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High-end fitness chain Equinox is launching a $40,000-per-year program aimed at improving overall health and longevity.
“Optimize by Equinox” is a personalized health program that includes everything from personal training and nutrition plans to sleep coaching and massage therapy.
It’s part of the fast-growing market for longevity and wellness, where the fields of medicine, biotech, fitness and nutrition are merging in the quest to slow the effects of aging.

Equinox gym
Courtesy: Equinox

High-end fitness chain Equinox is launching one of the most expensive gym memberships in the world — a $40,000-per-year program aimed at improving overall health and longevity.
Equinox is teaming up with lab-test startup Function Health to launch “Optimize by Equinox,” a personalized health program that includes everything from personal training and nutrition plans to sleep coaching and massage therapy. The program, announced Monday, is part of the fast-growing market for longevity and wellness, where the fields of medicine, biotech, fitness and nutrition are merging in the quest to slow the effects of aging.

“It’s really a paradigm shift in how we’re able to live with vitality and avoid suffering,” said Jonathan Swerdlin, co-founder of Function Health. “It deals with what’s above the surface, your abs and glutes, which you can see in the mirror that are great. But it also deals with what’s below the surface and what you can’t see in the mirror. And that’s revolutionary.”
The Optimize program starts with a battery of tests. Function Health will test members for 100 biomarkers — everything from heart, liver and kidney health to metabolic and immune systems to cancer markers and nutrients. Equinox will then run its own battery of fitness tests, including VO2 max, strength and movement range. The tests are repeated twice a year.
An Equinox “concierge” pulls all the tests and data together and helps the member design a personalized plan to improve their overall health and fitness. Each member will have a core team that includes a fitness trainer, a nutrition coach and sleep coach as well as a massage therapist.
The Optimize membership includes three, 60-minute training sessions per week with a top-level trainer. It also includes two half-hour sessions a month with a nutrition coach, two half-hour sessions a month with a sleep coach and one massage therapy session per month. In all, the program amounts to 16 hours a month of coaching and training, according to Equinox.
“It’s the same as Formula One or an athlete, where you are given a team of top experts in all these different verticals, to design a program based on all the data that we collected,” said Julia Klim, vice president of strategic partnerships and business development at Equinox.

The move will mark a major test of Equinox’s continued efforts to expand beyond fitness into the broader health and wellness business, which has become a booming market among the affluent.
The company recently closed a new $1.8 billion funding round that refinances $1.2 billion in existing debt. It said its performance last month made for its second-best April in company history.
Equinox is planning to open new clubs in Philadelphia and the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles later this year, bringing its total locations in the pipeline to 27. The company currently operates 107 locations globally, according to its website.
Klim said Equinox has always focused on “the four pillars” of longevity: movement, regeneration, nutrition and community.
“I sometimes joke that we’ve always been in the longevity business and the science is catching up,” she said.
The new program will cost $3,000 a month for a minimum of six months. The fee doesn’t include an Equinox gym membership, which brings the total to about $40,000 or more for the year.
“It’s a human-first, highly luxury service meets data meets coaching program,” Klim said.
The Optimize program will initially be available starting at the end of May in New York City and Highland Park, Texas, and will eventually roll out to other states, according to Equinox. Members will be able to train at Equinox’s elite “E Clubs,” which are more like private gyms with higher membership fees.
Swerdlin said Function Health’s mission is to help people live “100 healthy years.” The company’s own program costs $499 for the tests of 100 biomarkers. Yet demand is so strong that it has a waitlist of more than 200,000 people. He said Function wanted to partner with Equinox “because they’re the leader in the category.” He said Function’s data is most useful when it can be applied, which is where Equinox, with its personalized fitness and health programs, comes in.
“Living 100 healthy years doesn’t happen inside of a doctor’s office,” Swerdlin said. “It happens in your daily decisions. And it also happens with the way in which you exercise, and Equinox really helps close the loop on that.”
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Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said the chain needs to fix its U.S. store experience to win back customers.
In its latest quarter, Starbucks reported a surprise decline in same-store sales and slashed its full-year forecast.
Since the report, the company’s shares have fallen 17%, dragging its market value down to $82.8 billion.

