The Crown
Posts
📈 Pay Frenzy

📈 Pay Frenzy

Crown Crew
August 16, 2023

☕ Good Morning!

This is TC, serving you UK biz insights hotter than a coffee you forgot on the car roof.

Today’s reading time is 5 minutes.

MARKETS

* Prices as of 6:30 am. Click here to suggest a change.

HEALTH

Wewait for Wegovy

Driving the news: The UK gov't seems to be preparing for the new miracle weight-loss drug from Novo Nordisk (dubbed “Wegovy”), announcing that it’ll be offering prescriptions to it through online apps.

Catch up quick: Wegovy's found to cut risks of major cardiovascular events like stroke and heart attacks by a whopping 20%. The much-hyped drug also offers scores of benefits we haven't yet explored (like curbing addiction).

Wegovy = Home run. Research shows that Wegovy and similar drugs will easily become top-selling pharmaceuticals in history. “If they play baseball in Denmark, Wegovy just hit a home run,” analyst Emily Field wrote.
UK = Wewait. So far, the drug's only available in Denmark, Norway, Germany, and the US. Manufacturing problems and soaring demand have restricted its foray in the UK.
Novo Nordisk = Europe's pharma darling. The drug maker gained $60 billion in market cap in the last week and took on the crown of Europe's second-most-valuable company.

Why it matters: The availability of prescriptions for these drugs via online apps is a huge W for people who don't have access to weight-management services in their area.

Big Picture: Given the benefits, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has said the drug will be paid for by the NHS once available. For now, it's restricted to those with “higher” BMIs and only for two years.

But... the proven heart-health benefit could one day ensure these drugs are covered by public health systems and private insurers. Wegovy costs over £1,000 per month for weekly injections.

BIG PICTURE

Tour de headlines

#BookTok. TikTok is the new Scholastic Book Fair for Gen Z. Over half of surveyed 16- to 25-year-olds say that bookfluencers fuel their book passion. Local sellers say TikTok recs by bookfluencers lead to IRL sales.

ByeByeC. BBC has sold its London music studios that had been used by The Beatles, David Bowie, and the Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer for £10 million smackers. (Yes, the same place where Dolly Mixture did sessions for Peel and Jensen)

Tudum. Netflix is kicking off the first public tests of its cloud-streamed games in the UK and Canada to “a small number of members,” but don't expect access (say that five times) right away.

ECONOMY

UK wages spike at a record rate

Wages are soaring like a stiff upper lip...

What happened: The UK's Office for National Statistics dropped new data yesterday showing wages grew much faster than expected from April to June.

Regular pay (excluding bonuses) shot up 7.8% annually — the highest uptick recorded since records began in ’01.
Total pay including bonuses spiked 8.2% annually (also the biggest increase outside of the pandemic period).

Why it matters: The big wage spikes reflect the end of Britain's “painful pay squeeze,” with earnings finally climbing above pre-financial crisis levels after 15 years of stagnation.

But, but, but: The raise cranks up worries for the BoE that rising incomes could fuel further inflation.

Markets now see a 99% chance the BoE will hike rates by September to cool the economy. That's despite signs that the labor market is cooling in other areas.

SCIENCE

Ready, set, and go… to the moon

Spacecrafts have detected large amounts of water ice in the lunar south pole in areas that never receive sunlight.

And now, nations around the world are racing to the moon to tap into its economic, scientific, and geopolitical value.

Why it matters: The Moon's not only a lucrative ground for space powers, but also a place to put their flag and show their technical know-how.

Once on the Moon, countries can access water and other resources to create air, drinking water, and more rocket fuel to travel deeper into space (and reach Mars and beyond).
Whoever gets to the Moon first will have massive political, economic, military power advantage + it's going to propel them to dominate the next century.

Yes, but: It's still unclear just how much of an economic/power advantage lies on the Moon.

BY THE NUMBERS

☕ 3bn. Cups of coffee drunk around the world every day — a number expected to double by 2050 if current trends continue.

🤯 36%. Population in Northern Ireland awaiting NHS treatment.

💸 $900,000. The annual salary offered for a machine learning position at Netflix, according to a recent job posting.

CROWN RECS

Barbie? Titanic? Jurassic Park? What is the best $1bn movie ever?
Stunning photos from the year's best meteor shower.
This whale may be the largest animal ever. We have no idea how it got that big.
Read: The West has forgotten the limits of government
Watch: The world's cleanest railway.
Speaking of the moon: why do we have it in the first place?
And finally, Bill Hammack, AKA The Engineer Guy, explains why he calls this Nerf three-dart blaster’s cascading air mechanism “the epitome of good engineering”

GAMES

Fill in the punchline

It’s National Tell a Joke Day, so for today’s trivia, we’ll give you the setup for a joke and you have to fill in the punchline.

Warning: These are painfully corny.

Did you hear they arrested the devil? Yeah, they got him on _____.
What do you call a bear with no teeth? _____.
I bought the world’s worst thesaurus today. Not only was it terrible, but it was also ____.
Why don’t pirates take a shower before they walk the plank? ____.
Why didn’t Han Solo enjoy his steak dinner? _____.
How much did Santa pay for his sleigh? _____.

Answers tomorrow.

ANSWER FOR YESTERDAY

It’s the list of the world’s largest landowners. (Source: Madison Trust)

LET US HEAR IT

What did you think of today's edition?

Also, email us! [email protected]. We read every email and would love to hear from ya!