Raphael Stevens

A March meeting of vaccine advisors to the Food and Drug Administration has been canceled without explanation, a member of the advisory panel told CNBC.
It comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who now leads the Department of Health and Human Services, makes early moves that could affect vaccination uptake and policy in the U.S.
The meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, is held every March to pick flu select flu strains for shots released in the upcoming fall and winter. 

FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009. 
Jason Reed | Reuters

A crucial March meeting of vaccine advisors to the Food and Drug Administration has been canceled without explanation, a member of the advisory panel told CNBC on Wednesday. 
The meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, is held every March to select flu strains for shots released in the upcoming fall and winter. 

But Dr. Paul Offit, a member of that panel, told CNBC that he received an email at 4:18 p.m. ET on Wednesday saying that the upcoming March 13 meeting is canceled. He said there was no indication of whether it will be rescheduled.
“Who canceled this meeting? Why did they cancel the meeting? Will manufacturers now turn to the World Health Organization to determine strains for this year’s influenza vaccines?” Offit told CNBC. 
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The canceled meeting comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now leads HHS, makes early moves that could affect vaccination uptake and policy in the U.S. Kennedy has a lengthy track record of being a vaccine skeptic. 
It also comes amid a particularly brutal flu season in the U.S. CDC data shows the flu has caused up to an estimated 910,000 hospitalizations since October, which puts the season on track to be the most severe in at least a decade.

Earlier this month, a separate meeting of advisors who help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention make recommendations for vaccines was postponed to “accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting,” several news outlets reported. It is also unclear if that meeting will be rescheduled. 
Kennedy also said last week that he will review the childhood vaccine schedule despite earlier pledges not to do so. He promised that a new “Make America Healthy Again” commission would investigate vaccines, pesticides and antidepressants to see if they have contributed to a rise of chronic illness in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is weighing pulling funding for Moderna’s bird flu vaccine, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The country is grappling with a record-breaking bird flu outbreak that’s impacted dozens of cattle herds along with poultry flocks, which has sent egg prices skyrocketing. Its rapid spread in animals has raised concerns about broader spread to humans.” More

Eli Lilly said it will invest at least $27 billion to build four new manufacturing sites in the U.S. as demand for its weight loss and diabetes injections soars and the company develops new drugs.
The move comes as companies work to build goodwill with President Donald Trump, who has emphasized reshoring manufacturing to the U.S. and reducing reliance on foreign supply chains. 
The announcement brings Eli Lilly’s total U.S. manufacturing investments to more than $50 billion in recent years.

Eli Lilly on Wednesday said it will invest at least $27 billion to build four new manufacturing sites in the U.S., as demand for its blockbuster weight loss and diabetes injections soars and the company develops new drugs for other conditions.
It comes as drugmakers and companies across different industries work to build goodwill with President Donald Trump, who has emphasized reshoring manufacturing to the U.S. and reducing reliance on foreign supply chains. He has threatened companies — and pharmaceutical businesses in particular — with tariffs if they do not manufacture products in the U.S.

Eli Lilly made the announcement at an event in Washington, D.C. — emphasizing the political undertones of the strategy. The event featured several speakers from the Trump administration, including Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who explicitly tied the announcement to Trump’s policies.
Lutnick said the investment is “exactly what the Trump administration is all about, which is building and manufacturing and reshoring in America, investing in America, building in America.” He thanked Eli Lilly for “doing exactly what the president was hoping would happen.”
Lutnick added that “if you want to understand the tariff policy” of the U.S., “I have just articulated it.”
The move brings Eli Lilly’s total U.S. manufacturing investments to more than $50 billion in recent years. The other $23 billion is from the company’s investments in new plants and site expansions since 2020, which has helped ease supply shortages of its popular drugs.  
“This represents the largest pharmaceutical expansion investment in U.S. history,” Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said at the event. “We’re making these investments … to prepare for the demand we anticipate for future pipeline medicines across our therapeutic areas.”

