Simply sign up to the Hedge funds myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
Ken Griffin’s hedge fund Citadel has been outshone by smaller rivals so far this year, as the firm was stung by the market volatility unleashed by Donald Trump’s trade war.
Citadel’s flagship Wellington fund gained 2.5 per cent in the first half of 2025, according to a person familiar with the matter. Balyasny and ExodusPoint were up 7.3 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively, according to people who have seen the figures.
Citadel, which manages around $66bn, is one of the dominant players among so-called multi-manager funds, a sector that has sucked in billions of dollars from the world’s largest investors. Balyasny and ExodusPoint manage roughly $25bn and $11bn respectively.
Multi-manager firms have legions of trading teams known as “pods”, which trade a variety of strategies in asset classes including equities, fixed income and commodities. They borrow large sums from banks to juice returns and adhere to strict risk management to control losses, making them attractive to big investors such as pension funds that desire stable returns.
Citadel was wrongfooted by Trump’s tariff policies earlier this year, with Griffin saying in May that the firm had to “tear apart and re-examine the portfolio . . . and ask yourself in what ways we have positioned or mispositioned ourselves against the reality that the odds of a recession have gone higher”.
Last year, Citadel eclipsed most rivals as it delivered 15.1 per cent to investors. It’s annualised net return since the firm was founded 35 years ago is roughly 19.2 per cent.
Between Fourth of July bargains and Amazon Prime Day just around the corner, you might be tempted to wait to see what low prices will manifest. Though the summer Prime Day sale officially falls between July 8 and 11, you don’t need to wait to save. Specifically, on the Amazon Fire HD 10, one of the best budget tablets available right now.
At just $140, it’s very competitively priced, but that’s a massive $70 more than you will pay if you pick one up today. Amazon is currently offering this tablet for its lowest price of the year, slashing it to just $70 for a limited time. You can choose any of the three colors and pay that price, and you can pay an extra $15 to ditch the lockscreen ads, too. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen, a 50% discount.
This deal doesn’t require you to enter any discount codes or clip any coupons, but you do need to order your discounted Fire HD 10 tablet soon and you do need to have Amazon Prime. This is listed as a limited-time deal, so it won’t hang around forever.
Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.
It’s definitely a deal that you won’t want to miss. For just $70, you can pick up a tablet with a large 10-inch display that sports a 1080p resolution. Despite that large display, you can still expect up to 13 hours of battery life per charge, while the base model comes with 32GB of storage. You can opt for the 64GB model or add more storage via an optional microSD card.
Notetakers and artists will be pleased to know that this tablet supports the Amazon Stylus Pen, while built-in Alexa support means that you can interact with your smart home and more using just your voice.
TABLET DEALS OF THE WEEK
Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.
Why this deal matters
It’s easy to look at the price of Apple tablets and those from brands like Samsung and think that you have to spend hundreds of dollars to use something bigger than your phone. This Amazon Fire HD 10 deal proves that isn’t the case, and this deal offers the lowest price we’ve seen in 2025, making it the perfect time to pick up one.
Video games are an art form, and Photomode lets you flex your own artistic muscles by capturing the beauty of Ubisoft’s worlds. Whether you’ve created the perfect shot of an assassination by Naoe or Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the expansive beauty of a galaxy in Star Wars Outlaws, or a wild trick on the slopes in Riders Republic, we invite you to submit your creations in Ubisoft’s third annual Photomode contest, running July 1-15.
To be eligible for consideration, all Photomode entries must be composed entirely in-game. That means no editing once you’ve taken the shot, but Ubisoft games offer ample composition options with in-game Photomode, including contrast, color, filters, unique angles, and many more. Additionally, all entries must be at least 1920×1080 pixels.
To enter, you can post up to four Photomode creations on Instagram or X (formerly Twitter), tagging @Ubisoft, and using the hashtag #UbisoftPhotomodeContest. This year’s jury panel consists of four experts within Ubisoft, including Jean Guesdon, Strategic Visualization Director at Ubisoft Montreal; Shauna Jones, Community Manager, Consumer Interaction / Virtual Photographer at Ubisoft Newcastle; Tom Isaksen, Character Director at Ubisoft Paris; and Pierre Espaignet, Lead Lighting Artist at Ubisoft Bordeaux.
