Category: 3. Business

ISLAMABAD – Everyone wants faster internet, and the race is on. With mobile users constantly asking Which network is fastest?, the latest PTA report answersa  big question about the two giants.

For Jazz and Zong, a neck-and-neck battle, and users across Pakistan are watching closely. Whether you’re streaming, gaming, or downloading, speed matters, and this showdown is far from over.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) revealed the latest Quality of Service (QoS) report for Q1 2025, and race for the fastest mobile internet excites many. While both networks surpassed the internet speed of Ufone and Telenor, the report revealed different results.

Jazz vs Zong Internet Speed

In download speed tests, Jazz stands above Zong in more than ten cities. Some cities show nearly 40Mbps downloading speed while remote areas show speed of around 25 Mbps.

With consistent speeds across majority of locations, Jazz has proven itself reliable choice under standardized conditions.

Zong also crossed 40.36 Mbps in some cities while speed was lower than 30 in other regions. These results suggest Zong may be the better option for users who rely on streaming, downloading, or heavy app usage in real-world conditions.

Ufone and Telenor Struggle

As Jazz and Zong raked in top places, Ufone and Telenor lagged behind in both testing categories. Ufone placed third or fourth in most regions. Telenor consistently ranked last across nearly all surveyed cities.

Either way, both networks far surpass Ufone and Telenor, reinforcing their positions as Pakistan’s leading mobile internet providers in early 2025.

Investing.com — Citi analysts see further upside for Roblox shares despite the stock’s sharp rally since first-quarter results, citing strong second-quarter user data and a favorable U.S. court ruling on App Store fees.

“Roblox’s equity has performed well since 1Q25 results. However, we still see upside,” Citi wrote, pointing to “remarkably robust” third-party data from RoMonitor and the potential benefit of lower platform fees after the April 30 ruling that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) must allow third-party payments.

The analysts highlighted that Roblox stock has surged about 55% since its May 1 earnings report, suggesting the market is now pricing in roughly $880 million in annual EBITDA. But they argue there’s room for further gains.

“RoMonitor suggests CCUs averaged 12.4 million” during the second quarter, Citi said.

Based on a regression model, that data implies Roblox may report 26.7 million payers and $1.56 billion in bookings for 2Q25.

If accurate, that would be “32% ahead of the high-end of Roblox’s 2Q25 Bookings guidance,” wrote the bank.

The court ruling on App Store fees could also be a major tailwind. Apple accounts for about 30% of Roblox’s revenue, and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Play about 16%, according to the company’s latest 10-K.

Citi estimates that lower platform fees could boost EBITDA by between $220 million and $600 million, depending on the geographic scope and implementation across platforms.

Given these developments, Citi raised its price target on Roblox from $100 to $123 per share, maintaining a Buy rating.

“We are raising our estimates to reflect our incremental upside from the RoMonitor data,” the analysts wrote, noting the new target still reflects around 50 times 2026 free cash flow per share.

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KARACHI: Pakistan’s central bank plans to complete a pilot project for a digital currency within the current fiscal year ending June 2026, its spokesperson said on Friday, as the country cautiously moves toward adopting blockchain-based payments and strengthening oversight of its virtual asset economy.

The pilot announcement follows the establishment of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) through a presidential ordinance earlier this week.

The law empowers the authority to regulate the country’s growing crypto market, crack down on money laundering and terror financing, and promote responsible innovation — a move analysts say could bring an estimated $25 billion in virtual assets into the tax net.

“We hope to complete the pilot within the current fiscal year,” Noor Ahmed of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) told Arab News when asked about the rollout timeline. “Tech partner and other details will be announced in due course.”

Shankar Talreja, head of research at Topline Securities, said it was too early to say who would use the digital currency, since a pilot was still being launched, though he said it could benefit most bank account holders.

“Since this would be backed up [by the] central bank, so existing digital payment users can use this for payments,” he said. “The challenge would be if merchants accept this initially.”