Howard Schultz, former chief executive officer of Starbucks Corp., drinks from a Starbucks mug during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, March 29, 2023.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz weighed in Sunday on the coffee chain’s dismal latest quarterly report, saying he believes the company will recover if it improves its U.S. stores.
Schultz, who no longer has a formal role within Starbucks, wrote that the company needs to improve its mobile order and pay experience and overhaul how it creates new drinks to focus on premium items that set it apart.

“The stores require a maniacal focus on the customer experience, through the eyes of a merchant. The answer does not lie in data, but in the stores,” Schultz wrote in a letter on Sunday evening posted to LinkedIn.
On Tuesday, Starbucks slashed its full-year forecast after a surprise decline in same-store sales led the company to miss Wall Street’s estimates for quarterly earnings and revenue. Since the report, the company’s shares have fallen 17%, dragging its market value down to $82.8 billion.
Analysts, caught off guard by the chain’s underperformance, have been looking for an explanation for why Starbucks’ U.S. traffic fell 7% in the quarter. The chain could still be dealing with the repercussions of social media backlash related to its position on conflict in the Middle East, Bank of America Securities analyst Sara Senatore wrote in a research note Monday.
Schultz, who turned Starbucks from a small chain into a coffee giant, stepped down from his latest stint as chief executive a little over a year ago. He handed the reins over to Laxman Narasimhan, who previously was CEO of Lysol owner Reckitt. Schultz also stepped down from the Starbucks board last year.
He appeared to offer advice to his successor as he tries to turn the chain’s sales around.

“Leaders must model both humility and confidence as they work to restore trust and increase performance across the organization,” Schultz wrote.
A year and a half ago, Schultz told CNBC that he does not plan to come back as Starbucks’ chief executive again. More

BIG TECH wants more computing power. A lot more. According to their latest quarterly reports, Alphabet (Google’s corporate parent), Amazon and Microsoft—the world’s cloud-computing giants—collectively invested $40bn between January and March, most of it in data centres equipped to deal with growing artificial-intelligence (AI) workloads. Last month Meta, which does not have a cloud business but does run a data-hungry social-media empire, said its capital expenditure could reach $40bn this year as a result of AI-related projects. That is not far off the $50bn that Saudi Aramco, an oil colossus, is planning to splurge. Microsoft is likely to spend more.The comparison with the famously capex-happy energy industry is apt not just because of the sums involved. AI needs vast amounts of processing power. And that processing power needs vast amounts of electricity. On May 2nd Bob Blue, chief executive of Dominion Energy, one of America’s biggest utilities, said that data-centre developers now regularly ask him for “several gigawatts” (GW). Dominion’s total installed capacity is 34GW. More

THE RISE of artificial-intelligence (AI) data centres, with their insatiable hunger for electricity, is asking an awful lot of the world’s utilities and grid operators. On the bright side, AI can also give a fair bit back, by helping transform ancient, overloaded and dumb electricity networks into something fit for the digital and decarbonised age. America’s Department of Energy reckons that AI and other improvements to the country’s existing grid could liberate as much as 100 gigawatts (GW) in transmission and distribution capacity over the next three to five years without the need to build new lines. That is about 13% of current peak demand of around 740GW.Some of these “grid-enhancing technologies” are now being rolled out, thanks to doughty startups developing them, their financial backers and utilities, which are becoming less resistant to innovation. GETs, as they are known for short in the industry, fall into two main categories: hardware upgrades to transmission grids and software upgrades to those grids’ brains. More

Disney’s Star Wars and Lego are celebrating 25 years of partnership.
The team-up was the first time Lego had struck a licensing deal and became a framework for other franchises.
Since 1999, Lego Star Wars has grown to become its own universe, with video games, apparel and more.