Ten winners will be announced on August 1. The first-place winner will be invited to Ubisoft Montreal for a studio tour, while from the second to the tenth place winners will receive a one-year subscription to Ubisoft+ Premium. Additionally, some winners will have their work displayed at the Mutek Festival in Montreal from August 15-30.
Eligible games for the Photomode 2025 Contest are:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Assassin’s Creed Origins
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Anno 1800
The Crew Motorfest
The Crew 2
The Division 2
Far Cry 6
Far Cry New Dawn
Far Cry 5
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ghost Recon Wildlands
Immortals Fenyx Rising
Riders Republic
Skull and Bones
Star Wars Outlaws
Steep
Trackmania
Watch Dogs: Legion
The Ubisoft Photomode Contest 2025 submission period opens on July 1 at 18:00 CEST and closes on July 15 at 21:00 CEST. For the full list of rules and eligibility requirements, visit the Ubisoft Photomode Contest website.
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. If you need me after this newsletter publishes, I will be busy poring over photos from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding, the gaudiest and most star-studded affair to disrupt technology news this year. I found it a tacky and spectacular affair. Everyone who was anyone was there, except for Charlize Theron, who, unprompted, said on Monday: “I think we might be the only people who did not get an invite to the Bezos wedding. But that’s OK, because they suck and we’re cool.”
AI companies start winning the copyright fight
Last week, tech companies notched several victories in the fight over their use of copyrighted text to create artificial intelligence products.
Anthropic: A US judge has ruled that Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, use of books to train its artificial intelligence system – without permission of the authors – did not breach copyright law. Judge William Alsup compared the Anthropic model’s use of books to a “reader aspiring to be a writer.”
And the next day, Meta: The US district judge Vince Chhabria, in San Francisco, said in his decision on the Meta case that the authors had not presented enough evidence that the technology company’s AI would cause “market dilution” by flooding the market with work similar to theirs.
The same day that Meta received its favorable ruling, a group of writers sued Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement in the creation of that company’s Megatron text generator. Judging by the rulings in favor of Meta and Anthropic, the authors are facing an uphill battle.
These three cases are skirmishes in the wider legal war over copyrighted media, which rages on. Three weeks ago, Disney and NBC Universal sued Midjourney, alleging that the company’s namesake AI image generator and forthcoming video generator made illegal use of the studios’ iconic characters like Darth Vader and the Simpson family. The world’s biggest record labels – Sony, Universal, and Warner – have sued two companies that make AI-powered music generators, Suno and Udio. On the textual front, the New York Times’ suit against OpenAI and Microsoft is ongoing.
The lawsuits over AI-generated text were filed first, and, as their rulings emerge, the next question in the copyright fight is whether decisions about one type of media will apply to the next.
“The specific media involved in the lawsuit – written works versus images versus videos versus audio – will certainly change the fair use analysis in each case,” said John Strand, a trademark and copyright attorney with the law firm Wolf Greenfield. “The impact on the market for the copyrighted works is becoming a key factor in the fair use analysis, and the market for books is different than that for movies.”
To Strand, the cases over images seem more favorable to copyright holders, as the AI models are allegedly producing identical images to the copyrighted ones in the training data.
A bizarre and damning fact was revealed in the Anthropic ruling, too: the company had pirated and stored some 7m books to create a training database for its AI. To remediate its wrongdoing, the company bought physical copies and scanned them, digitizing the text. Now the owner of 7 million physical books that no longer held any utility, Anthropic destroyed them. The company bought the books, diced them up, scanned the text, and threw them away, Ars Technica reports. There are less destructive ways to digitize books, but they are slower. The AI industry is here to move fast and break things.
Anthropic laying waste to millions of books presents a crude literalization of the ravenous consumption of content necessary for AI companies to create their products.
AI and the environment: bad news
An update on last week’s stories: Trump’s phone
Composite: The Guardian/Getty/Trump Mobile/Trump Watches/Ebay
Two stories I wrote about last week saw significant updates in the ensuing days.
The website for Trump’s gold phone, “T1”, has dropped its “Made in America” pledge in favor of “proudly American” and “brought to life in America”, per the Verge.
