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CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group are demanding that FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan and two other commissioners recuse themselves from a lawsuit accusing the company and other drug middlemen of boosting their profits while inflating insulin costs for Americans. 
The companies argued that all three commissioners have an extensive track record of making public statements that indicate “serious bias” against the companies’ so-called pharmacy benefit managers.
The FTC filed the suit last month against the three largest PBMs, CVS Health’s Caremark, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx and Cigna’s Express Scripts.

FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan testifies during the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government hearing titled “Fiscal Year 2025 Request for the Federal Trade Commission,” in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. 
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna are demanding Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and two other commissioners recuse themselves from a suit accusing the companies and other drug middlemen of boosting their profits while inflating insulin costs for Americans. 
In separate motions filed Tuesday night with the FTC, the companies argued that all three commissioners have an extensive track record of making public statements that indicate allegedly serious bias against the companies’ so-called pharmacy benefit managers. 

The companies accused Khan, as well as Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, of incorrectly asserting that PBMs are “price gougers” that hold significant control over the pricing and access to drugs like insulin. CVS said those statements demonstrate that the commissioners have “prejudged this matter,” so their participation in the case “violates due process.” 
“If the opposite of ‘complete fairness’ is ‘blatant bias,’ the Three Commissioners would easily satisfy even that standard,” CVS wrote in a 23-page motion.
Meanwhile, UnitedHealth’s 17-page motion said, “Any judge who made these remarks about a litigant at the outset of a lawsuit would immediately need to recuse for blatant bias.”
Cigna, in one of three motions filed, said Khan has “prejudged the facts and law relating to this action.”
“She has repeatedly and wrongly asserted that PBMs ‘control’ drug pricing and patient access to drugs,” Cigna said.

The FTC filed its complaint through its so-called administrative process, which initiates a proceeding before an administrative judge at the agency who would hear the case and issue an opinion. FTC commissioners then vote on that opinion.
The FTC on Wednesday declined CNBC’s request for comment on the motion. 

More CNBC health coverage

Other corporate giants, including Amazon and Meta, have unsuccessfully pushed for Khan to be disqualified from previous cases or investigations, citing concerns about her objectivity. Khan has resisted those calls, saying she has never prejudged any case or set of facts. 
The FTC filed the suit last month against the three largest PBMs, CVS Health’s Caremark, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx and Cigna’s Express Scripts. All are owned by or connected to health insurers and collectively administer about 80% of the nation’s prescriptions, according to the FTC. 
PBMs sit at the center of the drug supply chain in the U.S., negotiating medication rebates with manufacturers on behalf of insurers, creating lists of preferred medications covered by health plans and reimbursing pharmacies for prescriptions. The FTC has been investigating PBMs and their role in insulin prices since 2022.
The agency’s lawsuit argues that the three PBMs have created a “perverse” system that prioritizes high rebates from manufacturers, which leads to “artificially inflated insulin list prices.” The suit also alleges that PBMs favor high-list-price insulins even when insulins with lower list prices become available. 
The lawsuit also includes each PBM’s affiliated group purchasing organization, or GPO, which brokers drug purchases for hospitals and other health-care providers. Zinc Health Services operates as the GPO for Caremark, while Emisar Pharma acts as the GPO for OptumRx. Ascent Health Services is the GPO for Cigna.
The lawsuit is just one of several headwinds CVS is facing. Shares of the company are down more than 20% this year as it grapples with runaway medical costs in its insurance segment and pharmacy reimbursement pressure. 
CVS has engaged advisors in a strategic review of its business, which could potentially involve splitting the company’s insurer from its retail pharmacies. It’s unclear where Caremark would fall in the case of a breakup. 

A general view shows a sign of CVS Health Customer Support Center in CVS headquarters of CVS Health Corp in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, U.S. October 30, 2023. 
Faith Ninivaggi | Reuters

In the motion Tuesday, CVS alleged that Khan has vilified PBMs during her entire professional career. For example, the company cited a 2022 statement in which Khan said PBMs “practically determine which medicines are prescribed, which pharmacies patients can use, and the amount patients will pay at the pharmacy counter.”
CVS similarly pointed to Slaughter’s previous comments about the allegedly “disturbing,” “unacceptable” and “rotten” rebating practices of PBMs, and how she believes they create “competitive distortions in pharmaceutical markets.” Meanwhile, the company cited Bedoya’s suggestions that “a significant part of the blame” for insulin price increases rests on rebates demanded by PBMs. 
CVS called the prior statements of the three commissioners “incorrect assertions” about Caremark and other PBMs. 
The health-care giant also alleged that during the FTC probe, the three commissioners attended closed events to help fundraise for anti-PBM lobbying groups. Organizers of those events vilified PBMs as “bloodsuckers” and “vampires,” CVS argued in the motion.
The Biden administration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have escalated pressure on PBMs, seeking to increase transparency into their business practices as many patients struggle to afford prescription drugs. Americans pay two to three times more than patients in other developed nations for prescription drugs on average, according to a fact sheet from the White House.

