BARCELONA — Chinese electronics maker Honor is working on a smart ring, its CEO told CNBC on Tuesday, just a day after Samsung took the wraps off of its own offering in the product category.

Samsung debuted the Galaxy Ring on Monday after teasing it earlier this year. The device, which is the company’s first foray into the product category, has multiple sensors that can track health markers, such as the wearer’s heart rate. It is part of a broader health push by Samsung.

Honor is developing its own smart ring, company CEO George Zhao told CNBC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

“Internally, we have this kind of solution, now we are working on that part, so in the future you can have the Honor ring,” he said.

Zhao disclosed very few details about the product, but said that it is part of the firm’s broader focus on health.

Spun off from Huawei in 2020 as a result of U.S. sanctions, Honor has pushed aggressively to launch its own smartphones and expand its presence outside of China, particularly in the premium market, where it seeks to rival Apple and Samsung.

The company has also expanded into other devices, including wearables such as smartwatches, which can also measure some health indicators.

With a ring, Honor could add another product to its portfolio and link them together with its health app, much like Samsung is looking to do.

Zhao said he sees artificial intelligence as a key way to help provide more health insights to users.

“This hardware capability will work together with AI-enabled apps (and) can help you make the professional training course tailored for you because they studied your habits and health data to give you professional suggestions,” Zhao said. “I think AI will transform this kind of applications.”

Honor has been talking up its AI capabilities at MWC this week and showed off technology on its smartphone that can track your eyes to carry out functions.

Eli Lilly on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations on the strong launch of its new weight loss drug, Zepbound, and higher prices for its blockbuster diabetes drug, Mounjaro.

Zepbound, which won approval from U.S. regulators in early November, raked in $175.8 million in sales for the fourth quarter.

The quarterly results are the first to include sales of Zepbound, which some analysts say could post more than a billion dollars in sales in its first year on the market and eventually, become the biggest drug of all time. 

Shares of Eli Lilly were up about 5% in premarket trading Tuesday.

Here’s what Eli Lilly reported for the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: $2.49 adjusted vs. $2.22 expectedRevenue: $9.35 billion vs. $8.93 billion expected

Eli Lilly posted net income of $2.19 billion, or $2.42 a share, for the fourth quarter. That compares with a profit of $1.94 billion, or $2.14 a share, a year earlier. 

Excluding one-time items associated with the value of intangible assets, among other adjustments, the company posted a per-share profit of $2.49 cents for the fourth quarter of 2023.

The pharmaceutical giant booked fourth-quarter revenue of $9.35 billion, up 28% from the same period a year ago.

Eli Lilly also issued its full-year forecast for 2024, which was generally in line with expectations.

The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $12.20 to $12.70 per share. Eli Lilly also forecast 2024 revenue of $40.4 billion to $41.6 billion.

Analysts surveyed by LSEG expected full-year adjusted earnings of $12.43 per share and sales of $39.38 billion.

Shares of Eli Lilly jumped almost 60% last year as weight loss drugs skyrocketed in popularity despite hefty price tags, mixed insurance coverage and a handful of unpleasant side effects. With a market cap of roughly $673 billion, Eli Lilly is the largest pharmaceutical company based in the U.S. 

Higher prices for older drugs, particularly Mounjaro, helped drive up Eli Lilly’s revenue, the company said. Mounjaro booked $2.21 billion in sales for the fourth quarter, up from just $279.2 million in the same period a year ago. 

Analysts had expected the drug to bring in $1.73 billion in worldwide sales, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.

That increase reflects increased demand but also “higher realized prices” in the U.S. due to decreased use of Eli Lilly’s savings card programs as access to the drug continued to expand during the quarter, the company said. The savings card programs aim to help lower the out-of-pocket costs for drugs like Mounjaro for patients.

Revenue growth was also driven by sales of Eli Lilly’s breast cancer pill Verzenio, which rose 42% to $1.15 billion for the quarter due to increased demand and higher prices.

Those results came in under analysts’ expectations, however, which called for $1.18 billion in sales for the period. 

