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Moderna and Merck said their experimental vaccine in combination with the therapy Keytruda improved survival and showed durable efficacy in a midstage study in patients with a deadly form of skin cancer.
Nearly 75% of patients who took the combination were alive without any signs or symptoms of their cancer returning at the 2½-year mark.
The overall survival rate of patients who took the vaccine in combination with Keytruda was 96% after 2½ years.

Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Moderna and Merck released more positive three-year data Monday on their experimental vaccine, given to patients with the most deadly form of skin cancer in combination with the therapy Keytruda.
The vaccine together with Merck’s Keytruda improved survival and showed long-lasting efficacy in a midstage study in patients with a deadly form of skin cancer. Moderna and Merck are presenting the data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.

The shot is a key part of Moderna’s pipeline that has helped shore up investor sentiment for the biotech company following a rocky last year, when demand plummeted for its Covid vaccine, for now its only commercially available product.
The data includes the initial results the two companies announced in December.
Among new data, nearly 75% of patients who took the combination were alive without any signs or symptoms of their cancer returning at the 2½-year mark. That compares with 55.6% of patients who got Keytruda alone. 
That benefit was observed across different subgroups of patients, regardless of whether they had tumors with a large number of mutations or whether they had enough of a protein — called PD-L1 — that helps keep the body’s immune responses in check. 
The data reflects the potential for the shot to help treat a “broad range” of melanoma patients, Dr. Kyle Holen, Moderna’s head of development, therapeutics and oncology, said in a release.

The overall survival rate of patients who took the vaccine in combination with Keytruda was 96% after 2½ years. That compares with 90.2% among those who took Keytruda alone.
As the companies previously announced, patients with severe forms of the cancer, known as melanoma, who received the combination were 49% less likely to die or have their cancer return than those who took Keytruda alone after roughly three years. The combination also slashed the risk of melanoma spreading to other parts of the body, or death, by 62%.
The most common side effects associated with the vaccine were fatigue, injection site pain and chills, according to the data. The majority of those side effects were mild. Patients who received the combination had slightly higher immune-related side effects.
The vaccine, which uses the same mRNA technology as Moderna’s Covid vaccine, is custom-built based on an analysis of a patient’s tumors after surgical removal. The shot is designed to train the immune system to recognize and attack specific mutations in cancer cells. 
Moderna is excited about working to reduce the time between the initial analysis of a tumor and when a patient gets injected with the shot, CEO Stephane Bancel said in an interview with CNBC.
Meanwhile, Merck’s Keytruda, which is approved to treat melanoma and other cancers, belongs to a class of widely used immunotherapies designed to disable a certain protein that helps cancer evade the immune system.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February gave breakthrough therapy designation to the cancer vaccine for the treatment of melanoma. That designation aims to speed up the development and review of treatments for serious and life-threatening diseases.
But Moderna also plans to file for accelerated approval with the FDA, Bancel noted. The process allows for expedited approvals of drugs for serious conditions that fill an unmet medical need.
Melanoma is responsible for the large majority of skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. The rate of melanoma has increased rapidly over the past few decades, according to the organization.
About 100,000 people will be diagnosed with melanoma in the U.S. this year and nearly 8,000 people are expected to die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
The two drugmakers are studying the combination as a treatment for late-stage melanoma in a phase-three trial, which began in July. Bancel said the progress of that trial is “ahead of our plans” so far. 
Moderna is also conducting another phase three trial of the vaccine in patients with a type of lung cancer. 
This year, Merck and Moderna started a two-part mid- to late-stage trial on the vaccine and Keytruda in patients at an advanced stage of a common skin cancer. The companies are also conducting a phase two trial in certain patients with a type of kidney cancer, and another study on people with a type of bladder cancer. More

Ford’s latest project out of Motor City is the restoration and reopening of an abandoned train station, now the automaker’s new technology campus.
The $950 million project encompasses the 18-story former train station called Michigan Central Station, an adjacent 270,000-square-foot building and other supporting facilities.
Ford Chair Bill Ford Jr., who spearheaded the project, said the 30-acre campus will be key for the automaker’s talent acquisition and retention.

Ford Motor is turning an abandoned train station used for decades as an infamous symbol of Detroit’s downfall and blight into a new technology campus for the automaker and mixed-use property for the city.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

DETROIT – Ford’s latest project out of the Motor City is the restoration and reopening of an abandoned train station, for decades a symbol of Detroit’s downfall and now the automaker’s new technology campus.
The $950 million project encompasses the 18-story former train station called Michigan Central Station – once the state’s marquee transit building – an adjacent 270,000-square-foot building and other, supporting facilities.