Trump seems to have followed the example of Apple, which skirts the issue of origin but still emphasizes the American-ness of iPhones by engraving them with “Designed in California.” What is unsaid: Assembled in China or India, and sourced from many other countries. It seems Trump and his family have opted for a similar evasive tagline, though it’s been thrown into much starker relief by their original promise.
The third descriptor that now appears on Trump’s phone site, “American-Proud Design”, seems most obviously cued by Apple.
The tagline “Made in the USA” carries legal weight. Companies have faced lawsuits over just how many of their products’ parts were produced in the US, and the US’ main trade regulator has established standards by which to judge the actions behind the slogan. It would be extremely difficult for a smartphone’s manufacturing history to measure up to those benchmarks, by the vast majority of expert estimations.
Though Trump intends to repatriate manufacturing in the US with his sweeping tariffs, he seems to be learning just what other phone companies already know. It is complicated and limiting to make a phone solely in the US, and doing so forces severe constraints on the final product.
Read last week’s newsletter about the gold Trump phone.
… and online age checks
Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Last week, I wrote about Pornhub’s smutty return to France after a law requiring online age verification was suspended there. This week, the US supreme court ruled in favor of an age-check law passed in Texas. Pornhub has blocked access to anyone in Texas in protest for the better part of two years, as it did in France for three weeks. Clarence Thomas summed up the court’s reasoning:
“HB 1181 simply requires adults to verify their age before they can access speech that is obscene to children,” Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s 6-3 majority opinion. “The statute advances the state’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content. And, it is appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data.”
Elena Kagan dissented alongside the court’s two other liberal justices.
The ruling affirms not only Texas’s law but the statutes of nearly two dozen states that have implemented online age checks. The tide worldwide seems to be shifting away from allowing freer access to pornography as part of a person’s right to free expression and more towards curtailing
Experts believe the malleable definition of obscenity – the Texas law requires an age check for any site whose content is more than a third sexual material – will be weaponized against online information on sexual health, abortion or LGBTQ identity, all in the name of child protection.
“It’s an unfortunate day for the supporters of an open internet,” said GS Hans, professor at Cornell Law School. “The court has made a radical shift in free speech jurisprudence in this case, though it doesn’t characterize its decision that way. By upholding the limits on minors’ access to obscenity – a notoriously difficult category to define – that also creates limits on adult access, we can expect to see states take a heavier hand in regulating content.”
I’ll be closely watching what happens in July when Pornhub willingly implements age checks in compliance with the Online Services Act.
Read more: UK study shows 8% of children aged eight to 14 have viewed online pornography
Read more AI news
This week in AI: new WhatsApp summaries and Nobel winners’ genomic model
The WhatsApp logo. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP
New features are a dime a dozen, but even a small tweak to the most popular messaging app in the world may amount to a major shift. WhatsApp will begin showing you AI-generated summaries of your unread messages, per the Verge.
Apple tried message summaries. They did not work. The company pulled them. For a firm famed for its calculated and controlled releases, the retraction of the summaries was a humiliation. The difference between Apple and Meta, though, is that Meta has consistently released AI products for multiple years now.
In other AI news, I am rarely captivated by new technologies, but a recent release by Google’s DeepMind AI laboratory seems promising for healthcare. Google DeepMind has released AlphaGenome, an AI meant to “comprehensively and accurately predicts how single variants or mutations in human DNA sequences impact a wide range of biological processes regulating genes,” per a press release. The creators of AlphaGenome previously won the Nobel prize in chemistry for AlphaFold, a software that predicts the structures of proteins.
A major question that hovers over Crispr, another Nobel-winning innovation, is what changes in a person when a genetic sequence is modified. AlphaGenome seems poised to assist in solving that mystery.
The Apple Pencil Pro has dropped to a new low of $99 on Amazon. With its advanced features, the Pro is a newer, more attractive option than the USB-C Apple Pencil or the Apple Pencil 2nd Gen. And with Prime Day next week (and competing sales right around the corner), there’s no better time to shop these savings at a retailer of your choice — including Walmart, Amazon or Costco.