Sales of Jardiance, a tablet that lowers blood sugar in Type 2 diabetes patients, climbed 30% to $798.1 million for the fourth quarter. Analysts had expected $771.8 million in sales from Jardiance. 

Jardiance, which Eli Lilly shares with Boehringer Ingelheim, is among the first 10 drugs selected to face price negotiations with the federal Medicare program. Those price talks heated up last week after Medicare sent its initial price offers for each drug to the manufacturers. 

Meanwhile, Eli Lilly said higher prices were offset by lower prices of its other diabetes medicine Trulicity and insulin product Humalog.

Trulicity reported $1.67 billion in revenue, down 14% from the same period a year ago. Analysts had expected Trulicity to rake in $1.77 billion in sales for the quarter. 

Humalog saw $366.6 million in revenue for the quarter, down 33% from the year-ago period. Analysts had expected the medicine to book $438 million in sales, according to FactSet.

That decrease isn’t a surprise: Last year, Eli Lilly said it would cut prices of Humalog and another commonly prescribed insulin by 70% and cap monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35 at certain retail pharmacies for people who have private insurance starting May 1, 2023.

Eli Lilly will hold an earnings call with investors at 10:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday. 

Executives will likely be asked about whether the company has made more progress in addressing the supply issues plaguing its weight loss and diabetes drugs. 

There may also be questions related to the timing of the FDA’s decision on Eli Lilly’s experimental Alzheimer’s drug, donanemab, which significantly slowed the progression of the memory-robbing disease in patients at the early stages of it.

The company did not mention the drug in its earnings release.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

Novartis on Wednesday completed the spinoff of its generics and biosimilars business Sandoz, whose shares began trading at 24 Swiss francs in the early minutes of the company’s debut on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

The Swiss drugmaker initially announced intentions to spin off the business in August, offering stakeholders one Sandoz share for every five Novartis shares via a dividend-in-kind distribution.

Narasimhan told CNBC that the company had accelerated its efforts over the last six years to “focus Novartis as a pure play innovative medicines company.”

Pure play companies refer to entities that target a single product or industry sector.

“Over the last six years, we’ve done over $100 billion of transactions. We exited consumer health to create one of the largest consumer health companies, exited Alcon in the largest public market spin in European capital markets, we exited our Roche stake,” Narasimhan told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum.

“Now we spin [off] Sandoz, and what is left now is really where I think Novartis is best suited to succeed in the long run — a pure play innovative medicines company focused on bringing R&D efforts and the new medicines we create to markets around the world.”

Novartis shares climbed more than 3% in early trade in Zurich to lead the pan-European Stoxx 600 index.

Novartis also reiterated its full-year guidance, with sales expected to grow in a high single-digit percentage and with core operating income set to grow in the low double digits to mid-teens.

In a statement alongside the Wednesday announcement, Narasimhan said this was a “truly historic moment for Novartis and Sandoz” as they begin life as independent companies.

“With several consecutive quarters of sales growth, Sandoz starts out from a position of strength as a global leader in Generics and Biosimilars, and I am confident they are poised to deepen their impact on patients and society,” he added.

Jefferies analysts have valued the Sandoz listing at between $12.3 billion and $16.2 billion, when the company begins trading on Wednesday.

Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor also on Wednesday told CNBC that the spinoff would help his company focus its own strategy, which includes a pipeline of 25 biologics projects, with five more set to launch over the next two years.

“Ultimately, it’s about focus. Sandoz is the world’s largest generics and biosimilars company, and now, by becoming an independent company, we can focus on how we grow that business, how we bring more products to patients, and really continue to build on the momentum that we’ve created over the last couple of years,” Saynor told CNBC on Wednesday.

Saynor said the company’s broad aims are to continue to build on the sales momentum of the last seven quarters, expanding the profit margin over the next few years and driving free cash flows.

Around half of Sandoz revenues come from Europe, which Saynor said gives the company a “huge platform to grow.”

“We’ve invested heavily in our biologics pipeline, so, as we sit here today, we have 25 projects in our pipeline, and we’re in the process of launching about five over the next two years,” Saynor said.