The 30-acre “Michigan Central” campus and station was initially announced in 2018 and slated to open by 2022. However, the coronavirus pandemic and the extensive work needed to renovate the station delayed its reopening. Ford is celebrating the restoration of the century-old train station on Thursday.
Following the event Thursday, the ground floor of the train station building will be open to the public through June 16, before the first commercial occupants begin moving in this fall.
The new campus comes at a precarious time for Ford investors as the company continues to restructure its business. It also comes as many companies attempt to downsize office space and fill their current buildings with employees who grew accustomed to working from home during the pandemic.

A photo of Michigan Central’s main concourse prior to its renovation sits in the newly restored room toward the back of the building.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Specifically in Detroit, a stark juxtaposition has emerged: In April, Ford’s crosstown rival General Motors announced it would be downsizing from its towering Renaissance Center headquarters along the city’s riverfront to two floors in a nearby building that’s under construction.
Yet Ford Chair Bill Ford Jr. said he believes the investment made in the historic train station is a crucial part of the automaker’s future, including in aspects of talent acquisition and retention.

“We’re in a war for talent, our industry and our company,” Ford, who spearheaded the project, told CNBC. “And you need to give talent two things: You need to give them, first, really interesting problems to solve, and then you have to give them a great place to work. With Michigan Central, we checked both those boxes.”
Bill Ford decided to purchase the dilapidated building after years of trips to Silicon Valley for his Fontinalis venture capital firm and during his tenure as a member of the eBay board of directors. He’s long been outspoken about the need for the traditional automotive industry to compete with newer tech companies in both product and talent acquisition.

Ford Motor released this image of Chair Bill Ford, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, when the automaker announced it would be purchasing Michigan Central Station in June 2018.

Ford said attracting top talent to Detroit is “getting better” but noted that “it’s a tall order” to convince workers from California or the East Coast to relocate to Detroit and work for Ford.
“If you can show them a place like Michigan Central, not just in its beauty, which alone is incredible, but then talk about the kind of things that will be going on there, then it becomes, I think, a really valuable resource for the company going forward,” he said.

Train station campus

The Michigan Central campus is located southwest of Detroit’s main business district in a trendy neighborhood known as Corktown. It’s about 10 miles down the road from Ford’s world headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
The Michigan Central campus in total spans 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, including retail, restaurants and hospitality. It was awarded $300 million in state, local and historic rehabilitation tax incentives, according to officials.

The restored grand waiting room inside Ford’s Michigan Central Station in Detroit.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Ford officials went to great lengths to restore the station to its original glory after decades of vandalism and decay. The project involved 3D-scanning the rooms, matching materials and referencing historical photos to recreate parts of the building.
This was especially true for the first floor of the train station, where a grand room features massive windows, an arcade and a large concourse full of marble and terrazzo flooring, Mankato stone and other unique materials.
Architects and designers opted to leave some graffiti on walls to represent the station’s dormant years after closing in 1988.
As one measure of Ford’s determination, officials traced the facility’s original limestone to a quarry in Indiana only to find out it had since closed. Michigan Central worked with the owners to reopen the quarry.

Some graffiti from when Michigan Central sat dormant for more than 30 years was purposely preserved to represent that part of the station’s history.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

“It has been painstakingly and lovingly restored to, wherever possible, to its original condition,” said Josh Sirefman, Michigan Central CEO, during a tour of the project. “Before we start activating it with lots of things, it’s probably in its most pristine condition.”
Amid national commercial real estate challenges, about two-thirds of the tower has scheduled tenants or planned use cases, officials said. That includes an unnamed restaurant and hotel, pending rezoning approval.
The adjacent building, known as the Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, already houses more than 600 employees from nearly 100 startup companies.
“It really is the beginning of the ecosystem that I want to create,” Bill Ford said. “There’s going to be a lot of experimentation taking place down there.”

Michael Wayland / CNBC

Ford plans to house at least 2,500 employees in the building, primarily members of the company’s electric vehicle and connected services teams. Roughly 1,000 of those employees are expected to move into the station’s tower by the end of this year, Ford said.
Other building occupants could include local universities, other businesses and a restaurant. However, officials declined to release a full list of expected tenants. Google, a founding partner of the project, runs its “Code Next” program, which teaches students how to code, from the Book Depository building.
Ford said he expects future automaker employees to be able to collaborate with other occupants of the station’s tower as well as the startups occupying the Book Depository building.  