The South Asian nation had long remained under scrutiny for weak financial controls and was only removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list” in 2022. The creation of PVARA is seen as part of Islamabad’s broader effort to cautiously formalize the virtual asset space.

“The legality of digital assets has been a grey area in Pakistan in the recent past from a practical standpoint,” said Nayab Babar, the chief investment officer at the Prime Minister’s Pakistan Startup Fund.

“Creation of the crypto council is an extremely important development which gives confidence to consumers and corporates alike, that there is a way forward to legally participate in this booming asset class without fear of losing money,” he added.

Farrukh H. Khan, the chief financial officer at Jazz, Pakistan’s largest digital operator and a unit of global telecom giant VEON, also welcomed the new regulatory measures.

“It is the right approach that we pilot it and cautiously move forward,” he said while pointing out the government’s decision would help document Pakistan’s “very large” base of crypto investors.

“According to Binance, which is one of the largest [digital] trading platforms, about 15 million Pakistanis are registered on their platform,” he said.

To integrate digital assets into the economy, the government earlier launched the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC) in March and later appointed Binance founder Changpeng Zhao as a strategic adviser.

The move has been welcomed by retail traders like Muhammad Huzaifa, who said the lack of legal cover had previously left crypto investors vulnerable.

“Sometimes few government institutions like the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] freeze the bank accounts of traders,” said the 33-year-old.

“These laws will lend more freedom and space for traders as they can buy, sell and invest in crypto easily without any fear,” he added.
Asked about his digital holdings, he said he was managing multiple accounts “between $50,000 to $100,000.”

Farhan Hassan, the chief digital officer at easypaisa Digital Bank (eDB) with over 50 million users, praised the creation of PVARA as a key step toward safer adoption.

“Pakistan has long been poised for broader crypto and blockchain adoption, but it lacked the regulatory clarity to unlock its full potential,” he said.

“This landmark development sets the foundation for a secure, transparent and regulated framework to guide the growth of virtual assets in Pakistan.”

Hassan added that eDB was “uniquely positioned” to collaborate with regulators in piloting, testing, and scaling financial solutions aligned with both global standards and local needs.

CHALLENGES

Still, analysts caution that implementation could be challenging due to the government’s institutional capacity.

“The regulators may lack technical capacity and real-time monitoring tools to fully oversee crypto markets,” said Muhammad Waqas Ghani, head of research at Karachi-based JS Global Capital.

He maintained that Pakistan’s stock market was a more regulated and secure investment option, offering greater protection against fraud and manipulation compared to the still-evolving crypto space.

Pakistan may also require the International Monetary Fund’s approval if it plans to subsidize electricity for future crypto mining and AI data centers.

“[The IMF] staff reiterated the importance of maintaining a level playing field for all private sector participants and will continue to engage with the authorities on this as appropriate as plans develop further,” Mahir Binici, the IMF’s resident representative in Pakistan, said this week.

Talal Ahmad, an official from the office of State Minister on Blockchain and Crypto Bilal Bin Saqib, did not provide any details in response to Arab News queries.

“A lot of these questions don’t have answers at the moment. Could you wait until we pass the regulation law [from parliament]?” he said.

Asked who would be the first users of Pakistan’s digital currency, SBP’s Ahmed said the central bank would share such details at a later stage.

Pakistan’s push follows the example of countries like India, which launched a pilot e-rupee in 2022.

The Reserve Bank of India initially allowed selected banks to use it for settling secondary-market transactions in government securities before extending it to the retail sector.

China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has approved lisaftoclax (APG-2575) for the treatment of adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) who received prior treatment with at least 1 systemic therapy, including a BTK inhibitor.¹ The regulatory decision makes lisaftoclax the first BCL-2 inhibitor to earn approval in patients with CLL/SLL in China and the second agent in this class to be approved globally.