Star Wars Lego models are seen at the Bricks & Figs museum in Krakow, Poland, on April 15, 2023.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

If you are a Star Wars fan, Jens Kronvold Frederiksen may have crafted your childhood.
A design director at the Denmark-based Lego company, he has spent the past 25 years creating Lego Star Wars sets.

“I went to my boss and said, ‘Hey, you need me on this product line,'” Frederiksen told CNBC. “For me, it was just like a dream come true. Star Wars and Lego together, two things I love.”
Frederiksen is not the only one. Since 1999, fans have rallied around the license, scooping up everything from Darth Vader mini figure keychains to $850 Millennium Falcon sets featuring more than 7,500 pieces. The brand has also grown to include half a dozen video games and a slew of animated content on Disney+. It also now has its own home on Epic Games’ popular online game platform Fortnite.
The Star Wars license was the first of its kind for Lego, which had never created an official product line tied to licensed intellectual property before. In fact, the Jar Jar Binks mini figure was the first ever to feature a custom head sculpt instead of one of Lego’s iconic round faces, Frederiksen said.
Now, Lego Star Wars has become a blueprint for the company’s other brand deals — think Harry Potter, Batman and Marvel’s Avengers.
“We were creating themes, but we weren’t always necessarily connecting those with the deeper story,” said Jill Wilfert, head of global entertainment partners and content at Lego. “And I think for us really seeing that unlock, and how it really allowed people to open up their imaginations in a different way and express their creativity in a different way, is I think what Star Wars did for us.”

Wilfert, who has been with Lego for 36 years, said there was a lot of trepidation at Lego prior to the Star Wars deal about doing any kind of third-party licensing.
“Once we saw how well it translated and how people responded to it, it really did give us more confidence,” she said.
The Lego Star Wars collaboration came at a time of financial turmoil for Lego. In the early 2000s, the company was dealing with high debt, stiff competition from digital gaming platforms and a portfolio that had become too diversified. Lego was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Strong sales of Lego Star Wars as well as the Lego-owned Bionicle franchise helped keep the company afloat while it reduced its product lines and shut down noncore businesses. In 2005, the company launched a Lego Star Wars video game.
“It’s been hugely successful and continues to be successful today as a gaming franchise,” said Paul Southern, senior vice president of third-party commercialization and franchise development at Disney. “It created the world.”

A Force in the toy aisle

Two decades later, Lego Star Wars remains one of the top-selling brands for Lego and the company sees strong sales even when there are no new theatrical releases tied to its product.
The privately held company provides biannual glimpses at its balance sheet. In March, Lego reported that it grew sales 2% in 2023, even as the global toy industry saw sales slip 7%, according to data from Circana.
The toymaker once again cited Lego Star Wars as a driving force behind those sales. Lego Icons, Lego Technic, Lego City and Lego Harry Potter also performed well.
Although it was a smaller gain than previous years — the company saw overall sales jump 27% in 2021 and 17% in 2022 — Lego has continued to snap up market share in the toy industry. Much of that has to do with the fact that brands such as Lego Star Wars appeal to multiple demographics and generations.
Lego sells sets at a variety of price points and difficulties, allowing kids to put together smaller, less complicated models and act out scenes from the franchise, while hardcore collectors can build more detailed replicas of their favorite ships, helmets and movie moments.

A man looks pleased with his purchase of a Lego Star Wars landspeeder during Bricktastic 2024 at Manchester Central in Manchester, England, on Feb. 24, 2024.
Shirlaine Forrest | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