A photo of Michigan Central’s arcade prior to its renovation sits in the newly restored room toward the east end of the building.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

‘Legacy project’

Resurrecting the train station and surrounding campus is the latest project Bill Ford, a great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, has undertaken in the Motor City.
He was instrumental in moving the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions from suburban Pontiac to a new stadium, appropriately named Ford Field, in downtown Detroit in 2002. He also was part of the team that brought the Super Bowl to the city in 2006.
And he redeveloped the company’s River Rouge Assembly plant into a “green” production facility amid calls to close it. It’s now a tourist destination for the production of the Ford F-150 full-size pickup.
Ford, who served as CEO of the automaker from 2001 to 2006, described Michigan Central as a continuation of such projects. He called the effort a “legacy project” for himself as well as for those who have been able to work on it.
“I’m very proud of both of those [prior projects], but I think this is going to kind of put an exclamation point on it because this will be a wonderful place to work but it will also be a wonderful place for the public to come,” Ford said.

The renovated “reading room” off of the grand waiting room at Ford’s Michigan Central Station in Detroit.
Michael Waylans / CNBC More

THE MANAGERS of Saudi Aramco could have the cushiest jobs in the energy business. The state-run oil colossus produces 9m barrels of oil a day, more than any other firm and nearly a tenth of the world’s total (see chart 1). It boasts by far the largest remaining proven reserves of the stuff, which would last into second half of the century at current pumping rates. Its piddling production costs of $3 a barrel, a tenth of what many Western private-sector rivals must content themselves with, allowed it to generate an eye-watering $282bn in total net profit over the past two years. And though its oil burns as dirtily as any other, Aramco emits less carbon liberating it from geological formations than competitors do. That makes the company’s product appealing in a world increasingly concerned about global warming but still hooked on hydrocarbons.As less generously endowed rivals fall by the wayside, Aramco’s market share would, in other words, be almost certain to rise with a few modest investments in maintaining reservoirs. Yet the company’s employees are busier than ever. That is because Aramco is the linchpin of the strategy of Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, to end his country’s reliance on oil, diversify its economy and decarbonise its energy production. More

First-quarter retail earnings are coming to a close, and shoppers are still spending, but being more selective than ever.
Winners like Foot Locker, Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch offered shoppers the right combination of value, fun and product, leading to strong results that largely beat expectations.
Meanwhile, losers like Kohl’s fell short because of their inability to properly chase trends.

The Gap logo is displayed at a Gap store in Los Angeles, April 25, 2023.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

Retail’s biggest winners during first-quarter earnings aren’t thriving because consumers are suddenly spending more on discretionary goods — it’s because they’re executing well and cash-strapped shoppers are choosing them over competitors. 
If there’s one takeaway from results posted by the largest U.S. retailers over the last few weeks, it’s that shoppers are still spending — but being far more selective about where.

Feeling the brunt of sticky inflation, high interest rates and an economy that feels tougher than it may actually be, consumers are prioritizing purchases that have the right combination of value, convenience and fun.
Companies like Abercrombie & Fitch, TJX Companies and Gap impressed Wall Street with their results, while others like Kohl’s, American Eagle and Target disappointed.
Take Gap and Foot Locker — two unlikely winners that posted results on Thursday. Both retailers are in the midst of ambitious turnaround plans and are performing better than expected because of new strategies they’ve implemented. 
Gap posted positive comparable sales for all four of its brands — Athleta, Old Navy, Banana Republic and its namesake banner — for the first time in “many years,” beating Wall Street’s expectations across the board, the company said. 
For years, Gap had been losing market share to buzzy competitors. But under new CEO Richard Dickson, the marketing guru credited with reviving the Barbie franchise, the apparel chain has focused on financial rigor, brand storytelling and product development. In under a year, Gap’s sales and profits have meaningfully improved, and its brands are beginning to be part of the cultural conversation again.

A few weeks ago, actor Anne Hathaway went to a Bulgari party wearing a white Gap shirt dress that had been designed by the company’s new creative director, Zac Posen. Critically, Gap dropped the $158 dress to consumers, and it sold out within hours. This combination of marketing and exclusive product drops is what Gap had long been lacking, and what competitors had already been doing. 
Foot Locker had declined over the last couple of years, but with the right combination of new strategies and a little bit of luck, its turnaround is showing signs of life. 
Under CEO Mary Dillon, Foot Locker has worked to change its stores, where it does more than 80% of its sales. It has tried to create not only a better shopping experience for consumers but also a better place for its critical brand partners.
Instead of two walls of shoes with competing brands mixed together, Foot Locker is changing its fleet so the brands have their own unique displays. Its new “store of the future” concept at a New Jersey mall that brings that strategy to life has become its best performing store in North America in just a few weeks, Dillon told CNBC, adding that brands are thrilled with the new design. 
The shift couldn’t have come at a better time. Years into Nike’s strategy to cut out wholesalers and sell directly to consumers, the retailer is realizing it went too far and is now changing course.
With refreshed stores and better product displays, consumers are converting more, too, and paying full price — even Foot Locker’s lower-income shopper. 
“Our consumer … this is a category that is very important to them. So when people have discretionary income, it may be limited, but you’re gonna prioritize where you spend it, right?” said Dillon. “We’re proving that people are willing to spend full price, but you have to have the right products and serve it up in a way that makes it enticing, right? So that’s where the whole customer experience really matters.” 
Elsewhere, Dick’s Sporting Goods posted a solid first-quarter report Wednesday, as executives said average selling prices and transactions rose and that they saw no signs of consumers trading down for cheaper options. That may not mean shoppers are spending more broadly, though: Dick’s has long been considered a best-in-class operator that offers a solid shopping experience, meaning it can win even when consumers are picky with their spending.

