400% of the FPL (16.6%; P = .004). Lastly, a lack of health insurance was another significant factor, with 36.1% of uninsured adults unaware of their arthritis type compared with 20.7% of insured adults (P = .03).

The researchers concluded by acknowledging their limitations, including the fact that arthritis subtypes were self-reported and not validated by a health care professional. As a result, recall bias may have led to misclassification of arthritis types, affecting the accuracy of prevalence estimates.

Nonetheless, they expressed confidence in their findings, which highlight a broader issue of health literacy in the US. The researchers stressed that understanding one’s arthritis type is essential for effective treatment, self-management, and improved health outcomes.

“Knowing arthritis type is crucial for successfully managing the disease and preventing further damage,” the authors wrote. “Using strategies to improve organizational and personal health literacy could contribute to more informed patients, thereby reducing the prevalence of not knowing arthritis type and improving health outcomes.”

References

1. Foster AL, Boring MA, Lites TD, Croft JE, Odom EL, Fallon EA. Distribution of arthritis subtypes among adults with arthritis in the United States, 2017-March 2020. Prev Chronic Dis. 2025;22:E28. doi:10.5888/pcd22.240393
2. Fallon EA, Boring MA, Foster AL, et al. Prevalence of diagnosed arthritis – United States, 2019-2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72(41):1101-1107. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm7241a1
3. Hootman JM, Helmick CG, Barbour KE, Theis KA, Boring MA. Updated projected prevalence of self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis and arthritis-attributable activity limitation among US adults, 2015-2040. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2016;68(7):1582-1587. doi:10.1002/art.39692

A Delta jet experienced engine problems on what was supposed to be a trans-Atlantic flight and landed on an island in the middle of the ocean, where the nearly 300 travelers and crew had to spend the night, officials said Thursday.

Flight 127 left Madrid on Sunday, bound for New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, when it had “to divert to Lajes, Azores (TER) after indication of a mechanical issue with an engine,” according to an airline statement.

The Airbus A330 had 282 customers and 13 crew members on board, Delta said.

The passengers and crew “deplaned via stairs at TER” and “were accommodated overnight in area hotels and provided meals,” the airline added.

They were taken off the island in Portugal’s Azores archipelago on a new aircraft on Monday.

“The flight landed safely, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for their experience and delay in their travels,” Delta said.

Story Continues

• Construct including CT domain demonstrated higher levels of microdystrophin protein, increased muscle force, and improved resistance to damage in mice lacking dystrophin
• REGENXBIO’s next-generation investigational gene therapy, RGX-202, is the only microdystrophin construct that includes the CT domain
• Findings support the positive functional data seen in Phase I/II AFFINITY DUCHENNE^® trial of RGX-202

ROCKVILLE, Md., July 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — REGENXBIO Inc. (Nasdaq: RGNX) today announced the publication of preclinical results comparing a microdystrophin gene therapy construct that included the C-terminal (CT) domain to a microdystrophin construct without the CT domain. The results, which were published in peer-reviewed journal Molecular Therapy Methods and Clinical Development, showed that the microdystrophin with the CT domain improved functional benefit compared to the microdystrophin without, supporting the potential of RGX-202 to drive functional improvements in patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

RGX-202 is the only investigational or approved microdystrophin gene therapy candidate for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Duchenne) that includes the CT domain, a key portion of dystrophin, making it the closest to naturally occurring dystrophin.

“We specifically designed RGX-202 differently from other gene therapies with the goal of providing improved outcomes for patients, and this research further validates the potential therapeutic advantage of adding the CT domain and its importance in preventing the muscle breakdown associated with functional decline in Duchenne,” said Olivier Danos, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of REGENXBIO. “The positive interim results we’ve seen in the Phase I/II AFFINITY DUCHENNE^® trial are reinforced by this preclinical research demonstrating how the novel construct of RGX-202 protects against muscle damage and supports the potential for durable, functional benefit for patients.”

“AAV gene therapy holds great promise for Duchenne, and the community is in need of treatment options that have the potential to improve function and quality of life for patients,” said Michael Kelly, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, CureDuchenne. “The CT domain is a critical part of the large DMD gene and these preclinical results highlight its role in muscle health. With the science behind the novel microdystrophin construct of RGX-202, combined with the interim safety and efficacy profile seen to date in clinic, I am very encouraged by the potential of RGX-202 to be a meaningful, differentiated gene therapy for the community.”

In this paper, titled “Enhanced therapeutic potential of a microdystrophin with an extended C-terminal domain,” two AAV vectors, one encoding a microdystrophin protein with the CT domain and one encoding an otherwise equivalent microdystrophin protein without the CT domain, were evaluated across three studies in mdx mice, a preclinical model of Duchenne, to measure muscle force, protein levels, and protection from contraction-induced muscle injury.  