“We’ve guided [that] around $3 billion of sales will come from our new pipeline, which is more than twice what we’ve seen over the previous five years, and we’re expecting half to come from biosimilars and half of the growth in total will now come from North America, so we’ll see the U.S. business starting to accelerate over the next few years.”

Schott Pharma debuted on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Thursday at 30 euros per share, trading well above analyst expectations. Shares of the company were up 10% in the first minutes.

The medical vial manufacturer set its final offer price at 27 euros ($28.37) per share Wednesday, after the company announced a range of between 24.50 and 28.50 euros on Sept. 18, giving it a valuation of up to 4.1 billion euros.

The company said it would list 34,641,362 shares in total, including over-allotments.

“We are beyond thrilled about today’s milestone. There is strong demand not only for our leading drug containment solutions and delivery systems but also from investors worldwide, proving the great prospects of our company,” Andreas Reisse, CEO of Schott Pharma, said after the offer price announcement of Wednesday.

Schott Pharma said sales were up 8.4% year-on-year for the first nine months of the 2023 fiscal year, hitting 670 million euros ($704 million) over the period.

The company produces vials for mRNA vaccines, diabetes and obesity drugs and counts BioNTech and Moderna among its clients. Schott Pharma has production and sales units across 33 countries.

The group said it will retain a majority stake in the company following the completion of the IPO and plans to use money raised through the listing to “further accelerate the Group’s growth and support its green transition.”

The Schott Pharma IPO is only the third new listing on the Frankfurt stock exchange this year and is expected to be the largest.

Novo Nordisk, which makes the weight-loss drug Wegovy, raised its outlook for 2023 Thursday, as it reported soaring sales.

The Danish pharmaceutical company reported a 30% increase in sales (at constant exchange rates) for the first half of this year, while operating profit also rose 32%.

Its diabetes and obesity division performed particularly well, bolstered by interest in its blockbuster injection Wegovy.

“The [sales] growth is driven by increasing demand for our GLP-1-based diabetes and obesity treatments, and we are serving more patients than ever before,” Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, president and CEO, said in a statement. “The performance in the first six months has enabled us to raise the outlook for the full year.”

Last week, late-stage trial data showed that Wegovy reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attacks or strokes by 20%, compared with a placebo, sending shares higher.

The results of the closely watched “SELECT” trial, which exceeded expectations, were seen as a major boost for the company’s hopes of moving beyond Wegovy’s image as a “vanity drug.”

Shares are up almost 1% in pre-market trading.

This is a developing story and will be updated shortly.

— Sam Meredith contributed to this report.

The Biden administration will end its Covid-19 vaccine mandates for federal employees, contractors and international air travelers next week.

The White House said in a statement Monday that those vaccine requirements will end on May 11, the same day the Covid public health emergency expires.

“While vaccination remains one of the most important tools in advancing the health and safety of employees and promoting the efficiency of workplaces, we are now in a different phase of our response when these measures are no longer necessary,” the White House said.

Although Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths have declined dramatically this year, the virus is still killing more than 1,000 people per week.

The Health and Human Services Department also will start phasing out its vaccine mandate for health-care facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid, the White House said. In addition, it will end vaccination requirements for Head Start programs.

And the Department of Homeland Security will lift vaccination requirements for people entering the U.S via its land borders with Canada and Mexico, according to the Biden administration. U.S. citizens, nationals and permanent residents were never subject to those requirements.

HHS and DHS will provide more details on the end of these vaccine requirements in the coming days, the White House said.

The Biden administration implemented the vaccine requirements for health workers, federal employees, contractors, and international air travelers as part of its drive to boost lackluster vaccination rates and slow the spread of the virus as the delta variant surged in late 2021 followed by omicron in the winter of 2022.

The mandates faced fierce opposition and lawsuits from critics who decried the requirements as government overreach, while the White House stressed they were essential to protect public health.

The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the abortion pill mifepristone to remain broadly available as litigation plays out in a lower court.

The high court’s decision came in response to an emergency request by the Department of Justice to block lower court rulings that would severely limit access to the medication even in some states where abortion remains legal. 

The case will now be heard in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for Wed., May 17 at 1 p.m. CT.