Denim wars

Two retailers that didn’t have great quarters — American Eagle and Kohl’s — tell a story of executing poorly or missing out on trends. 
American Eagle handily beat earnings estimates thanks to a new strategy designed to boost profitable growth, but it fell short on revenue and issued cautious guidance that was slightly below Wall Street’s expectations. 
American Eagle president and executive creative director Jennifer Foyle told CNBC that the brand is working to cut out items that aren’t landing with shoppers and dig down into the ones that are. She said the retailer was overly focused on jeggings in the past but now, low-rise, baggy fits are in. 
During a store visit at the American Dream mall in New Jersey on Thursday, an associate told CNBC that the location didn’t have the low-rise, baggy fit in-stores, and they were only available online. Meanwhile, there was a wall of jeggings. Still, denim was a strong performer for the company during the quarter, and it had a variety of other styles that resonated with customers at the location, the company said.

Denim is having a moment with shoppers. Search levels for denim are hitting peaks in a 20-year data set, particularly for categories like tops and dresses, according to a Morgan Stanley research note. 
Kohl’s is missing the mark in a far more meaningful way. The retailer posted dismal numbers on Thursday, as both earnings and revenue fell well short of expectations. It cut its full-year forecast and its shares plunged more than 20%, the stock’s biggest single-day percentage decline ever.
The weak results illustrated a challenge the retailer is still contending with: Keeping up with trends and staying relevant. 
CEO Tom Kingsbury told CNBC he expects the “head-to-toe” denim trend to play a role in the back half of the year, but it could already be out of style by the time Kohl’s gets around to adding the clothing items to its shelves.
“Denim is OK business for us. I mean it’s really not the most important time for denim,” said Kingsbury. “We’re selling shorts and tees. And more, you know, warm weather product.” 
Gap, one of the longtime denim leaders, didn’t seem to be concerned about denim going out of favor because the weather is warmer. CEO Dickson said the company is getting ready to launch its “exclusive lightweight denim fabric” dubbed “Ultra Soft” in time for the summer.
Failing to chase trends has been an ongoing issue for the aging department store Kohl’s. Kingsbury told CNBC in March that Kohl’s used to buy product for the juniors department catering to teen girls — one of the most trend-driven areas of its stores — 12 to 14 months in advance. When the apparel hit the sales floor, it was “dead on arrival.”
In an age where viral TikTok videos dictate the life and death of trends, it’s more important than ever for retailers to stay on top of what’s working with customers and what isn’t. They’re not just competing with legacy players, they’re also vying for customers with innovative yet controversial upstarts like Chinese-linked Shein, which can go from an idea to an online product in a matter of weeks.
That’s a far cry from the lead times at Under Armour, where it currently takes about 18 months to get a product from an idea to a showroom floor. During an earnings call with analysts on May 16, CEO Kevin Plank called the system “just plain uncompetitive in the 2024 landscape” as he laid out a plan to streamline the process. 
Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch posted another stellar set of results, even as it begins to lap tougher comparisons. It has posted torrid growth in part because the company is responsive to its customers and a has nimble supply chain that has allowed it to chase trends quickly and efficiently. 
It posted its strongest first quarter in history, and now expects sales to grow 10% in fiscal 2024, up from previous guidance of between 4% and 6%. 
CEO Fran Horowitz told CNBC that low-rise, baggy jeans are also uber-popular with its customers. During a recent visit by CNBC to its Hollister store just a short walk from American Eagle’s outpost, plenty of those style of jeans were on display for shoppers as soon as they walked into the store.

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The Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna’s vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus.
The decision is a win for Moderna, which desperately needs another revenue source amid plunging demand for its Covid jab, its only commercially available product. 
An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will vote in June on recommendations for the use and intended population of Moderna’s shot, which follows similar jabs by Pfizer and GSK.