Also: I replaced my iPad with a de-Googled Android tablet for a week – here’s my buying advice
This current discount makes the Apple Pencil Pro even cheaper than the less sophisticated Apple Pencil 2nd Gen. It’s a pretty solid bargain and a much smarter buy so long as your current iPad is compatible with the Pencil Pro. We haven’t seen the Pencil Pro drop below this $99 discount yet, so these savings are on par with those offered at different points this year, like Black Friday 2024.
Compatible with the M4 iPad ProM2 and M3 iPad Air, and iPad Mini with an A17 Pro chip, the Apple Pencil Pro introduces advanced features and tools that enhance creative control, such as squeeze and “barrel roll” gestures to access brushes and change stroke types without interrupting workflow.
Also:Apple Pencil Pro vs. Apple Pencil 2: Which model you should buy for your iPad
I would argue that its built-in Find My Support makes it worth the extra cost. Losing an Apple Pencil can be as easy as losing a regular pencil, so having Find My Support sweetens the deal.
With its new haptic feedback, users can feel their creations come to life as they sketch and draw. The device’s hover feature on the iPad Pro and iPad Air allows for a preview of marks before committing to the screen.
A close look at the Apple Pencil Pro.
Maria Diaz/ZDNET
The Apple Pencil Pro’s advanced capabilities make marking up documents, taking notes, and creating art more intuitive than ever. Take advantage of this deal while it lasts.
Looking for the next best product? Get expert reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends.
How I rated this deal
This 23% off deal earns it a 3/5 Editor’s deal rating. The Pencil Pro is barely a year old, so a sub-$100 offer is great during big savings opportunities, and it’s on par with previous discounts.
Deals are subject to sell out or expire at any time, though ZDNET remains committed to finding, sharing, and updating the best product deals for you to score the best savings. Our team of experts regularly checks in on the deals we share to ensure they are still live and obtainable. We’re sorry if you’ve missed out on this deal, but don’t fret — we’re constantly finding new chances to save and sharing them with you at ZDNET.com.
Show more
We aim to deliver the most accurate advice to help you shop smarter. ZDNET offers 33 years of experience, 30 hands-on product reviewers, and 10,000 square feet of lab space to ensure we bring you the best of tech.
In 2025, we refined our approach to deals, developing a measurable system for sharing savings with readers like you. Our editor’s deal rating badges are affixed to most of our deal content, making it easy to interpret our expertise to help you make the best purchase decision.
At the core of this approach is a percentage-off-based system to classify savings offered on top-tech products, combined with a sliding-scale system based on our team members’ expertise and several factors like frequency, brand or product recognition, and more. The result? Hand-crafted deals chosen specifically for ZDNET readers like you, fully backed by our experts.
Alpine have enquired about the availability of 10-time race winner and current Mercedes reserve Valtteri Bottas, should they decide they want to change their line-up this season or beyond. F1 Correspondent Lawrence Barretto explains the state of play…
Why are Alpine looking for a driver if they already have Gasly and Colapinto locked in this season?
Well, they’re not so much chasing as they are exploring their options.
Alpine are in something of a transitional year – and with the Enstone-based team swapping to Mercedes power next year as part of an overhaul of the squad under the stewardship of Flavio Briatore, they are keen to get their driver line-up right for 2026.
Pierre Gasly is, without question, part of their plans. Their second seat is trickier.
They’ve already made a change this season, bringing in Franco Colapinto to replace Jack Doohan (with the latter back to reserve and the bench) from Imola onwards.
Colapinto hasn’t hit the ground running like he did in his super sub performance for Williams and has yet to score a point in five races with the squad.
However, it must be said that the car has lacked performance relative to its rivals and, since Colapinto joined the team, his team mate Gasly has scored just once with eighth in Spain.
Alpine continue to back Colapinto – and believe he is capable of delivering.
But as 2026 edges ever closer, Briatore is doing what you’d expect him to do – keeping his finger on the pulse and ensuring he knows what his options are going forward, hence why sources say he contacted Mercedes to check on Bottas’ availability.
So, don’t leave me hanging – what did they say?
My understanding is that Mercedes will not stand in Bottas’ way should he be offered a race seat elsewhere.
I believe Bottas is contracted to the Silver Arrows, where he won all of his 10 races, until the end of the year – and then he is free to make his own decisions with regards trying to find a race seat (or worst-case alternative role) next season.