Mifepristone has become the flashpoint in the legal battle over abortion since the Supreme Court last summer overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion nationwide as a constitutional right. 

Mifepristone, used in combination with another drug called misoprostol, is the most common method to terminate a pregnancy in the U.S., accounting for about half of all abortions.

President Joe Biden said the court’s decision keeps mifepristone available to women and FDA approved to terminate early pregnancies. Biden said his administration will fight to protect access to mifepristone in the ongoing legal battle in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“I continue to stand by [the Food and Drug Administration’s] evidence-based approval of mifepristone, and my administration will continue to defend FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs,” the president said.

Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson said the reproductive health-care provider is relieved by the Supreme Court’s decision.

But McGill Johnson warned that access to  mifepristone remains in jeopardy as the legal battle plays out in the appeals court.

“While mifepristone’s approval remains intact and it stays on the market for now, patients and health care providers shouldn’t be at the mercy of the court system,” McGill Johnson said. “Medication abortion is very much still under threat — as is abortion and access to other sexual and reproductive health care.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both conservatives, opposed the court’s majority decision to grant the emergency request from the DOJ and Danco Laboratories, the distributor of the brand-name version of the drug, Mifeprex.

The DOJ and Danco, in their emergency requests, told the Supreme Court the restrictions imposed by the lower courts would effectively take mifepristone off the market for months as the FDA adjusted the medication’s labelling to comply with the orders. This would deny women access to an FDA-approved drug that is a safe alternative to surgical abortions, they argued.

Alito rejected that argument in his dissent. The justice said the FDA could simply use its enforcement discretion as the litigation played out and allow Danco to continue distributing mifepristone.

The court’s majority decision to maintain the status quo means mifepristone remains available by mail delivery, and women can obtain the prescription medication without having to visit a doctor in person.

However, in the dozen states that have effectively banned abortion over the past year, the drug will remain largely unavailable. Other states also have restrictions in place that are much tighter than FDA regulations.

The national legal battle over mifepristone began with a lawsuit filed by a coalition of doctors who oppose abortion, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Those doctors sought to force the FDA to pull the medication from the U.S. entirely.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled in favor of the antiabortion doctors and issued a sweeping order that would have halted sales of mifepristone nationwide. 

Days later, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked part of Kacsmaryk’s order and allowed Mifeprex to remain on the market. But the appeals court judges imposed restrictions on the medication that would severely limit access.

The appeals court blocked mail delivery of the drug, imposed doctors’ visits as a condition to get the medication, and reduced the length of time when women can take the pill to the seventh week of pregnancy. 

The appeals court judges also suspended the 2019 approval of the generic version of mifepristone. The company that sells the generic version, GenBioPro, told the high court the majority of the nation’s supply of the medication would “disappear overnight” if the appeals court ruling went into effect. 

GenBioPro said it supplies two-thirds of the mifepristone used in abortions in the U.S.

The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid time off. 

“You have entire cultures like France … where pretty much everybody takes August off, and it’s just part of the culture there,” said Shawn Fremstad, director of law and political economy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “You don’t really see that here in the United States.”

The European Union Working Time Directive, which was passed in the early 1990s, requires at least 20 working days of paid vacation in all EU countries.

France provides a minimum of 30 paid vacation days per year. What’s more, many European countries have paid holidays as well, giving workers there even more paid days off.

“When I came to France, I noticed that vacation is a way of life,” said Fatima Cadet-Diaby, an American who has been living in Paris for nearly seven years. “People are constantly talking about their vacations.”

More vacation time could also equate to overall economic gains in the U.S.

“I think people have a stereotype of France in their mind as this kind of lazy culture,” Fremstad said. “But if you look at the employment rate there for prime age workers, so basically 25 through 54, it’s higher than in the U.S. So, they have more people working and they’re much more productive per hour.”

Even though a majority of Americans do have some kind of paid time off, nearly half of workers report not using all of those days. About half worry they might fall behind on their work if they take time off, with close to 20% thinking it could hurt their career growth and 16% saying they fear losing their job, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

“There’s a certain fear we don’t have any legal protections and people have been fired for taking vacation time,” said John de Graaf, author of the book “Take Back Your Time.” 