The NMPA decision was supported by data from a pivotal phase 2 trial (APG2575CC201; NCT05147467). Findings from the study demonstrated that lisaftoclax met the primary end point of overall response rate (ORR) in patients with relapsed/refractory CLL/SLL who received prior treatment with BTK inhibitors and/or chemoimmunotherapy. The agent also displayed a favorable safety profile; no cases of tumor-lysis syndrome occurred during the trial. Additionally, there was a low incidence of hematologic toxicities, all of which were manageable, and a low rate of nonhematologic toxicities, most of which were grade 1 or 2.

“This approval for the next-generation BCL-2 inhibitor lisaftoclax represents a timely response to the urgent unmet medical need of this patient population, effectively fulfilling the void for BCL-2 inhibitors in CLL/SLL in China,” professor Jianyong Li of the Lymphoma Center at Jiangsu Province Hospital in China and the principal investigator of the trial, stated in a news release.

Lisaftoclax is a novel small-molecule agent that is orally administered and is designed to selectively block BCL-2. This mechanism of action restores normal apoptosis in cancer cells.

The single-arm, open-label, multicenter phase 2 study evaluated lisaftoclax monotherapy in adult patients with relapsed/refractory CLL/SLL who have experienced disease progression on or are intolerant to chemoimmunotherapy and BTK inhibitor treatment.² Patients were required to have a life expectancy of at least 12 weeks and an ECOG performance status of 0 to 2. Eligible patients received oral lisaftoclax at 600 mg daily via 28-day cycles.

The primary end point was ORR. Secondary end points included progression-free survival, time to progression, time to response, duration of response, overall survival, time of half absolute lymphocyte value, maximum plasma concentration, area under the plasma concentration vs time curve, and safety. Other outcome measures consisted of minimal residual disease–negativity rate and BCL-2 expression.

“As the first China-developed BCL-2 inhibitor, lisaftoclax has demonstrated favorable efficacy and a unique safety profile, thus providing clinicians a new treatment option that can meaningfully improve the survival of patients with CLL/SLL. In April 2025, supported by its groundbreaking efficacy and safety data in Chinese patients with CLL/SLL, lisaftoclax was included in the 2025 Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Lymphoid Malignancies. The approval and guideline recommendations for lisaftoclax, the only BCL-2 inhibitor approved in China for the treatment of [patients with] CLL/SLL, validated the drug as a safe and efficacious new treatment option, underscoring a major advancement in precision therapy for hematologic malignancies in China,” Li said.¹

Lisaftoclax is under investigation in 4 global phase 3 studies:GLORA (NCT06104566), GLORA-2 (NCT06319456), GLORA-3 (NCT06389292), and GLORA-4 (NCT06641414).

GLORA is examining lisaftoclax in combination with BTK inhibitors in patients with CLL/SLL who previously experienced a suboptimal response with BTK inhibitor therapy following over 12 months of treatment.^1,3 GLORA-2 is evaluating lisaftoclax in combination with acalabrutinib (Calquence) in patients with newly diagnosed CLL/SLL.⁴ In GLORA-3, lisaftoclax plus azacitidine will be examined in patients with acute myeloid leukima.⁵ GLORA-4 is enrolling patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and testing lisaftoclax plus azacitidine.⁶

“Our founding team has over 20 years of research experience in the field of apoptosis and accumulated deep expertise on the BCL-2 target,” Dajun Yang, MD, PhD,chairman and chief executive officer of Ascentage Pharma, added in the news release.¹ “This approval for lisaftoclax is a culmination of their dedicated research and a major milestone in our never-ending journey of innovation, further solidifying our leadership in the hematology field. As a proprietary novel drug developed through global innovation, lisaftoclax is a testament to our strength in drug development, bringing much needed change to the global landscape for BCL-2 inhibitors. Moving forward, Ascentage Pharma will remain steadfastly committed to its mission of addressing unmet clinical needs in China and around the world and aspire to bring more innovative therapeutics to more patients globally.”