His boss Toto Wolff is a big supporter of Bottas and believes he is still operating at a high-level and is deserving of a place on the grid. So, it’s no surprise they would accommodate a request should one be made for his services, especially as Alpine will be running the Silver Arrows’ engines next year.
Why would Alpine be keen to explore an option on Bottas?
It’s two-fold. Briatore finds the team’s currently level of performance concerning. With Alpine locked to the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship, he wants short-term progress soon.
Having two strong drivers delivering consistently can have a significant impact – as Williams are seeing with their experienced line-up of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.
Secondly, he wants the team to take advantage of sweeping changes to the aerodynamic and power unit regulations next season – and the arrival of Mercedes power, which is widely expected to be among the best, if not the best, engines next year.
Bringing on someone with Bottas’ experience could help on both counts.
The Finn has 247 Grands Prix to his name, has won 10 races, scored 67 podiums and taken 20 pole positions. He excelled during his time at Mercedes, particularly with regards to his one-lap pace, and made a positive impact during his three years at Sauber.
His time at Mercedes has given him recent insight into how a race-winning team is operating while he is believed to have been fully plugged into the development of the 2026 car. He even had some seat time with McLaren earlier this year in a 2023-spec car.
Alpine could benefit from Bottas’ presence in the race team – and there will be those internally who are fans of his given he was in contention for a seat there this year before the management changed and opted for Doohan.
Will Bottas fancy it?
One thing is for sure, Bottas is hungry to return to a race seat and more motivated than ever.
He took the Mercedes reserve role (to stay relevant, fit and connected to the sport) and is keen on discussions with newcomers Cadillac about a race seat next year.
The Finn would back himself to deliver if he gets a shot at Alpine – and you’d expect he’d be interested in a deal that allows him to drive next year, too, for security. His experience with Mercedes power could be invaluable.
Such a move would help him get race sharp again so that even if Alpine don’t retain him, he would be even more appealing to the likes of Cadillac, as they look to hit the ground running on debut next year.
So, now what happens?
For now, it’s business as usual and Colapinto will be in the car at Silverstone and beyond.
If Alpine decide they want to pursue an alternative, preliminary talks with Mercedes would likely continue, with Bottas and his management also being drafted in if things accelerate.
This situation must be tough on Colapinto…
Absolutely, but every driver is under pressure to perform – and Colapinto is no different.
Briatore’s move to explore options will raise that pressure, but it might trigger a step up in performance for the Argentine driver.
Silverstone is a circuit which the 22-year-old has performed well at in junior formulae – and he’ll have fond memories of the place having made his Grand Prix weekend debut there last year when driving for Williams.
If Colapinto improves his results, Briatore won’t need to change anything for now. And just knowing Bottas is available gives Briatore and Alpine flexibility.
Ophthalmology has been on a tremendous rise in recent years, with developments on almost every front and new treatments for a slew of diseases. Upcoming therapies and groundbreaking technology have paved the way for attempts to lighten the treatment burden on patients by extending dosing intervals; a number of medications have exhibited efficacy outside of their expected field in ophthalmology; and trial successes have come hard and fast.
Q2 2025 followed many of these patterns, with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) handing out approvals to several critically important medications and companies worldwide announcing successful advancements on first-of-their-kind drugs. Niches were filled, treatment burdens were lessened, and alternative therapies were discovered. To mark the end of Q2 2025, HCPLive Ophthalmology created a recap of the biggest news from April to June 2025.
This recap collects 5 regulatory updates from the FDA, our 5 biggest trial announcement articles, and 3 critical insights from top experts featured prominently within our coverage.
Q2 2025 Regulatory Updates in Ophthalmology
FDA Issues Complete Response Letter to Aflibercept 8 mg for Extended Dosing
Announced on April 18, this CRL was specifically for parent company Regeneron’s proposed dosage extension up to 24-weeks. No safety or efficacy issues of aflibercept 8 mg in any of its approved dosing regimens or indications were found; the FDA disagreed instead with an attempt to extend dosing intervals longer than the current maximum of 16 weeks according to the label.
FDA Approves Prednisolone Acetate Ophthalmic Suspension for Ocular Inflammation
On June 12, 2025, the FDA approved the sterile, topical anti-inflammatory agent for the treatment of steroid-responsive ocular inflammation. The medication is a self-administered eye drop intended for use 2-4 times daily. In addition to this approval, parent company Amneal Pharmaceuticals announced a planned launch for the third quarter of 2025.