Watch the video above to learn more about why American’s aren’t going on vacation even though they have the days off and what we can learn from our counterparts in France.

Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday said it will pay $8.9 billion over the next 25 years to settle allegations that the company’s baby powder and other talc products caused cancer.

The company announced the proposed settlement in a securities filing. J&J’s subsidiary LTL Management also refiled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after its first attempt was thwarted, the filing said.

More than 60,000 claimants have committed to support the proposed resolution, which would require approval in bankruptcy court, the filing added.

“Resolving this matter through the proposed reorganization plan is both more equitable and more efficient, allows claimants to be compensated in a timely manner, and enables the Company to remain focused on our commitment to profoundly and positively impact health for humanity,” said Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, in a statement.

But J&J still pushed back on the talc allegations. 

“The Company continues to believe that these claims are specious and lack scientific merit,” Haas added.

The company ended sales of its talc-based baby powder globally this year after it faced thousands of lawsuits from customers claiming its talc products caused cancer due to contamination with the carcinogen asbestos.

J&J spun off LTL management in October 2021 in a bid to reduce its losses from litigation and settlement. The company funneled its talc lawsuits to the subsidiary and immediately filed for bankruptcy protection.

A judge affirmed J&J’s ability to use the Chapter 11 strategy in February 2022.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit overturned the ruling in January this year, saying neither LTL nor J&J had a legitimate need for bankruptcy protection because they were not in “financial distress.”

Leigh O’Dell, one of the lead attorneys representing plaintiffs in the talc lawsuits, told CNBC at the time that the ruling was another step toward ending J&J’s “attempted abuse of the bankruptcy system.”

O’Dell on Tuesday said in a statement to CNBC that J&J is “seeking an extremely deep discount on justice and is not really offering anything other than another bankruptcy and more delay, delay, and delay.

“This new filing should be viewed as a shameful attempt to run out the clock on people dying of cancer and convince some lawyers to give up,” she said.

Mikal Watts, one of the plaintiff lawyers who negotiated the proposed settlement, said J&J committed to “fairly compensate these deserving women” who have battled cancer due to the talc products. “Our job is to get our clients fairly paid for their injuries, and this settlement is the culmination of a job well done.”

J&J said last month it would take the case to the Supreme Court.

The company paid $7.4 billion in litigation expenses between 2020 and 2021, according to an annual filing. The company said talc litigation was a primary diver of legal costs during those years.

President Joe Biden on Monday signed legislation requiring the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information on any possible links between a lab in China and the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The House and the Senate unanimously passed the legislation earlier this month. The push to make public classified information on the origins of the pandemic comes after the Energy Department concluded with “low confidence” that the virus is likely the result of an accidental laboratory leak in China.

“In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security,” Biden said in a statement.

Under the legislation, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has 90 days to declassify all information on possible links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of Covid. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been a major center of coronavirus research.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also concluded that the pandemic likely began with a lab incident in Wuhan, China, the agency’s director Christopher Wray told Fox News earlier this month.

“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News. “Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.” 

The Wall Street Journal first reported the Energy Department’s assessment, citing people who had read a classified report. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan would not confirm or deny the report, but said Biden had specifically requested that national labs under the Energy Department participate in a review of how the pandemic started.

The pandemic began three years ago in Wuhan, China, though it’s still unknown how Covid spread to people. The intelligence community was divided in a 2021 report ordered by Biden that reviewed information on the pandemic’s origins. The intel agencies agreed that an infected animal and a lab accident were both plausible hypotheses.

Four unnamed agencies in the 2021 report concluded with low confidence that an infected animal spread the virus to people.

A recent analysis conducted by international scientists found genetic material from racoon dogs in samples from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market that tested positive for Covid. Though the analysis doesn’t prove the racoon dogs were infected with virus, it provides some additional data that is consistent with a possible virus spillover from animals to people.

The scientists pulled the samples from an international database. The samples subsequently disappeared from that database. The World Health Organization on Friday called on Beijing to release those samples.

“These data could have – and should have – been shared three years ago,” said WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We continue to call on China to be transparent in sharing data, and to conduct the necessary investigations and share the results.”