The FDA has approved Moderna’s RSV vaccine for older adults.
Courtesy: Moderna

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved Moderna’s vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus for adults ages 60 and above, the company’s second-ever product to enter the U.S. market. 
The decision is a win for Moderna, which desperately needs another revenue source amid plunging demand for its Covid jab, its only commercially available product. 

The approval of Moderna’s shot is based on a late-stage trial on older adults, who are more vulnerable to severe cases of RSV. The virus kills between 6,000 and 10,000 seniors every year and results in 60,000 to 160,000 hospitalizations, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Moderna’s shot will be marketed under the brand name mRESVIA. It is the first messenger RNA vaccine to get approved for a disease other than Covid. The company’s shot is also the only RSV vaccine to be available in a pre-filled syringe, which is designed to make it easier to administer to patients.
An advisory panel to the CDC will vote in June on recommendations for the use and intended population of Moderna’s shot. The company expects an equal recommendation to existing RSV shots from GSK and Pfizer, Moderna executives said during an earnings call on May 1. 
A positive recommendation from the CDC would allow Moderna’s vaccine to compete against GSK and Pfizer, which launched their respective shots in the U.S. last fall. Pfizer’s vaccine has so far lagged behind GSK’s, but both shots have so far recorded hundreds of millions in sales. 
Moderna’s full-year 2024 sales guidance of roughly $4 billion includes revenue from its RSV vaccine. 

The approval demonstrates the versatility of Moderna’s messenger RNA platform beyond treating Covid. The biotech company is using that technology to tackle a range of different diseases, including RSV, cancer and a highly contagious stomach bug known as norovirus. 
“The FDA approval of our second product, mRESVIA, builds on the strength and versatility of our mRNA platform,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a release. “With mRESVIA, we continue to deliver for patients by addressing global public health threats related to infectious diseases.”
The biotech company currently has more than 40 products in development, several of which are in late-stage trials. They include its combination shot targeting Covid and the flu, which could win approval as early as 2025.

More CNBC health coverage

Moderna is also developing a stand-alone flu shot, a personalized cancer vaccine with Merck and shots for latent viruses, among other products.
Moderna has said it expects to return to sales growth in 2025 and to break even by 2026, with the launch of new products. 
Investors have high hopes for the long-term potential of Moderna’s mRNA product pipeline: Shares of the company are up more than 40% this year after falling nearly 45% in 2023. 

Vaccine trial data

The FDA was initially slated to make a decision on Moderna’s jab on May 12. The agency delayed the approval, citing internal “administrative constraints.” 
A phase three trial on roughly 37,000 people showed that Moderna’s vaccine was 83.7% effective at preventing at least two symptoms of RSV at around three months. New data from that study in February showed the shot’s efficacy declined to 63% at 8.6 months. 
At the time, those results raised concerns among investors that the shot’s efficacy declined faster than that of shots from GSK and Pfizer. Moderna in a statement said comparisons can’t be made without head-to-head trials on shots.
The company added that its trial had different study populations, geographic locations and case definitions for RSV, among other differences. 
No significant safety concerns were identified in patients who took the shot in the trial. Most side effects were mild to moderate and included injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain and joint pain. 

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Sports carmaker Aston Martin expects to become cash-flow positive this year, according to Executive Chairman Lawrence Stroll.
Aston Martin has overhauled and improved manufacturing, shored up its financials and is now launching a fleet of new products defined by high-performance and luxury finishes.
Stroll said the automaker got a boost from Formula 1, more high-end customizations and a younger customer.

With a parade of new models and a marketing tailwind from Formula 1, sports carmaker Aston Martin expects to become cash-flow positive this year, according to Executive Chairman Lawrence Stroll.
“We’re now at a really transitional moment, with an inflection point for this company,” Stroll told CNBC. “We’re introducing all our products, finally, after designing and building them for the last four years, after I took over. Going forward, we will now have a normal quarterly output, not these hockey sticks we’ve seen in the past, but the more traditional quarterly flow of new vehicles constantly coming to market.”

Stroll said the company, which has been losing money for years, expects to become cash flow positive starting in the third quarter and continue to be in the fourth quarter and beyond.
That would mark a dramatic turnaround for the storied British carmaker, famed for both its role in the James Bond movies and its history of financial ups and downs. Stroll, a billionaire former fashion mogul who stepped in as Aston Martin executive chairman in 2020, imposed a sweeping plan to restore the brand’s shine and profits.
Aston Martin has overhauled and improved manufacturing, shored up its financials to make investments in the future, and is now launching a fleet of new products defined by high-performance and luxury finishes.