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“Nuclear nightmare”, screamed the headline in Time magazine on April 9th 1979. One of the two reactors at a nuclear-power plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania had suffered an accident. The governor ordered an evacuation of all vulnerable people within five miles of the plant as radioactive gas escaped. More

Northwood Space, the startup led by former television star and singer Bridgit Mendler, passed its first major development test by connecting with Planet imagery satellites in orbit.
“We’re building this global network to send data for satellites, built off of phased array technology that we have now successfully validated, both in the lab and in the field,” Mendler told CNBC.

The startup’s co-founders, from left: Chief Technology Officer Griffin Cleverly, CEO Bridgit Mendler and Head of Software Shaurya Luthra.
Northwood Space

Northwood Space, the startup led by former television star and singer Bridgit Mendler, passed its first major development test last week by connecting with Planet Labs imagery satellites in orbit.
“We’re building this global network to send data for satellites, built off of phased array technology that we have now successfully validated, both in the lab and in the field,” Mendler, Northwood’s CEO, told CNBC.

El Segundo, California-based Northwood, unveiled earlier this year, is focused on the ground side of the space connectivity equation. Ground stations are the vital link for transmitting data to and from orbit and are especially crucial for operating and controlling satellites.

The company’s prototype antenna “Frankie” during testing in North Dakota on Oct. 5, 2024.
Northwood Space

The startup is developing ground stations to be mass-produced and betting that its phased array-based system, called Portal, can outperform the parabolic dish antennas traditionally used by ground station companies. It’s projecting Portal will be able to connect to as many as 10 satellites at once versus the typical one to three for parabolic dish antennas.
“For Northwood, what we’re wanting to do is introduce a new standard for connectivity for companies,” Mendler said.

Read more CNBC space news

The ground station as a service, or GSaaS, market has companies going after the opportunity in managing the Earth-based side of space infrastructure. Along those lines, Amazon has launched its AWS Ground Station service, and satellite communications giant Eutelsat has proposed a nearly $1 billion deal in the sector.
Mendler’s Northwood wants to take GSaaS a step further, eliminating what she sees as “connectivity very much stuck in a different era” of blackouts and “super expensive networks.”

“Analogizing to the cellular industry — where we draw parallels to how cell towers and shared assets like that ultimately have super vertically integrated players — wound up offloading and selling their assets to the tower companies. We expected that the shared model is going to be an efficiency,” Mendler said.
In her view, ground stations are “the third leg of the stool” of space technology, with the other two being rockets, or the cargo vehicles, and satellites, or the orbital infrastructure.
“The industry is really at a point where there’s a lot of appetite for growth, and this is something that we can really interject into the industry and accelerate progress,” Mendler said.

North Dakota testing

Setting up the company’s prototype antenna in the early hours of Oct. 2, 2024.
Northwood Space

Last week the Northwood team was out in remote Maddock, North Dakota, to test its prototype antenna — “fondly dubbed Frankie,” Mendler noted — by connecting to a Planet satellite in orbit. 
The effort is known as a TT&C — telemetry, tracking and control — test, with Northwood aiming to make contact with Planet’s satellite in both S-band and X-band frequencies. 
“We were able to achieve bi-directional communications for the full duration of a pass with Planet’s satellites and achieved nominal communications for them. They were able to perform their operations as they would on their own system,” Mendler said.

Testing the prototype on Oct. 5, 2024.
Northwood Space

Northwood designed and built Frankie in four months, the company said, and was able to deploy the antenna “from off the truck to live sky testing” in six hours. Planet, with more than 150 imagery satellites in orbit, heralded Northwood’s test as a “major milestone.”
“Northwood is not only solving for historical issues like cost and scale, but has built and successfully field-tested their phased array antenna faster than previously thought possible. We’re proud to be a part of this breakthrough in ground station technology,” Joseph Breu, Planet’s senior director of global ground networks, said in a statement to CNBC.