FDA Approves Acoltremon Ophthalmic Solution (TRYPTYR) for Dry Eye Disease
On May 28, 2025, the FDA approved acoltremon, a first-in-class transient receptor potential melastatin 8 channel receptor agonist which stimulates corneal sensory nerves, to treat dry eye disease. Both pivotal phase 3 trials, COMET-2 and COMET-3, displayed rapid onset and sustained tear production, as well as a substantial percentage of patients with a ≥10mm increase in unanesthetized Schirmer’s score across both trials compared to vehicle.
FDA Approves Susvimo for Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy
Announced on May 22, 2025, this approval marked the third approved indication for Susvimo, along with diabetic macular edema. The medication was made available to US retina specialists from the day that parent company Genentech announced the FDA approval. Susvimo is now the first and only FDA-approved continuous delivery treatment able to maintain vision in people with diabetic retinopathy with only 1 refill every 9 months.
FDA Grants IND Clearance to Immunoglobulin Eye Drops for Dry Eye Disease
On May 21, 2025, the FDA granted Investigational New Drug clearance to Selagine, Inc.’s immunoglobulin drops, an anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory biologic drug for the treatment of dry eye disease. Selagine and partner Grifols, one of the leading producers of plasma-derived medicines, expect that the IG drops will reach retail pharmacies in early 2029.
Q2 2025 Trial Announcements in Ophthalmology
VVN461 Trial Topline Results Announced for Non-Infectious Anterior Uveitis
Announced April 24, 2025, VivaVision announced that both VVN461-1.0% and VVN461-0.5% showed non-inferior efficacy against a prednisolone acetate comparator cohort in treating NIAU. Although VivaVision is based in China, the company has announced its intention to request a type C meeting with the FDA regarding phase 3 trials and an eventual BLA.
Pegcetacoplan Reduces Rate of Geographic Atrophy Growth, 1-Year Trial Data Shows
On April 23, 2025, 12-month results from the ongoing GALE open-label extension study indicated pegcetacoplan’s ability to reduce the mean rate of geographic atrophy growth. Initiated in response to positive results from the 2-year OAKS and DERBY trials of pegcetacoplan in patients with GA secondary to AMD, GALE is expected to significantly advance the evidence for the medication’s long-term safety and efficacy by its culmination.
Announced by Cognition Therapeutics on May 8, 2025, the phase 2 MAGNIFY trial resulted in oral zervimesine reducing lesion growth in patients with geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration. Simultaneously being developed for Alzheimer’s and dementia with Lewy bodies, the once-daily oral pill may overcome the limitations of current treatment options, which require regular intravitreal injections.
Veligrotug Shows Durability for Thyroid Eye Disease in Phase 3 Trial Results
Long-term data announced on May 20, 2025, by Viridian Therapeutics, Inc. indicated the positive long-term durability of veligrotug in treating thyroid eye disease. Veligrotug, already granted the Breakthrough Therapy designation by the FDA prior, is also on track with its BLA planned for the second half of 2025.
Opthea Announces Termination of ShORe and COAST Trials of Sozinibercept
On April 2, 2025, Opthea announced the termination of their ShORe and COAST trials after sozinibercept failed to achieve vision improvement benchmarks in treating wet AMD. COAST failed on March 24, which led Opthea to accelerate topline data of the ShORe trial. However, when this trial also missed its benchmarks, Opthea shuttered the trials.
Q2 Expert Perspectives in Ophthalmology
Phase 2 LUNA Trial Results for Ixo-vec to Treat Neovascular AMD with Dante Pieramici, MD
Dante Pieramici, MD, assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Center in Southern California, discusses the results of the phase 2 LUNA trial of ixoberogene Soroparvovec intravitreal gene therapy for the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
Changing Dosage Regimens in Patients with Diabetic Macular Edema, with Mark Barakat, MD
Mark Barakat, MD, founder and director of research at the Retina Macula Institute of Arizona, discusses his post-hoc analysis examining the shortening or extending of aflibercept 8 mg dosage for patients with DME through week 96 of the PHOTON trial.