Owner of Aston Martin F1 Team Lawrence Stroll (R) shakes hands with Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur on the grid prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Miami at Miami International Autodrome on May 05, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
Chris Graythen | Getty Images

Still, production fell and pre-tax losses doubled in the first quarter compared with the previous year, sending the company’s shares to their lowest level since 2022. Stroll said the production drop and an expected drop in the second quarter are part of an intentional plan to phase out older models and make room for the slate of new models to ramp up in the coming months.
“We made a conscious decision to stop all production” on certain models,” he said. “We reduced the manufacturing wholesale volume in order to not have a build-up of older cars at the dealer networks while we’re launching all our brand new vehicles.”

The new vehicles include the new Vantage, a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car with 656 horsepower and a starting price of $191,000.
The automaker also unveiled the new DBX707, its high-powered SUV, which can do 0mph to 60mph in 3.1 seconds and top 200 mph. The company has also unveiled an open-topped version of its DB12, called the DB12 Volante.
Aston Martin has teased a new super-powered V-12, expected to be called Vanquish, later this year.
It’s also expected to begin deliveries of its $800,000 hybrid supercar, called the Valhalla, at the end of this year or early 2025.

The $800,000 Aston Martin hybrid Valhalla.
Courtesy: Aston Martin

Along with new models, Aston Martin is betting on continued growth from its personalization program. A year after opening its “Q New York” showroom, which allows customers to customize their cars with their own paint colors, interior fabrics, stitching and other details, the company is planning Q locations in London, Miami and California.
Stroll said some customers are paying an additional $100,000 to $200,000 beyond the sticker price of their cars for highly specialized personalization. One customer even requested fur in the interior, he said.
The customization program has helped boost the average sale price of an Aston Martin by 35% over the past two years, to $294,0000.
“It’s really, really been a home run,” Stroll said. “Not only from the financial point of view. People come in [to Q New York] and they understand what Aston Martin is all about. They say, ‘OK, I get it.’ You know, it’s the show, it’s the feeling.”
Aston Martin is also attracting a younger buyer, thanks in large part to its Formula 1 team, which Stroll owns. Stroll said the average age of an Aston Martin customer is now 42, down from 55 four years ago.
“The brand is really on fire, and a lot of it is to do with Formula 1,” he said. “Being in Formula 1 the last three years has really rejuvenated the brand significantly, and also all of our new product portfolio.”
Stroll dismissed reports that he’s looking to sell a minority stake in the Aston Martin Formula 1 team to help fund the car company.
“We absolutely do not need to raise capital,” he said. “When you start making 8,000, 9,000 vehicles [a year], we become extremely cash flow positive. … So no there’s no interest or requirement to raise” more.
On the company’s electric vehicle future, Stroll said the company is delaying the launch of an all-electric Aston Martin from 2025 to 2026. The company has designed four EVs based on the same platform, but Aston Martin customers aren’t showing enough demand.
“We don’t want to swim upstream,” he said. “Our consumer, at least the Aston Martin customer, the high-performance customer, is telling us we’re not ready for an electric vehicle, at least not from us. So we’re hearing that loud and clear.”

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Pfizer on Friday said its drug for an advanced form of lung cancer showed promising long-term results in a late-stage trial, which could help establish it as the new standard treatment for the condition.
Lorbrena is already approved in the U.S. for treating adults with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who have a mutation in a gene called ALK.
Pfizer will present the results on Friday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago.

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

CHICAGO — Pfizer on Friday said its drug for an advanced form of lung cancer showed promising long-term results in a late-stage trial, which may help establish it as the new standard treatment for the condition.
The company’s medicine helped patients live longer without seeing their cancer progress, and most people experienced that benefit for over five years. The drug, called Lorbrena, also cut the risk of the cancer progressing in patients’ brains.

Lorbrena is already approved in the U.S. for treating adults with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who have a mutation in a gene called ALK. Only about 5% of all non-small cell lung cancer patients have the mutation, which causes cancer cells to grow and spread abnormally. 
But that translates to 72,000 people who are diagnosed with that specific form of lung cancer each year worldwide, according to a release from Pfizer. That cancer is typically aggressive and often affects younger people, the company added.
More broadly, non-small-cell lung cancer is a common form of the disease.
Lorbrena is specifically approved as a first-line treatment for that form of lung cancer, meaning patients who take it have not received any other therapy. But Pfizer’s drug isn’t currently considered the standard – or the most appropriate and widely used – treatment for the condition. 
The company thinks the new five-year data on the drug will change that. 