A rendering of a Portal site.
Northwood Space

Northwood has designed two antennas for its Portal system, with a larger 5-by-5-feet S-band frequency antenna and a smaller 18-by-18-inch X-band antenna.
The company plans to deploy Portal sites that can support as many as 10 simultaneous satellite connections, with data rates over 1 gigabit per second per beam, beginning next year. Northwood is currently assessing locations in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand for its first Portal sites.
“Performance-wise, we achieved everything we were hoping to achieve,” Mendler said, adding that Northwood is “really grateful for [Planet’s] participation and support throughout the test.”
“It just unlocks a lot of things about the next chapter,” Mendler said. More

GM used its Investor Day to try to prove it’s in a unique position to outperform the industry and Wall Street’s expectations with its all-electric vehicles and traditional internal combustion engine vehicles.
CEO Mary Barra said the company will focus on scale, capital efficiency and cost discipline.
Several Wall Street analysts were unchanged in their opinion and ratings of the automaker after the event, citing continued optimism but a lack of details in its overall strategy.

The GM logo is seen on the facade of the General Motors headquarters in Detroit on March 16, 2021.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters

DETROIT — Wall Street reacted to General Motors’ investor day on Tuesday with a shrug.
Executives used the Detroit automaker’s event to focus on broad, near-term updates to the company’s operations in an attempt to separate itself from its competitors amid more challenging market and economic conditions. But it did little to move the company’s stock.

GM believes it is in a unique position to outperform the industry and Wall Street’s expectations with its all-electric vehicles and traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. The company expects to improve profits for both types of vehicles as it targets adjusted earnings next year to be similar to 2024.
“It all starts there: scale, capital efficiency and cost discipline. These will differentiate us from others in our industry, and frankly, from our own past performance,” GM CEO Mary Barra said during the roughly three-hour event from its manufacturing operations in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
GM President Mark Reuss even took jabs at its traditional crosstown rivals Ford Motor and Stellantis. Without naming them, he said GM doesn’t need a “skunkworks” team to develop affordable EVs like Ford and that cutting to profitability, like Stellantis appears to be doing, doesn’t work.
Nonetheless, investors have largely failed to reward GM for being ahead of the curve for domestic EV production as well as outperforming many automakers in the profitability of its traditional gas- and diesel-powered vehicles.
Several Wall Street analysts were unchanged in their opinion and ratings of the automaker after the event, citing continued optimism but a lack of details in its overall strategy.

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Shares of GM, Ford and Stellantis in 2024

“A missed opportunity — no strategy, just tactics. GM’s investor day showcased many of the company’s current achievements, but did not provide much insight on strategy,” Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska wrote Wednesday in an investor note.
Others such as Barclays’ Dan Levy and BofA Securities’ John Murphy said while the event lacked some details, it fortified GM’s positioning compared to competitors.
“GM’s Investor Day yesterday didn’t provide much in the way of sharp shifts in strategy. However, we believe it served as a strong reminder of GM’s balanced and pragmatic approach — a thoughtful combination of ramping on EVs alongside a keen focus on execution and cost while continuing to generate robust shareholder returns,” Levy wrote in a Wednesday investor note.
Shares of GM closed Tuesday essentially unchanged at $46.01. The stock remains up nearly 30% this year, but it has been under pressure of late due to several downgrades and price target adjustments by Wall Street analysts.
Here are several topics investors should know from the event:

2025

GM expects its 2025 adjusted earnings to be in a “similar range” to the company’s results this year, CFO Paul Jacobson said.
Its targeted adjusted earnings before interest and taxes for 2024 were between $13 billion and $15 billion, or $9.50 and $10.50 per share, up from previous guidance of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 to $10 per share, earlier this year.
Through the first half of 2024, GM earned $8.3 billion in EBIT-adjusted and generated $6.4 billion in adjusted automotive free cash flow.
Jacobson said GM’s capital spend also is expected to be consistent in 2025 with this year. GM’s 2024 financial guidance includes anticipated capital spending of between $10.5 billion and $11.5 billion.

Peak EV losses?

Jacobson said GM’s earnings next year are also expected show narrower losses for electric vehicles — projecting they’ll decline by $2 billion to $4 billion.
The EV tailwinds next year for GM are split between savings from increases in volume and emissions and EV production credits, as well as lower costs, including for raw materials and battery production.

