Spotify Axes Jobs; Battery Stocks Pop; BYD Bests Tesla

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Spotify Wraps 1500 Jobs

“We still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact,” wrote Spotify [SPOT] CEO Daniel Ek on Monday, in a statement announcing the third round of job cuts this year; some 1,500 roles will go. The streaming giant’s share price rose by up to 2.5% in premarket trading on the news.

SK Battery Stocks Pop on Sanctions

The US government on Friday released guidelines intended to stop electric vehicle (EV) makers from sourcing battery materials from China. Monday saw South Korean EV battery stocks log significant gains as a result, Bloomberg reported. For example, Ecopro BM [247540:KQ] was up by as much as 26% in Seoul, while LG Energy Solution [373220:KS], the biggest battery maker outside China, gained 1.8%.

Has BYD Got Tesla on the Ropes?

Sales of Tesla’s [TSLA] China-made EVs dropped 17.8% in November against the year-ago period, to 82,432 units, according to China Passenger Car Association data released on Monday. Rival BYD [BYDDY] set a record at 301,378 vehicles, up 0.09% month-on-month and up 31% against November last year. Elsewhere, Toyota [TM] said on Monday it is to increase its EV range in Europe to six models by 2026.

Roche Hops on the Obesity Bandwagon

Reuters reported that Roche [RHHBY] is to spend $2.7bn on obesity drug developer Carmot Therapeutics, with a view to challenging market leaders Novo Nordisk [NVO] and Eli Lilly [LLY]. Carmot’s most promising candidate is CT-388, which, like Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, is a dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist. It is now ready to go to human testing, Roche said on Monday.

Can AI Help AstraZeneca Beat Cancer?

The pharma giant has signed a deal worth up to $247m with the Washington-based Absci Corporation [ABSI], which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to measure interactions between proteins. The firms will collaborate on a project to use AI to develop an antibody that fights cancer. The use of AI for large-scale analysis is a major focus of AstraZeneca [AZN] at present.