“In cancer medicine in general, you always want to give the best medicine upfront first. So that’s why we believe this data … will lead to [Lorbrena] becoming a standard” first-line treatment in this specific form of lung cancer, Chris Boshoff, Pfizer’s chief oncology officer, told CNBC in an interview. 
The new five-year data is from the same phase three trial that led to Lorbrena’s U.S. approval. Pfizer will present the results on Friday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago, the largest cancer research conference in the world. The data was also published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Nearly 300 people in the trial either received Lorbrena or Pfizer’s older lung cancer drug Xalkori. At the five-year mark, 50% of patients in the trial were still receiving Lorbrena compared with 5% of people receiving Xalkori.
In the trial, Lorbrena after five years cut the risk of cancer progression or death by 81% compared with Xalkori.
Around 60% of patients treated with Lorbrena were alive without seeing their cancer progress after that same period. That compares with 8% among those who took Xalkori. 
Dr. David Spigel, chief scientific officer at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, called those results “the best we’ve ever seen” during a briefing with reporters ahead of the ASCO conference.
“We have not seen anything close to this. Other great drugs that are available … have not reported the kind of durable, progression-free survival events of this magnitude,” Spigel said, referring to the rate of people who remained alive without seeing their cancer progress. 
He noted that there are no head-to-head trials that compare Pfizer’s Lorbrena with competing lung cancer drugs, including one called alectinib and another called brigatinib.
All three are called ALK inhibitors, which are designed to block the mutations in the ALK gene associated with abnormal cancer cell growth. Lorbrena is considered a newer, third-generation ALK inhibitor, while the two competitors are second-generation. 
But Spigel added that “it’s hard to believe” that Lorbrena would perform worse head-to-head against those drugs.
Pfizer’s other drug Xalkori is also an ALK-inhibitor, but it is no longer used in the U.S.
Lung cancers with the “ALK-positive” mutation are also especially adept at spreading to the brain. Roughly a quarter or more of patients can develop brain metastases — when cancer cells spread from their original part of the body to the brain — within the first two years of being diagnosed. 
Lorbrena slashed the risk of the cancer progressing in the brain by 94% compared with Pfizer’s old drug. Only four of the 114 patients taking Lorbrena developed brain metastases within about 16 months, compared with 39 out of the 109 taking Xalkori.
Lorbrena is effective at preventing and treating brain metastasis because it can cross a membrane called the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain, something not all drugs can do.
Spigel called that another “impressive finding” since progression in the brain is “quite awful for patients and something we try desperately to prevent or treat.” 
No new safety issues were reported for Lorbrena. The most common side effects included swelling, weight gain, cognition and mood changes and high cholesterol in the blood, among others.
But Spigel called the cognitive issues associated with Lorbrena “unusual” since it is not seen with its competitors.
In a note on Thursday ahead of the data release, Leerink Partners analyst Dr. Andrew Berens said he believes Lorbrena’s central nervous system side effects are partly why it is often used as a second rather than first-line treatment for this advanced form of lung cancer. Those changes to cognition and mood result “in a lower patient quality of life,” he said.
But Pfizer’s Boshoff said once physicians use Lorbrena for the first time, they become comfortable managing any specific side effects associated with the drug.
He noted that educating physicians about how to manage adverse effects will be an important part of Lorbrena’s “relaunch” following the release of the new data.

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The Wagoneer S is the beginning of what Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares this week called the automaker’s EV offensive for the U.S.
It’s Jeep’s first “global” EV and will be produced at a plant in Mexico.
“If this is going to be a green vehicle, we had to rethink the materials inside,” renowned car designer Ralph Gilles said. “There was a huge push for sustainable materials everywhere.”

2024 Jeep Wagoneer S EV

NEW YORK – The first all-electric Jeep SUV for the U.S. will be the 2024 Wagoneer S, starting at about $72,000 when it’s scheduled to go on sale this fall.
The Stellantis-owned brand revealed the vehicle and pricing Thursday, portraying it as a “new chapter” for the quintessential American SUV brand that has struggled with domestic sales in recent years.

“This represents a lot. It is the first global [all-electric vehicle] built in North America, designed in the U.S. … for the world,” Jeep CEO Antonio Filosa told CNBC during an interview after revealing the vehicle. “It is a milestone in our history.”
Filosa, who started leading Jeep in December, said the brand is in “fantastic shape” but it’s in the midst of a “transition like all the automotive brands nowadays” involving electrification.
Despite a slower than expected adoption of EVs in the U.S., Filosa said the brand is not worried about consumer adoption because its additive to the Jeep’s lineup, which will continue to offer traditional gas-powered SUVs, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and “extended-range” electric vehicles starting next year.

Jeep Wagoneer S EV concept
Michael Wayland / CNBC

A “Launch Edition” of the Wagoneer S will initially be available with a 400-volt, 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack capable of more than 300 miles on a single charge, 600 horsepower and 617 pound-feet of torque for a 0-60 mph acceleration of 3.4 seconds. It is capable of charging from 20%-80% in 23 minutes using a DC Fast charger, according to the company.
Jeep also revealed a Trailhawk off-road performance concept of the EV, which Filosa said “hopefully soon will become a product.”