“We believe our EV losses peaked this year, and we’re focused on significantly improving profitability next year,” Barra said.
GM said it has lowered its battery costs by $60 per kilowatt hour this year from 2023. It expects to cut another $30 per kilowatt hour next year.
Barra said the automaker is on pace to produce and wholesale about 200,000 EVs for North America in 2024, achieving profitability on a production, or contribution-margin basis, by the end of this year. That guidance is down from a prior target of 200,00 to 250,000 EVs, which had been lowered from as high as 300,000 units.

Ultium

Ultium, which GM once touted as the ultimate solution for EVs, is ultimately dead.
GM will drop the “Ultium” name for its electric vehicle batteries and supporting technologies after spending years promoting the brand as it rethinks its EV and battery operations.
The company said the batteries and the technologies will remain, but the name will be gone, except in production operations such as its “Ultium Cells” joint venture plants with LG Energy Solution.
Instead, GM plans to use a variety of battery chemistries and cell designs, said Kurt Kelty, a former Tesla executive who joined GM as vice president of battery earlier this year.
“GM is evolving to a multifaceted approach,” he said. “This should only help GM strengthen our position of producing more EV models than any other automaker.”

ICE costs, profits

GM also expects to continue growing its sales and profits of traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines, or ICE, in the years to come.
“We expect the ICE industry is going to have a long tail and it’s going to be a significant part of our future,” Jacobson said.

2025 GMC Yukon AT4 Ultimate

The profit increases are expected to be assisted by some cost cutting, including consolidation of parts and options.
On average, GM is experiencing about a 10% reduction in total part numbers per vehicle, Reuss said.

Shareholder returns

Jacobson said GM will remain “active” in share buybacks following the conclusion this quarter of a previously announced initiative that’s expected to retire roughly 250 million shares of the automaker.
From 2022 through the end of 2024, GM will have returned about $20 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, Barra said.
The automaker is targeting to get below 1 billion outstanding shares by early 2025, Jacobson said. It has more than 1.1 billion outstanding shares as of Wednesday morning, according to FactSet.

Cruise and China

Wall Street was underwhelmed with GM’s updates regarding its embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit and operations in China.
GM’s operations in China have experienced a decade-long slide in earnings, and executives said they are discussing restructuring options with their China-based partners.

“In China, you’ll begin to see evidence of a turnaround this year, with a significant reduction in dealer inventory and modest improvements in sales and share,” Barra said.
Regarding Cruise, GM said its spending next year is not expected to top this year’s. It did not provide updates on its long-term plans for the troubled robotaxi business.
With GM’s investor day being two days ahead of Tesla’s highly anticipated robotaxi day, Wall Street analysts expected some sort of update on the venture, especially regarding future financing or capital spend for the company.

Other notes

Hyundai Motor: When asked about GM’s announced non-binding memorandum of understanding with Hyundai, Barra said the teams “are working closely and making progress every week on what will become definitive agreements.”
Chevy Bolt: GM said its next-generation Chevrolet Bolt EV that’s expected next year will be only slightly higher than the 2023 Bolt, which started at $28,795.
PHEVs: GM reconfirmed plans to introduce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, of PHEVs, in 2027. In the meantime, Reuss, citing single-digit market share, said GM is “not missing on anything right now without PHEVs.”

— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. More

General Motors expects its 2025 adjusted earnings to be in a “similar range” to the company’s results this year, CFO Paul Jacobson said during the company’s investor day.
The Detroit automaker’s targeted adjusted earnings before interest and taxes this year is between $13 billion and $15 billion, or $9.50 and $10.50 per share.

New GMC trucks are displayed on the sales lot at Hanlees Hilltop GMC in Richmond, California, July 2, 2024.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

DETROIT — General Motors expects its 2025 adjusted earnings to be in a “similar range” to the company’s results this year, CFO Paul Jacobson said Tuesday during the company’s investor day.
The Detroit automaker’s targeted adjusted earnings before interest and taxes for 2024 were between $13 billion and $15 billion, or $9.50 and $10.50 per share, up from previous guidance of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 to $10 per share, earlier this year.

Achieving its 2024 targets as well as similar earnings next year would be quite an accomplishment. Auto industry sales and consumer spending have been slowing and many on Wall Street expect that 2025 will be a significantly more challenging year for automakers.
Jacobson declined to provide specific financial targets until the company formally releases its 2025 financial guidance early next year.
He said the earnings, which many expect to be down for most automakers, will be assisted by $2 billion to $4 billion in better earnings for electric vehicles, as well as growing sales and profits of traditional gas-powered vehicles.
Jacobson said based on current assumptions, GM will have eight vehicles in the market that, on average, will be approximately nine points higher in EBIT margin than previous comparable models.
“We expect to see the benefits grow in the coming years as the organization continues to embrace more efficient ways to engineer, produce and sell our vehicles,” Jacobson said.