The evergreen nature of the franchise is key. Lego can draw on nearly 50 years’ worth of content to delight consumers of all ages.
“The main thing for us, of course, is that this is for kids,” Frederiksen said. “The model should be really fun and creative and inspiring to play with, but it should also be a great building experience.”
That is why Lego takes some creative freedom with the sets that it offers. For example, an Imperial Shuttle is almost completely white. However, giving customers a pile of white bricks would make it “impossible to find the pieces and would not be a fun building experience,” he said. So, Lego offers some variation in the brick colors and details.
While Frederiksen is not designing products anymore, he still builds everything. It is important to him to experience how each set comes together.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Lego and Star Wars partnership, as well as the 25th anniversary of “The Phantom Menace,” Lego is releasing numerous special sets. There is the TIE Interceptor model that retails for $230, a Mos Espa Podrace diorama for $80, a Droideka model for $65 and new BrickHeadz characters for less than $10 each.
“What we see a lot with properties and with Star Wars, maybe more so than others, is it’s something that families do together,” Wilfert said. “Often, you’re first introduced to Star Wars through a parent, your parents grew up loving Star Wars, and we just see that having things in our portfolio that allow those connections and allow families to connect together, we’re really seeing the relevancy of that.”
With new digital products such as video games and Fortnite, Lego can engage with younger consumers.
“We are trying to make sure that we are in relevant places where we know kids are occupying their time,” Wilfert said.

An even bigger galaxy

The Lego Star Wars brand has evolved to encompass more than just bricks and mini figures — it has become its own ecosystem, said Southern.
“The world of Lego Star Wars sits as a separate identity within our overall business, and that makes it very unique,” he said.
Southern was at Lucasfilm when the partnership with Lego and Star Wars launched. He transitioned over to the Walt Disney Company when Lucasfilm was acquired a decade ago, so he has seen Lego Star Wars’ growth firsthand.
Part of that growth is the humor that has become associated with the Lego Star Wars brand. This includes slapstick moments in video games and in animated content.
“We’ve established an ecosystem and a tone of voice that allows us to do things, which, ultimately, are kind of a little bit cheeky, a little bit more fun,” Southern said.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga game allows players to relive the epic narrative of the Skywalker Saga told through the lens of hilarious Lego humor.
Lego | Warner Bros. Games | Lucasfilm

And that humor has extended to other franchises.
“Star Wars, you know, allowed us to really open up people’s eyes to how Lego can create humor and charm to an [intellectual property] that might not exist,” Wilfert said. “We found that most of the IP owners are pretty willing to kind of let us play a little bit.”
Between video games and animated projects, Lego has worked with franchises such as Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Jurassic World and Pixar’s “The Incredibles.”
But it all started with Star Wars, which keeps growing.
“We’ve taken the passion that the fans and the kids have for that brand and we’ve taken that into other areas,” Southern said, noting, that along with video games, Lego Star Wars can also be found in the publishing section and even in apparel.
The diversity of product and its strong sales led Disney and Lego to extend their contract for Star Wars through 2032.
“The relationship has gotten easier because there are people who have been working on both sides all the way through the relationship,” Southern said. “They’re like family now. It’s very frank, it’s very open, very collaborative.”
The long license lead time allows Disney and Lego to work together on long-term projects such as video games and animation, as well as celebratory sets for major anniversary milestones.
“We’re celebrating 25 years of working together,” Southern said. “One of the things that is super important, too, is that we expect to be here in another 25 years, celebrating the way we’ve evolved our relationship and made it relevant for the generations to come.” More

The Skydance consortium is prepared to walk away from its bid for Paramount if it doesn’t hear from controlling shareholder Shari Redstone after the latest Apollo-Sony offer, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Skydance’s exclusivity period with Paramount will not be renewed after it expires Friday, people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.
Apollo and Sony sent a letter to Paramount’s board Thursday expressing interest in buying the company for about $26 billion, CNBC previously reported.

Shari Redstone, chair of Paramount Global, attends the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.
David A. Grogan | CNBC

Skydance Media is prepared to walk away from its offer for Paramount Global unless it receives a firm commitment from controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, following the latest offer from Apollo Global Management and Sony Pictures, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The exclusivity window for discussions between David Ellison’s Skydance, backed by private equity firms RedBird Capital and KKR, and Paramount ends Friday and won’t be extended, people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber. Paramount shares rose following the report.