Switching to Aflibercept 8 mg in Treatment-Experienced Patients with Ted Leng, MD
Theodore Leng, MD, Director of Clinical and Translational Research and Director of Ophthalmic Diagnostics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, discusses the process of switching to aflibercept 8mg from other anti-VEGF agents in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
Scooter Braun is transitioning his role at HYBE, the South Korean entertainment giant, moving from CEO of HYBE America to an advisory position which will have him joining the HYBE Board of Directors as a director and a senior advisor to chairman and CEO Bang Si-Hyuk. The move marks the end of a five-year run at HYBE, which is home to such K-pop acts as BTS and Katseye.
The news was announced to HYBE staffers on Monday when Braun, dialing in from David Geffen’s yacht where he is vacationing, notified employees that the move was “in the works for quite some time,” according to a source who adds that the five-year plan was initiated with the sale of Braun’s Ithaca Holdings to HYBE in 2021. Braun will remain active in current HYBE projects, like the just-launched girl group Katseye. Braun intimated that he “isn’t going anywhere” and will “still help guide” the artists on the HYBE roster. During the call, Braun shared with the staff that, when he set out for a career in music 25 years ago, it was after reading the Geffen biography The Operator. Today, as he closes this chapter of his career, he reminded his colleagues of what he’s learned from Geffen: “Follow your dreams and anything can happen.”
Braun built his business managing music artists like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, J Balvin, Demi Lovato and The Kid LAROI under the SB Projects banner. In 2024, he stepped away from the management business, announcing his decision on social media, where he noted, “I have been blessed to have had a ‘Forrest Gump’-like life while witnessing and taking part in the journeys of some of the most extraordinarily talented people the world has ever seen. I’m constantly pinching myself and asking ‘how did I get here?’”
The exit from management coincided with a split from Bieber which turned contemptuous, as THR reported in April, due to financial consequences triggered by the cancelation of Bieber’s Justice tour in 2022. In not fulfilling his contractual obligation to AEG (the tour’s promoter) and completing the concert dates, for which he received a $40 million advance, Bieber was left owing more than $20 million to AEG. Then-manager Braun, through his company, covered what was owed in the form of a loan at a highly favorable (to Bieber) rate. In addition, the two were partnered in a number of other businesses including a record label and film projects. Braun also helped secure a $200 million catalog deal for Bieber’s songwriting interests, possibly the largest nest egg in music history for an artist under 30. (Worth noting: Hailey Bieber, who married Justin in 2018, recently sold her Rhode Beauty skincare brand to e.l.f. Beauty for $1 billion; Braun was a seed investor.)
THR has learned that a settlement between Braun and Bieber is now completed. “Scooter and Justin squashed their issues and are in a good place,” says a source who adds that Braun’s last act at HYBE was to close the book on the squabble and “leave the company, and Justin, in a good position.”
Reps for Bieber declined to comment on the settlement.
Stepping into the CEO position in Braun’s place and leading all day-to-day duties is Isaac Lee, who has been chairman of HYBE Latin America since November of 2023. Lee’s new title is chairman and CEO of HYBE Americas. In addition to running HYBE’s operations in Mexico, Miami, and Medellin, Lee will also have oversight of Nashville-based Big Machine Label Group (BMLG) and Quality Control Media Holdings, headquartered in Atlanta.
While Braun’s next move is unclear, HYBE chief Bang Si-Hyuk commented, “Scooter has been an extraordinary partner, a visionary executive, and a true catalyst for cultural exchange. His contributions have been vital in establishing our ambitious presence in the U.S. market. I am deeply grateful for his leadership, his astute instincts and his unwavering passion for artists. We wish him immense success in his exciting next chapter and look forward to continuing our partnership in executing HYBE’s global vision.”
Braun also remains one of HYBE’s largest individual shareholders. In announcing his new role, Braun said: “Being a part of HYBE and witnessing its remarkable growth has been one of the most inspiring chapters of my professional journey. Chairman Bang is a true visionary and a musical genius. What he has built with HYBE is unparalleled. I am incredibly proud of our collective accomplishments and look forward to supporting Chairman Bang and CEO Jason Jaesang Lee in their continued success as I step into what’s next.”