He said GM’s capital spend also is expected to be consistent in 2025 with this year. GM’s 2024 financial guidance includes anticipated capital spending of between $10.5 billion and $11.5 billion.
The EV tailwinds are split between savings from increases in volume and lower costs, including for raw materials and battery production.
GM has improved its EV variable profit by more than 30 points year over year through the third quarter, Jacobson said.
GM CEO Mary Barra said Tuesday the automaker is on pace to produce and wholesale about 200,000 EVs for North America in 2024, achieving profitability on a production, or contribution-margin basis, by the end of this year. That guidance is down from a prior target of 200,00 to 250,000 EVs, which had been lowered from as high as 300,000 units.
Also assisting GM’s earnings in 2025 are expected reductions to fixed costs, which have come down by $2 billion over the past two years net of depreciation and amortization, as well as relatively stable demand and incentive spend by the automaker.
Other than the financial targets for 2025, the automaker provided few significant updates at its investor day.
Shares of GM closed Tuesday essentially unchanged at $46.01. The stock remains up about 28% this year, but it has been under pressure of late due to several downgrades and price target adjustments by Wall Street analysts.
Correction: GM has improved its EV variable profit by more than 30 points year over year through the third quarter. A previous version misstated that figure. More

BOULDER, COLO. — Not far from the majestic Rocky Mountains is an ordinary suburban neighborhood, a tree-lined street and a modest light gray home.
It’s not the kind of place you’d imagine an investigation into black market Ozempic would lead. But it did.

A CNBC investigation into counterfeit weight loss drugs revealed an international illegal marketplace where criminals either brazenly alter the drugs or ship the real product from overseas — what’s known as drug diversion and against federal law.
The operations mainly involve phony or illegal versions of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic and its obesity drug Wegovy as well as Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound. All four drugs are in a class of wildly popular weight loss drugs known as GLP-1s. The skyrocketing demand for the treatments has led to criminal schemes attempting to capitalize on the surge.
CNBC bought a drug marketed as Ozempic from a company called Laver Beauty, which on its website and corporate documents listed its address on that quiet residential street in Boulder. The drug cost $219 for a month’s supply, a fraction of the list price of $968 for a month’s supply of Ozempic in the U.S.
The owners of the home in Boulder say they have no connection to the company — though they’ve received mail and a 1099 IRS tax form addressed to Laver Beauty.
The drug CNBC purchased was shipped via DHL from an office building in Shijiazhuang, China, about a four-hour drive from Beijing. The package that arrived at CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, was a plain cardboard box with no refrigeration except for two melted ice packs. Ozempic is supposed to be stored refrigerated. The drug packaging, which appeared authentic, featured Chinese writing and the Novo Nordisk logo.

In an email, Novo Nordisk said the drug appeared to be “diverted legitimate product that was produced for, and distributed to, the Chinese market during late ’23 and early ’24. Therefore, it would be unauthorized/unapproved for the US market.”
The company added that it “cannot confirm the sterility, which may present an increased risk of infection for patients who use the counterfeit product.”
Law enforcement sources told CNBC that the Ozempic received from China is part of a larger ongoing federal investigation into Ozempic packages being shipped to the U.S.
Laver Beauty did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment, but a person who identified himself as a company representative told CNBC in a WhatsApp chat, “All our products are genuine. We don’t sell fake ones.” The person acknowledged that the product CNBC purchased was intended for the Chinese market.
The representative also messaged that the Boulder address “is the previous address of our U.S. warehouse.” A day after CNBC inquired about the Boulder address, it was removed from the company’s website.

Counterfeit medication

The Ozempic that CNBC purchased is considered an illegally diverted drug. A separate but related growing problem is the rise of counterfeit drugs — fake products purporting to be the real thing.
In the United Kingdom, authorities last year seized hundreds of counterfeit Ozempic pens — insulin pens that had been relabeled as Ozempic.
“We saw that the demand increased and quite often as it happens in these situations, criminals try and fill a gap where the supply and demand aren’t balanced for a particular product, and we started seeing real counterfeit versions of the Ozempic product on the market,” said Andy Morling, deputy director of criminal enforcement for the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Andy Morling, deputy director of criminal enforcement for the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, holds up a real and fake Ozempic pen.