The consortium has been waiting for word from Paramount’s special committee on whether the panel will recommend its bid to acquire the company to Redstone. Now, with Apollo and Sony formally expressing interest in acquiring the company for about $26 billion, the Skydance group is looking for Redstone to reaffirm her commitment to the deal.
The Skydance consortium is not keen to hang around to be a stalking horse offer for Apollo and Sony, one of the people said. Still, depending on what Redstone says, Ellison may be willing to work with her, a second person said.
Spokespeople for Skydance, Redstone’s National Amusements and Paramount’s special committee declined to comment on Friday.
Apollo and Sony made their latest offer Thursday, CNBC previously reported. The special committee is currently considering the bid, the people said.
As part of Skydance’s latest deal on the table, Redstone may take less than $2 billion for her controlling stake in Paramount, which is lower than Skydance’s initial offer. The consortium is contributing additional capital to pay common, Class B shareholders at a nearly 30% premium to the undisturbed trading price of about $11 per share, CNBC has reported. In total, Redstone and Skydance would contribute $3 billion, with the vast majority going to Class B shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.

Skydance’s valuation as part of the deal remains around $5 billion, the people said. Like Skydance’s bid, the Apollo-Sony offer includes a control premium for Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.
Previously, Redstone rejected an offer by Apollo in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance. Redstone has preferred a deal that would keep Paramount together, as Skydance’s offer would, CNBC previously reported. A private equity firm is likely to break up the company.

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Dave & Buster’s announced earlier this week that it will begin to allow wagering over arcade games in the next few months on its app.
In response, an Illinois lawmaker is proposing legislation to prevent wagering at family entertainment venues, saying such companies don’t have proper safeguards in place.

A Dave & Buster’s location in the Gateway Center shopping complex in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Saturday, March 30, 2024. 
Bing Guan | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Arcade chain Dave and Buster’s plan to allow customer betting isn’t winning over everyone.
Software company Lucra Sports announced on Tuesday that it was working with the entertainment chain to allow customers to place wagers on their arcade games through the Dave & Buster’s app.

But some lawmakers are calling foul.
Illinois State Rep. Daniel Didech, a Democrat from Buffalo Grove, filed a bill on Thursday that’s designed to prohibit family amusement establishments from facilitating wagering on amusement games. He is also looking to criminalize the activity by amending the Illinois Criminal Code. His bill has bipartisan support and is backed by more than two dozen other state lawmakers.
“It is inappropriate for family-friendly arcades to facilitate unregulated gambling on their premises. These businesses simply do not have the ability to oversee gambling activity in a safe and responsible manner,” Didech said in a statement.
Didech, who also serves as chairman of the Illinois House Gaming Committee, said he will be advancing the legislation this session to clarify that such conduct is illegal under Illinois law.
Didech told CNBC that he sees many issues with the idea, ranging from the lack of protections for problem gamblers to exposing younger people to gambling. He said that while Illinois requires people to be 21 and older to gamble, Lucra’s service is for people 18 and up.

“None of those protections are in place at Dave & Buster’s locations. They haven’t even remotely done their due diligence,” Didech said.

Customers play a car racing arcade game at a Dave & Buster’s Entertainment location.
Timothy Fadek | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Ohio gaming control board has also taken notice.
“The Commission does have serious concerns about the proposal – including that it appears to violate Ohio law regarding the facilitating of illegal prizes for skill-based amusement machines,” a spokesperson for the Ohio Casino Control Commission told CNBC. “We are reaching out to Dave & Buster’s for additional information.”
Both Lucra Sports — the company that will power the wagers on Dave & Buster’s app — and Dave & Buster’s declined to comment on the opposition.
As sports betting has exploded since it became legal in much of the country, companies are looking to cash in on the gambling craze. The idea for Dave & Buster’s is to give customers a new form of entertainment and keep them engaged longer and ultimately to spend more money.
Lucra said most of the wagers across its software platform, which allows users to compete for real money in friendly competitions, are an average of about $10 in size. But the company hasn’t yet decided on a maximum bet amount for Dave & Buster’s.
Lucra said the arrangement with Dave & Buster’s isn’t subject to the same gambling regulations or taxes that sportsbooks are because peer-to-peer betting is considered skill-based. Lucra also said it has extensive responsible gaming policies in place, such as options to self-exclude or self-limit on the platform.
Brett Abarbanel, executive director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, International Gaming Institute, said she is interested to see what safeguards, if any, will be implemented by Dave & Buster’s.
“Regardless of the legal classification of the activity as ‘not gambling’ vs. ‘gambling,’ this is an activity in which participants are risking something of value on an outcome that is uncertain. Therefore, there should be consumer protection measures in place for players, particularly when the target audience is skewed toward younger participants,” she said.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct day Illinois State Rep. Daniel Didech’s bill was filed. More