References

1. Ascentage Pharma announces its novel Bcl-2 inhibitor lisaftoclax approved by China NMPA, ushering in a new era for the treatment of CLL/SLL. News release. Ascentage Pharma. July 10, 2025. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://www.ascentage.com/ascentage-pharma-announces-its-novel-bcl-2-inhibitor-lisaftoclax-approved-by-china-nmpa-ushering-in-a-new-era-for-the-treatment-of-cll-sll/
2. Study of APG-2575 in patients with relapsed/​refractory CLL/​SLL. ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated January 23, 2024. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05147467
3. Global trial in APG2575 for patients with CLL/​SLL. ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated February 1, 2024. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06104566
4. A global study of lisaftoclax (APG-2575) combined with acalabrutinib versus immunochemotherapy for newly diagnosed CLL/​SLL. ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated May 29, 2024. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06319456
5. A pivotal study of APG-2575 (lisaftoclax) combined with azacitidine in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated April 2, 2025. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06389292
6. Lisaftoclax (APG-2575) combined with azacytidine (AZA) in the treatment of patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (GLORA-4). ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated February 19, 2025. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06641414

For many years, health experts have been concerned about “food deserts,” places where residents lack good nutritional options. Now, an MIT-led study of three major global cities uses a new, granular method to examine the issue, and concludes that having fewer and less nutritional eating options nearby correlates with obesity and other health outcomes.

Rather than just mapping geographic areas, the researchers examined the dietary value of millions of food items on roughly 30,000 restaurant menus and derived a more precise assessment of the connection between neighborhoods and nutrition.

“We show that what is sold in a restaurant has a direct correlation to people’s health,” says MIT researcher Fabio Duarte, co-author of a newly published paper outlining the study’s results. “The food landscape matters.”

The open-access paper, “Data-driven nutritional assessment of urban food landscapes: insights from Boston, London, Dubai,” was published this week in Nature: Scientific Reports.

The co-authors are Michael Tufano, a PhD student at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands; Duarte, associate director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, which uses data to study cities as dynamic systems; Martina Mazzarello, a postdoc at the Senseable City Lab; Javad Eshtiyagh, a research fellow at the Senseable City Lab; Carlo Ratti, professor of the practice and director of the Senseable City Lab; and Guido Camps, a senior researcher at Wageningen University.

Scanning the menu

To conduct the study, the researchers examined menus from Boston, Dubai, and London, in the summer of 2023, compiling a database of millions of items available through popular food-delivery platforms. The team then evaluated the food items as rated by the USDA’s FoodData Central database, an information bank with 375,000 kinds of food products listed. The study deployed two main metrics, the Meal Balance Index, and the Nutrient-Rich Foods Index.

The researchers examined about 222,000 menu items from over 2,000 restaurants in Boston, about 1.6 million menu items from roughly 9,000 restaurants in Dubai, and about 3.1 million menu items from about 18,000 restaurants in London. In Boston, about 71 percent of the items were in the USDA database; in Dubai and London, that figure was 42 percent and 56 percent, respectively.

The team then rated the nutritional value of the items appearing on menus, and correlated the food data with health-outcome data from Boston and London. In London, they found a clear correlation between neighborhood menu offerings and obesity, or the lack thereof; with a slightly less firm correlation in Boston. Areas with food options that include a lot of dietary fibers, sometimes along with fruits and vegetables, tend to have better health data.

In Dubai, the researchers did not have the same types of health data available but did observe a strong correlation between rental prices and the nutritional value of neighborhood-level food, suggesting that wealthier residents have better nourishment options.

“At the item level, when we have less nutritional food, we see more cases of obsesity,” Tufano says. “It’s true that not only do we have more fast food in poor neighborhoods, but the nutritional value is not the same.”

Re-mapping the food landscape

By conducting the study in this fashion, the scholars added a layer of analysis to past studies of food deserts. While past work has broken ground by identifying neighborhoods and areas lacking good food access, this research makes a more comprehensive assessment of what people consume. The research moves toward evaluating the complex mix of food available in any given area, which can be true even of areas with more limited options.