Shares of the company closed more than 1% higher on Wednesday.
Three of the future U.S. sites announced Wednesday will manufacture active ingredients in medications, such as tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s obesity drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro. Ricks noted that there is a “real gap in supply chain in the U.S. as it relates to active ingredient availability in our country.”
The fourth site will extend the company’s global manufacturing network for future injectable therapies, he added.
Eli Lilly has not decided on where the four new U.S. sites will be located, Ricks said. The company will be accepting location submissions through March 13 and will announce decisions on new sites in the coming months.
Eli Lilly said the four new sites will create more than 3,000 jobs for workers such as engineers and scientists, along with 10,000 construction jobs as the plants are built. The company’s other U.S. plants include sites in North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin.
The new investments aren’t solely dedicated to Eli Lilly’s current and future obesity and diabetes treatments. The company is charting its future beyond Zepbound and Mounjaro, with hopes to deliver drugs from its broad pipeline of products for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.
Ricks said the company is optimistic about its pipeline across therapeutic areas, including cardiometabolic health, oncology, immunology and neuroscience.
Still, the new investments build on the success of Zepbound and Mounjaro, which share dominance of the booming market for so-called GLP-1 drugs with Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Some analysts expect the global obesity drug market to be worth more than $150 billion annually by the early 2030s, making it critical for both companies to maintain their share as other drugmakers scramble to join.
During the event, Ricks took a shot at cheaper compounded versions of its injectable drugs, saying “America faces a growing threat from an influx of counterfeit and compounded medications.”
Eli Lilly’s efforts to boost the supply of Zepbound and Mounjaro aim to ensure that eligible patients are safely accessing those branded treatments instead of cheaper compounded versions. Patients flocked to those unapproved copycats when the branded drugs were in short supply, or if they didn’t have insurance coverage for the costly treatments. 
The FDA has since declared the shortage of tirzepatide over, which will essentially bar many compounding pharmacies from making copycats. 
Hassett said the issue also “disturbs the White House” because offshore producers of copycat drugs are “threatening lives in the U.S.”

More CNBC health coverage

In another sign of the political goals of the announcement, Ricks touted Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, saying that the legislation has been “fundamental” to the company’s manufacturing investments. He called it “essential that these policies are extended permanently this year.”
Key provisions from that law are set to expire at the end of December — though a reduction in the corporate tax rate will remain in effect.
That legislation, passed by a majority-Republican Congress during Trump’s first term, was the largest tax code overhaul in nearly three decades that slashed taxes for individuals and businesses. It cut the corporate tax rate to 21%, capped deductions for state and local taxes at $10,000, and expanded the child tax credit, among other efforts. 
“Long-term progress will also require U.S. policies to continue to protect the intellectual property rights and foster an innovative environment where we can do our work,” Ricks said.
Novo Nordisk has similarly invested billions in manufacturing to ramp up supply of Wegovy and Ozempic, announcing in 2024 it would take over three sites from contract manufacturer Catalent for $11 billion.

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Shares of electric vehicle maker Lucid Group were down more than 10% Wednesday following a downgrade of the company’s stock by Bank of America and the abrupt departure of CEO Peter Rawlinson.
The company is in search of a new CEO, stirring uncertainty among Wall Street analysts.
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said the company’s top priorities include more than doubling vehicle production this year, narrowing losses and increasing customer awareness.

Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson poses at the Nasdaq MarketSite as Lucid Motors (Nasdaq: LCID) begins trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange after completing its business combination with Churchill Capital Corp IV in New York City, New York, July 26, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters

Shares of electric vehicle maker Lucid Group were down more than 10% Wednesday following a downgrade of the company’s stock by Bank of America and the abrupt departure of CEO Peter Rawlinson.
Rawlinson, who also served as chief technology officer at the company, was a driving force in its operations to this point, including the decision to go public in 2021. Investors considered Rawlinson to be the face of the company — and crucial to its success.