Amgen’s stock jumped on Friday after the drugmaker teased positive initial data on its experimental weight loss injection. 
That fueled investor concerns about new competition in the rapidly growing weight loss drug industry, sending shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly lower on Friday.
Novo Nordisk’s stock was already under pressure after sales of its blockbuster weight loss injection Wegovy missed analysts’ estimates for the first quarter.

Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Amgen’s stock rose more than 12% on Friday after the drugmaker teased positive initial data on its experimental weight loss injection. 
That fueled investor concerns about new competition in the rapidly growing weight loss drug industry, sending shares of the current obesity players, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, lower on Friday. Eli Lilly shares dropped nearly 3%, while Novo Nordisk’s U.S.-traded shares fell more than 1%.

Novo Nordisk’s stock was already under pressure on Thursday after sales of its blockbuster weight loss injection Wegovy missed analysts’ estimates for the first quarter due to lower pricing. 
During a first-quarter earnings call Thursday, Amgen’s CEO Bob Bradway said he was “very encouraged” by early results from a mid-stage study on the company’s obesity injection, MariTide. Investors have been laser-focused on that drug and the rest of Amgen’s weight loss drug pipeline as it races several other drugmakers to join the booming market. 
“We are confident in MariTide’s differentiated profile and believe it will address important unmet medical needs,” Bradway said during the call. 
Amgen did not provide specific data, but its Chief Scientific Officer Jay Bradner said that patient dropout has not been an issue. He said Amgen is on track to release initial data from the study in late 2024 and is also planning late-stage studies in patients with obesity, obesity-related conditions and diabetes. 
Bradway also highlighted the potential competitive advantages of the injection, which patients will take using a hand-held autoinjector once a month or even less frequently. That could offer far more convenience than the weekly injections on the market, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. 

“While there has been significant debate on the potential efficacy and safety of MariTide since the initial disclosures of the Phase I data in 2022, we have grown more confident in the potential for the therapy to meaningfully differentiate from other therapies in development, particularly in regard to treatment intervals,” William Blair analyst Matt Phipps said in a research note on Friday, adding that the firm is upgrading its rating on Amgen shares to “outperform.” 
Notably, Amgen said it was scrapping its experimental oral obesity drug. But that development was not as important as the MariTide update, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said in a research note Thursday. 
Amgen’s Bradway said the company has started expanding manufacturing for MariTide. That’s a signal that the company is preparing to produce enough supply of the drug — a major issue that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have grappled with over the past year and a half. 
Still, investors were pleased with Eli Lilly on Tuesday after the company assured them that it could overcome ongoing supply constraints for its popular drugs. Eli Lilly hiked its full-year guidance in part due to optimism around increased production of Zepbound, its diabetes injection Mounjaro and similar drugs for the rest of the year.
Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites either “ramping up or under construction,” including two locations in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland, and one in Germany, along with a seventh recently acquired site, executives said during an earnings call. 
Meanwhile, investors were less impressed with Novo Nordisk on Thursday. 
Sales of Wegovy during the first quarter nearly doubled but came in under analysts’ expectations. That signals that Novo Nordisk is struggling to meet demand for the treatment. 
But Novo Nordisk also pointed to fierce competition from Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, which has shaken up pricing dynamics for Wegovy in the U.S. 
“Net pricing” for both Wegovy and Ozempic will be lower in the U.S. throughout the year due to the “increasing volume and competition,” Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen said on a first-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

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