Morling spoke to CNBC from a warehouse outside London where the counterfeits are stored. A total of 869 Ozempic counterfeit pens were seized in 2023.
Counterfeit weight loss drugs have serious health risks, according to the pharmaceutical companies and federal officials. In some cases they could be fatal to someone using them.
Eli Lilly, the maker of Mounjaro and Zepbound, said it is actively fighting the counterfeits.
“We have a very elaborate and rigorous system to test medicines before they’re allowed to be used in patients. But unfortunately [counterfeits] don’t go through that system at all,” said Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, Eli Lilly’s chief scientific officer and president of Lilly Research Labs.

Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, Eli Lilly’s chief scientific officer and president of Lilly Research Labs, shows samples of real and counterfeit Mounjaro.

He showed CNBC a sophisticated fake that was labeled as Mounjaro but that contained a different medication entirely — one for Type 2 diabetes that doesn’t cause weight loss.
“It looks to all the world like Mounjaro, comes in a box that’s labeled as Mounjaro,” he said. “And it has pens that are labeled as Mounjaro. But it’s not Mounjaro at all.”
Counterfeiters are already trying to cash in on a weight loss drug that the company hasn’t even put on the market yet: retatrutide. CNBC found it’s being sold online.
“We’re testing it in Phase 3 clinical trials today. We don’t know yet, but I hope to get those results next year and we’ll find out,” Skovronksy said.
Asked about sites selling what they claim is retatrutide, Skovronksy said, “Yeah, that’s crazy … Even the real retatrutide is not ready for patient use outside of clinical trials.”

Port seizures rising

Finding fake or diverted Ozempic and other obesity drugs is common at the sprawling international mail facility located on the grounds of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. More than 60,000 seizures of counterfeit and illegal goods were made last year at the facility.

Seized Ozempic, Wegovy and other weight loss drugs at JFK International Mail Facility.

“I am not surprised, unfortunately, any of these new type of drugs that we’re seeing, whether it be weight loss drugs or other drugs,” Sal Ingrassia, the port director overseeing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at JFK, told CNBC. “We’ll see them either diverted, counterfeited or illegally shipped through this facility.”
According to CBP, since Jan. 1 the agency has made more than 198 seizures of medication labeled as Ozempic. Nine shipments of medication labeled as Wegovy were also seized, as well as one shipment labeled as Mounjaro.
The CBP seizures data doesn’t specify how much of that medication was real and diverted to the U.S. or counterfeit.

Sal Ingrassia is the port director at JFK for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

CNBC showed Ingrassia the Ozempic that it purchased from Laver Beauty, the package lacking the required refrigeration, and he said it was clear the shipment had “broken the legal supply chain.”
“This to me, is something that if we see, we are going to intercept and take action on. This is a dangerous product,” he said.
Ingrassia said he expects the number of interceptions of weight loss products to double this year over last.
And what happens to the seized items? Unless they’re part of an active investigation by the FDA, Ingrassia said, U.S. Customs isn’t allowed to destroy them, because the injection pens are categorized as medical devices. They are then sent back to the foreign supplier.

Illegal websites crackdown

Ingrassia said that for the most part, diverted products are ordered online or via social media.
“These are mostly individuals that are ordering this, going online and looking for a deal. And obviously taking a big risk by doing that. But we’ve also seen these products being ordered by doctors’ offices,” he said.
To go after the sellers of counterfeit or illegally diverted drugs, the pharmaceutical industry has teamed up with BrandShield, a cybersecurity company.
BrandShield CEO Yoav Keren showed CNBC various sites that the company flagged and that ultimately got shut down, including a Facebook account and a TikTok account that impersonated GLP-1 makers and sold versions of the drug.
Spokespeople for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok said their platforms do not allow the sale of prescription drugs and that the companies take action to remove those listings.
A Meta spokesperson in an email to CNBC said, “This is a challenge that spans platforms, industries, and communities which is why we work with law enforcement, regulators, and private industry to combat this problem. We continue to invest resources and further improve our enforcement on this kind of content.”
Keren said 250 sites identified by BrandShield as related to bogus weight loss products were removed last year, eight times the number in 2022.
“It’s kind of a whack-a-mole, but we’re on them. We’re chasing them, this is our technology, we find them very quickly,” he said.