The company – majority owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – is in search of a new CEO, stirring uncertainty among Wall Street analysts.
“We think the departure of Lucid’s (LCID) founder, CEO, and CTO, Peter Rawlinson is much more consequential than understood by the market,” BofA Securities analyst John Murphy wrote in a Wednesday investor note downgrading the stock to underperform. “We now expect product development to stall, consumer demand to be dampened, and anticipate additional funding opportunities could be put at risk.”
Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff, formerly the company’s chief operating officer, will attempt to ensure that’s not the case for Lucid.

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Shares of Lucid, Tesla and Rivian in 2025.

Winterhoff said in an interview with CNBC his objective is to build upon Lucid’s success rather than change its course. His top priorities include more than doubling vehicle production this year, narrowing losses and increasing customer awareness and technology offerings.
“We have a clear vision. Now my focus will be on execution,” Winterhoff told CNBC Tuesday ahead of speaking to investors on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

Gross profit

Lucid remains far from profitable, but it has been narrowing its gross losses by increasing scale and making its products more efficient.
Its GAAP gross margin, which includes production and sales but does not factor in other expenses, for was a negative 114% in 2024, improvement from a negative 225% in 2023.
“We expect a significant improvement in gross margin in line with what we see in 2024 compared to 2023. So, we are on the right trajectory,” Gagan Dhingra, Lucid’s interim CFO, told investors Tuesday.
For the fourth quarter, the company reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $636.9 million, or a loss of 22 cents per share, on revenue of $234.5 million.

New products

Lucid’s first product was the Air sedan, which it began delivering in late 2021. The pricey car has been praised for its styling and technologies, but demand for the vehicle hasn’t been as strong as anticipated.
Winterhoff said the company will continue to produce Air sedans as it begins to ramp up production of its second product, an SUV called Gravity.

Lucid Gravity Grand Touring SUV

Winterhoff said production of the Gravity SUV will gradually build this year. He declined to speculate Tuesday on what percentage of the 20,000-unit production target the vehicle would represent. He noted Gravity ordering for customers in Saudi Arabia began earlier this month.
“We’re expanding our footprint and markets we are very active in, and then absolutely increasing the ramp of Gravity, which is a big, big focus for us right now,” he said during the company’s investor call.
Lucid also is in the midst of developing a new midsize vehicle platform that’s expected to launch at the end of 2026, which both Winterhoff and Rawlinson have described as critical to the automaker’s growth.

‘Double down’ on marketing

As the automaker increases production and the number of vehicles it offers, Winterhoff said Lucid will “double down” on marketing and advertising to increase customer awareness.
“I’m not planning to create a new vision or something like that for the company,” he told CNBC. “What I’m still focusing on is simply operational topics, like, for instance, increasing the deliveries for our customers. We will double down on marketing. You will see much more marketing from us.”

A Lucid showroom in New York City on Aug 19th, 2023.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

The company’s selling, general and administrative expenses were $900 million in 2024, including a $19.9 million increase in sales and marketing expenses over the prior year. The company’s total marketing and advertising expense wasn’t immediately available.

New tech, partnerships

The Lucid Air has been criticized for its lack of advanced driver-assistant systems such as Tesla’s “FSD” or General Motors’ “Super Cruise.” Certain Air models cost tens of thousands of dollars more than vehicles from competitors with such technologies.
However, Lucid expects to release a new hands-free driving system for customers later this year.
What Lucid lacks in driver-assistant technologies, it arguably makes up for in battery efficiency, as its cars are among the most efficient EVs in the U.S., according to federal data.
Lucid has attempted to capitalize on its battery technologies by offering to sell them to other companies as a way to increase scale and revenue.
Winterhoff said the company remains in “constant discussions” with companies about using Lucid’s battery technology but declined to provide additional details. More