Filosa said less expensive models of the Wagoneer S will start being released roughly six months after the Launch Edition.
The $71,995 starting price of the Wagoneer S EV sits between gas-powered versions of the Wagoneer, starting at about $63,000, and more luxurious Grand Wagoneer, starting at roughly $92,000.
Jeep also will introduce a new unnamed midsize SUV next year to replace its discontinued Cherokee, Filosa said.

2024 Jeep Wagoneer S EV

He also said the company will release electric, extended-range versions of the traditional gas-powered Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer in 2025. The technology, which uses an engine as a gas-powered generator in addition to EV batteries, is expected to debut on the upcoming Ram Ramcharger pickup truck.

U.S. EV offensive

The Wagoneer S is the beginning of what Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares this week called the automaker’s EV offensive for the U.S., including six to eight all-electric vehicles this year.
“There is a huge amount of opportunities here in the U.S. We are just starting the offensive of our electrification,” Tavares said Wednesday during a Bernstein investor conference.
For Jeep, the Wagoneer S is expected to be followed by a Wrangler-inspired off-road vehicle called the Recon later this year and a new roughly $25,000 EV “very soon,” Tavares said Wednesday without disclosing additional details.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares holds a news conference after meeting with unions, in Turin, Italy, March 31, 2022.
Massimo Pinca | Reuters

For years, Tavares has been outspoken about the company being forced to produce EVs, which cost 40% more, due to regulatory requirements and not consumer demand. On Wednesday, he described EVs as a “cost-cutting exercise” to ensure the vehicles are profitable.
The EVs are a shift for Jeep in the U.S., where the brand has been focusing on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, such as its Wrangler and Grand Cherokee SUVs. The plug-in vehicles accounted for 17.5% of Jeep’s sales this year.
Filosa said Jeep, which is currently No. 1 in PHEVs in the U.S., expects to continue growing sales of those vehicles in addition to the upcoming EVs.
“Electrification to us so far has been working very, very well. Basically,” he said during the reveal event, “we built the PHEV industry. We own this part of the market.

 Jeep Wagoneer S Trailhawk EV concept
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Stellantis’ total PHEV U.S. sales last year was nearly 143,000, up 124% compared to 2022. Leading the way was Jeep, including 67,429 Jeep Wrangler and 45,684 Jeep Grand Cherokee “4xe” SUVs.
Jeep is using 4xe badging as a play on the brand’s off-road reputation combined with electrification, including EVs and PHEVs.

Wagoneer S

The Wagoneer S is Jeep’s first “global” EV, according to the company. The Jeep brand’s first EV model called the Avenger, a small SUV starting at about 35,000 euros, or about $37,800, went on sale last year in Europe.
The Wagoneer S, which will be produced at a plant in Mexico, is based on Stellantis’ large EV platform, which is expected to underpin eight vehicles for the company from 2024-2026.

2024 Jeep Wagoneer S EV “R-Wing”

Despite sharing the “Wagoneer” name with Jeep’s current gas-powered model, the five-passenger, two-row EV shares little with its three-row traditional internal combustion engine counterpart other than some Jeep styling.
The most notable difference on the exterior is a more modern interpretation of the brand’s iconic seven-slotted grille, which the EV doesn’t actually need for cooling. It’s indented and the slots are solid and interconnected with one another compared to seven separate slots.
“We reinvented the traditional seven-slot grille,” said Ralph Gilles, Stellantis head of design. “I am so damn proud of this.”
The Wagoneer S also features a large “R-Wing,” an open spoiler on the back of the SUV. Gilles said the goal was to not make a “jellybean” like many EVs with good aerodynamics currently being sold in the U.S.
The Wagoneer S is far less boxy that the gasoline model, assisting in it in being the most aerodynamic Jeep ever produced by the brand, the company said.

Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles during the unveiling of the Jeep Wagoneer S EV on May 30, 2024 in New York City.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Gilles said the Wagoneer name is more representative of the luxuriousness of the vehicle rather than a singular design.
Inside the vehicle more than 45 inches of screens, including a 12.3-inch center display, and a mix of metal, fake leather and other sustainable materials.
Gilles, a longtime renowned car designer with the company, said wood was banned from the interior of the vehicle. It also doesn’t feature any chrome on the exterior of the SUV. Those decisions were made following input from younger designers to make the vehicle more sustainable and attractive for more youthful buyers.
“If this is going to be a green vehicle, we had to rethink the materials inside,” Gilles said. “There was a huge push for sustainable materials everywhere.” More