The Turkey connection

Counterfeit Ozempic has been reported in 15 countries, according to the World Health Organization, which issued a global alert in June warning of the health risks of purchasing fake products.
For the U.S. government, it’s a big problem.
“We are seeing a lot of diverted medicines coming in from Europe and South America,” said Nicole Johnson, national program manager for the Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, which fights counterfeiting. “But for counterfeits, a lot of what we’re seeing currently in the United States is just the reuse of old Ozempic pens — so people can actually just take the original packaging and fill it with saline.”

Nicole Johnson is National Program Manager for the Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center.

Johnson said the top countries where counterfeits and diverted drugs originate are India, China, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Turkey. In Turkey, she says, government-subsidized pharmaceuticals have fueled the counterfeit drug market.
Istanbul may be known for the beauty of the Bosphorus, surrounded by stunning palaces and mosques. But it’s also one of the epicenters of the lucrative counterfeit drug trade, according to U.S. authorities who track counterfeit drugs.
“What the criminals normally do is they find something to exploit to make more money. So the pharmaceuticals were then bought up, and then sold throughout the world — something that was supposed to help people, and it’s being exploited,” Johnson said.
Last fall, the Turkish National Police conducted raids throughout Istanbul as part of a coordinated international crackdown.
Maziar Mike Doustdar, executive vice president of international operations for Novo Nordisk, agreed that Turkey has become a hot spot for pharmaceutical crime.

Maziar Mike Doustdar is Executive Vice President of Novo Nordisk’s international operations, based in Zurich.

Counterfeiters have acquired sophisticated packaging equipment that is “on par with the original company equipment,” Doustdar said.
“They source the equipment from pretty much the same place as we or our competitors are sourcing it. So, they make the packaging look very, very, similar to the original product,” he said.
Direnc Bada, an Istanbul-based attorney who represents major pharmaceutical companies in Turkey, pointed to “an increasing amount of online channels promoting these products … and it’s forbidden in Turkey actually to sell these through online channels.”

Direnc Bada is an attorney who represents pharmaceutical companies in Turkey.

FDA alert, complaints

In the U.S., the FDA announced in an alert in December that it had seized “thousands of units of counterfeit” Ozempic in the “legitimate U.S. supply chain.”
Asked about the status of the investigation into the counterfeit Ozempic, an FDA spokesperson said there were no updates to the original alert.
The risks in purchasing counterfeit drugs can be high. Given the delicate nature of the formulation and the specific shipping requirements for the drugs, consuming illegal versions can be dangerous to a person’s health.
“It’s one thing to counterfeit a luxury bag. It’s a very, very different thing when you counterfeit a medicine,” Doustdar said.
Reports of issues with weight loss drugs containing semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, or tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro, have seen a sharp rise since 2019.
“This is a very serious problem for us as a pharma company, as an industry, because patient safety is our license to operate. And you’re playing with people’s safety,” Doustdar said.
“There is no good counterfeit,” he said.
— CNBC’s Eunice Yoon and Paige Tortorelli contributed to this report. More

Disneyland is raising the price of its most in-demand tickets starting Wednesday.
The base entry price will remain at $104 while others will increase between $7 and $12.
The park’s Magic Key annual pass prices will rise between 6% and 20%, or $100 to $125 depending on the pass type.

Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland, celebrating ‘100 Years of Wonder.’
Aaronp/bauer-griffin | Gc Images | Getty Images

Price hikes are coming to Disneyland.
While the California-based park’s entry-level ticket will remain at $104, the same price it’s been for six years, other ticket tiers, which are based on demand, will jump between $7 and $12, a 5.9% to 6.5% increase, the company said Wednesday.

Similarly, the cost of the park’s Magic Key annual pass will increase between 6% and 20%, or $100 to $125 depending on the pass type. These price changes are effective as of Wednesday.
These price changes come as the Walt Disney Company is already under scrutiny for the cost of its theme park admissions and hotel accommodations, which many consumers believe has become too high.
Still, the company has sought to offer discounted tickets and hotel stays for those who opt to visit Disneyland during off-peak periods. Last week, Disney announced its kids ticket offer of $50 tickets would be made available on Oct. 22 and can be used starting Jan. 7. Additionally, the company has a hotel offer that can save guests up to 20% starting in January.
“We always provide a wide variety of ticket, dining and hotel options, and promotional offers throughout the year, to welcome as many families as possible,” said Jessica Good, a Disneyland Resort spokesperson, in a statement Wednesday.
Much like the airline, hotel and even concert entertainment industries, Disney’s theme parks operate on a demand-based pricing model. That means that certain times of the year are more expensive to visit the parks because more people are trying to visit at that time. Major holidays like Christmas and Halloween, as well as school vacations, are prime examples.