“We were not satisfied with this idea that if you only have fast food, it’s a food desert, but if you have a Whole Foods, it’s not,” Duarte says. “It’s not necessarily like that.”

For the Senseable City Lab researchers, the study is a new technique further enabling them to understand city dynamics and the effects of the urban environment on health. Past lab studies have often focused on issues such as urban mobility, while extending to matters such as mobility and air pollution, among other topics.

Being able to study food and health at the neighborhood level, though, is still another example of the ways that data-rich spheres of life can be studied in close detail.

“When we started working on cities and data, the data resolution was so low,” Ratti says. “Today the amount of data is so immense we see this great opportunity to look at cities and see the influence of the urban environment as a big determinant of health. We see this as one of the new frontiers of our lab. It’s amazing how we can now look at this very precisely in cities.”

The operator of the New England power grid anticipates a demand for more electricity production over the next decade. (File photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

A long expected shift in New England electricity consumption – from using less power each year to consuming more as residents embrace electric vehicles and heat pumps – is beginning to happen, but the shift isn’t expected to be quite as dramatic as forecasters were predicting just a year ago.

The operator of the New England power grid released a study on Thursday saying a 10-year downturn in consumption of electricity from the region’s generating plants is coming to an end and giving way to the need for more electricity production over the next decade.

A year ago, ISO New England forecast a 17% increase in consumption of electricity generated by the region’s power plants by 2033. The latest report, citing a slowdown in electric vehicle and electric heat pump adoption rates, pares back the increase to 11% by 2034.

The shift is still fairly dramatic. According to the grid operator, electricity consumption steadily increased between 1995 and 2005, as the region experienced economic growth and New Englanders installed air conditioning in their homes and businesses. That trend reversed after 2005 as many residents reduced their consumption of electricity from power plants by embracing energy efficiency measures and by meeting all or some of their own power needs by installing solar panels.

Energy efficiency and home-grown solar production are continuing. Overall, solar power production in New England is forecasted to grow 88% over the next decade to 14,343 megawatts. Massachusetts is the leader, expected to generate 6,952 megawatts by 2034.

Still, ISO New England predicts the growth in solar and energy savings from efficiency measures will not be enough to offset the forecasted increased demand for electricity to power vehicles and home heating systems. The regional grid operator is forecasting that the electrification of the transportation and heating sectors will boost summer peak demand by 68 megawatts in 2025 and 956 megawatts by 2034. Peak demand during the winter heating season is expected to rise by 300 megawatts in 2025 and 6,529 megawatts by 2034.

Those increases are being predicted even though the Trump administration in Washington is pulling back support for electric vehicle, heat pump, and solar power subsidies.

The New England grid operator is forecasting that “net” electricity use – which is defined as electricity imported into the region or generated locally but not including solar home installations – will hit 130,665 gigawatt hours by 2034. That’s up from 116,813 gigawatt hours in 2024 and below the 2005 peak of 136,425 gigawatt hours.

ISO New England is not currently sounding alarms about its ability to secure enough electricity to meet future demand growth. A spokeswoman for the grid operator said it is currently counting on the construction of two offshore wind farms – Vineyard Wind off the coast of Massachusetts and Revolution Wind off the coast of Rhode Island. Both wind farms are currently under construction and haven’t been blocked by the Trump administration, which opposes the development of offshore wind.

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to ADRX-0405, a STEAP1-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), for the treatment of patients with gastric cancer.¹

The agent is under investigation in the phase 1a portion of an ongoing phase 1a/b trial (NCT06710379) in patients with certain advanced solid tumors, including metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), gastric cancer, and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

“Receiving orphan drug designation from FDA is a notable milestone for Adcentrx and reinforces the potential for ADRX-0405 to improve the lives of patients with gastric cancer,” Hui Li, PhD, founder and chief executive officer of Adcentrx, stated in a news release. “We are encouraged by the progress of our phase 1a trial and look forward to further evaluating the safety, tolerability and anti-tumor activity of ADRX-0405 in gastric and other cancers.”