Compared to the microdystrophin without the CT domain, the microdystrophin that included the CT domain was found to be maintained at higher levels in transduced muscles, recruited the dystrophin-associated protein complex more effectively to the muscle membrane, and increased muscle force and resistance to damage in mice lacking dystrophin. These are key factors in supporting the preservation of muscle health, as muscle damage leads to disease progression in Duchenne.

These findings indicate that incorporation of the CT domain enhances the microdystrophin design by allowing for higher levels of microdystrophin to accumulate in the muscle – primarily attributed to the longer half-life of the extended microdystrophin – and may improve the functional benefit of microdystrophin gene replacement. Interim results from the Phase I/II AFFINITY DUCHENNE clinical trial of RGX-202 reported in June 2025 show that RGX-202 demonstrated consistent evidence of positively changing the disease trajectory of patients with Duchenne and a favorable safety profile.

REGENXBIO is enrolling participants in the pivotal portion of the Phase I/II/III AFFINITY DUCHENNE trial of RGX-202 and expects to submit a Biologics License Application (BLA) using the accelerated approval pathway in mid-2026. 

About RGX-202
RGX-202 is a potential best-in-class investigational gene therapy designed for improved function and outcomes in Duchenne. RGX-202 is the only gene therapy approved or in late-stage development for Duchenne with a differentiated microdystrophin construct that encodes key regions of naturally occurring dystrophin, including the C-Terminal (CT) domain.

Additional design features such as codon optimization may potentially improve gene expression, increase protein translation efficiency and reduce immunogenicity. RGX-202 is designed to support the delivery and targeted expression of microdystrophin throughout skeletal and heart muscle using the NAV^® AAV8 vector and a well-characterized muscle-specific promoter (Spc5-12). RGX-202 is manufactured by REGENXBIO using its proprietary, high-yielding NAVXpress^® suspension-based platform process.

About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Duchenne is a severe, progressive, degenerative muscle disease, affecting 1 in 3,500 to 5,000 boys born each year worldwide. Duchenne is caused by mutations in the Duchenne gene which encodes for dystrophin, a protein involved in muscle cell structure and signaling pathways. Without dystrophin, muscles throughout the body degenerate and become weak, eventually leading to loss of movement and independence, required support for breathing, cardiomyopathy and premature death.

ABOUT REGENXBIO Inc.
REGENXBIO is a biotechnology company on a mission to improve lives through the curative potential of gene therapy. Since its founding in 2009, REGENXBIO has pioneered the field of AAV gene therapy. REGENXBIO is advancing a late-stage pipeline of one-time treatments for rare and retinal diseases, including RGX-202 for the treatment of Duchenne; clemidsogene lanparvovec (RGX-121) for the treatment of MPS II and RGX-111 for the treatment of MPS I, both in partnership with Nippon Shinyaku; and surabgene lomparvovec (ABBV-RGX-314) for the treatment of wet AMD and diabetic retinopathy, in collaboration with AbbVie. Thousands of patients have been treated with REGENXBIO’s AAV platform, including those receiving Novartis’ ZOLGENSMA®. REGENXBIO’s investigational gene therapies have the potential to change the way healthcare is delivered for millions of people. For more information, please visit www.regenxbio.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release includes “forward-looking statements,” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements express a belief, expectation or intention and are generally accompanied by words that convey projected future events or outcomes such as “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “assume,” “design,” “intend,” “expect,” “could,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “seek,” “should,” “would” or by variations of such words or by similar expressions. The forward-looking statements include statements relating to, among other things, REGENXBIO’s future operations and clinical trials. REGENXBIO has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations and assumptions and analyses made by REGENXBIO in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors REGENXBIO believes are appropriate under the circumstances. However, whether actual results and developments will conform with REGENXBIO’s expectations and predictions is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timing of enrollment, commencement and completion and the success of clinical trials conducted by REGENXBIO, its licensees and its partners, the timely development and launch of new products, the ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of product candidates, the ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for product candidates and technology, trends and challenges in the business and markets in which REGENXBIO operates, the size and growth of potential markets for product candidates and the ability to serve those markets, the rate and degree of acceptance of product candidates, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of REGENXBIO. Refer to the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections of REGENXBIO’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, and comparable “risk factors” sections of REGENXBIO’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other filings, which have been filed with the SEC and are available on the SEC’s website at WWW.SEC.GOV. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are expressly qualified by the cautionary statements contained or referred to herein. The actual results or developments anticipated may not be realized or, even if substantially realized, they may not have the expected consequences to or effects on REGENXBIO or its businesses or operations. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to rely too heavily on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, REGENXBIO does not undertake any obligation, and specifically declines any obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Zolgensma^® is a registered trademark of Novartis AG. All other trademarks referenced herein are registered trademarks of REGENXBIO.

Contacts:
Dana Cormack
Corporate Communications
[email protected]  

Investors:
George E. MacDougall
Investor Relations
[email protected] 

SOURCE REGENXBIO Inc.