On the other hand, Disney said there is a period of time in January and February where a family of four — two adults, two children — can visit the park for $308. That’s two $104 adult tickets and two $50 kids tickets.
But to handle demand, Disney has a tiered ticket system. Tier 0 is the lowest demand, the $104 base ticket price, while Tier 6 is the highest demand and will see an increase of $12 to $206 per ticket.
The Magic Key program will also get a price bump because of demand. The lowest tier, called Imagine, will cost $599 a year, a $100 increase, Enchant will be $974, a $125 increase, Believe will be $1,374, a $125 increase, and Inspire will be $1,749, a $100 increase.
Each tier has different access to theme park dates and perks. Disney noted that Magic Key passholders will get early access to the upcoming Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opening and discounts on Lightning Lane passes, as well as the existing merchandise, food and parking discounts.
Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, is not announcing any price changes. Disney’s online ticketing website for those theme parks — Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot — already reflects pricing increases for 2025, which were reported back in February. More

The Federal Aviation Administration may issue SpaceX its next Starship license in time for a Sunday launch attempt, CNBC has learned.
Despite previously expecting that its license review could take until “late November,” a person familiar with the matter told CNBC the FAA’s process has sped up, opening the door for earlier approval.
SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk have been vocally critical of the FAA in recent weeks, alleging the company faces difficulties from “the current regulatory environment.”

SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft, atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket, lifts off on its third launch from the company’s Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024. 
Cheney Orr | Reuters

The Federal Aviation Administration may issue SpaceX its next Starship license in time for a Sunday launch attempt, CNBC has learned.
SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk have been vocally critical of the FAA in recent weeks, urging the federal regulator to speed up its license review for Starship’s fifth test flight. As recently as last week, the FAA said it did not expect to issue the license before “late November.”

Despite the ongoing review, SpaceX issued a statement Monday saying that the fifth Starship spaceflight “could launch as soon as October 13, pending regulatory approval.” The company did not indicate whether it expected to receive its license by Sunday.
But a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday that SpaceX’s seemingly aggressive target is possible because the FAA’s review process has sped up.
The regulator and partner agencies involved in the process conducted assessments more quickly than anticipated, the person told CNBC, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the final stages of completing a review for the FAA. The person, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the ongoing federal review, noted that it’s also possible any snags this week could take a Sunday attempt off the table and push approval to later this month. 
In an updated statement to CNBC on Tuesday, the FAA removed its prior November estimate.
“In mid-August, SpaceX submitted new information for its proposed Starship/ Super Heavy Flight 5 mission. The FAA is continuing to review this information. The FAA will make a licensing determination once SpaceX has met all licensing requirements,” the FAA said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service referred CNBC to the FAA in response to a request for comment.

Read more CNBC space news

On Sept. 10, SpaceX issued a lengthy blog post saying the FAA was delaying Starship’s fifth launch over “superfluous environmental analysis,” alleging that the extended review was “for unreasonable and exasperating reasons” that represent difficulties in “the current regulatory environment” for companies seeking launch licenses.
The post in part criticized reports that SpaceX violated environmental regulations by using the Starship launchpad’s water deluge system in Texas without authorization. However, SpaceX settled fines levied by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency regarding unauthorized water discharge.
Reuters first reported the FAA may approve a license as soon as this month but did not specify whether that could come as soon as Sunday.

An ambitious fifth launch

The sun sets behind the SpaceX Starship ahead of its fourth flight test at Boca Chica beach on June 05, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas. 
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

SpaceX aims to push development of its mammoth Starship rocket further with its fifth flight. It’s seeking to build on the progress of June’s fourth Starship test flight — which traveled halfway around the world for an intentional splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
As part of SpaceX’s effort to make Starship fully reusable, the company plans to attempt to return and catch the rocket’s 232-foot-tall booster.
After launching and separating from the upper Starship section of the rocket, the Super Heavy booster is expected to fly back to the launch site and land between a pair of so-called “chopsticks” on the tower. SpaceX emphasized that the catch attempt requires “thousands” of criteria to be met, or else the booster will divert from the return trajectory to instead splashdown off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only be attempted if conditions are right,” SpaceX said in a statement describing the flight.
The window on Sunday opens at 8 a.m. ET for the fifth Starship launch from the company’s facility near Brownsville, Texas.
Starship is both the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 397 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter.
The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program. More