ADRX-0405 is a next-generation ADC targeting STEAP1, a cell surface protein that is upregulated primarily in prostate cancer and several other cancers including gastric cancer. The ADC houses a humanized IgG1 antibody combined with a novel topoisomerase inhibitor linker payload to improve drug delivery. Specifically, ADRX-0405 binds STEAP1, which triggers H2AX phosphorylation and PARP cleavage, leading to nanomolar and target-dependent cytotoxicity in tumor cells.²

With a drug-antibody ratio of 8, ADRX-0405 has proved to be a highly stable ADC, showcasing favorable pharmacokinetics, safety, and efficacy in preclinical study.^1,2 In a patient-derived xenograft mouse model of prostate cancer with high and low STEAP1 expression, ADRX-0405 led to an overall response rate (ORR) of 83%.²

The ongoing phase 1a/b trial was designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and optimal dose of ADRX-0405 in patients with histologically confirmed mCRPC, gastric cancer, and NSCLC.³

To be eligible for enrollment, patients needed to have measurable disease according to RECIST 1.1 criteria or evaluable disease per Prostate Cancer Working Group 3 criteria for those with prostate cancer; an ECOG performance status of 0 or 1 in phase 1a or 0 to 2 in phase 1b; and adequate hematologic, liver, and renal function.

In phase 1b, patients must have histologically confirmed castration-resistant prostate adenocarcinoma with a serum testosterone level below 50 ng/dL that is intolerant or resistant to standard therapy.

Exclusion criteria include active and uncontrolled central nervous system metastases; significant cardiovascular disease; history of another malignancy within 3 years; exposure to any anticancer or investigational therapy within 5 elimination half-lives or 14 days, or 4 weeks for any therapeutic radiopharmaceutical for prostate cancer; history of interstitial lung disease or pneumonitis or a suspicion thereof, and exposure to systemic antimicrobial treatment for active infection.

In the phase 1a dose escalation portion of the trial eligible patients will receive escalating doses of ADRX-0405 to determine the maximum tolerated dose and recommended dose for expansion. In dose expansion only patients with previously treated mCRPC will receive ADRX-0405.

The primary end point is the incidence of adverse effects. Secondary end points include pharmacokinetic measures, as well as ORR, duration of response, disease control rate, progression-free survival (PFS), radiographic PFS, and overall survival.

In January 2025, the developer announced the first patient had been dosed in the trial and the first data readout was planned for the fourth quarter of 2025.⁴

References

1. U.S. FDA grants orphan drug designation to Adcentrx Therapeutics’ ADRX‑0405 STEAP1 ADC for gastric cancer. News release. Adcentrx Therapeutics. July 8, 2025. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://www.adcentrx.com/adcentrx-therapeutics-adrx-0405-steap-1-adc-granted-orphan-drug-designation-for-the-treatment-of-gastric-cancer/
2. Shahmoradgoli M, Hau AM, Betancourt O, et al. Preclinical characterization of a novel STEAP1 antibody-drug conjugate ADRX-0405 for the treatment of mCRPC. Cancer Res. 2025;85(suppl 8):1159. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2025-1159
3. A study of ADRX-0405 in subjects with select advanced solid tumors. ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated April 9, 2025. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06710379
4. Adcentrx Therapeutics announces first patient dosed in the phase 1a/b study of ADRX-0405, a potential first-in-class ADC targeting STEAP1 for the treatment of advanced solid tumors. News release. Adcentrx Therapeutics. January 6, 2025. Accessed July 11, 2025. https://www.adcentrx.com/adcentrx-therapeutics-doses-first-patient-in-phase-1a-with-adrx-0405-steap1-adc/