India's Reliance Industries says KKR to invest $1.5 bln in digital unit

NEW DELHI, May 22 (Reuters) – Indian oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries said on Friday U.S. private equity firm KKR will buy 2.32% of its digital unit Jio Platforms for 113.67 billion rupees ($1.50 billion).

Jio Platforms, which houses Reliance’s digital businesses, including its telecoms venture Jio Infocomm, has now won a total of 785.62 billion rupees from marquee investors including Facebook Inc, General Atlantic, Silverlake and Vista Equity Partners in just a month. ($1 = 75.6230 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Julie Fontaine Exits Her Communications Post At Netflix

Julie Fontaine, who joined Netflix in 2017, has decided to depart the company. She will be leaving as of the end of May.

Fontaine began at Netflix as VP of film publicity and worked on all aspects of the streamer’s presentations. No reason has been given for the departure.

In her time at Netflix, Fontaine worked on the publicity campaigns for the Oscar-winning Roma and Best Picture nominees Marriage Story, The Irishman. Bird Box, Extraction, and Murder Mystery.

Fontaine was formerly at Lionsgate, where she served as executive VP of theatrical publicity..She also worked as VP of domestic publicity at Walt Disney Studios and for Miramax and Cowboy Pictures.

Variety broke the story.

Man shot dead in an Aurora hotel is identified.

A 22-year-old man shot dead at an Aurora extended-stay hotel earlier this week was identified Thursday.

Landon Lee Monceaux died of a gunshot wound to his head, according to the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office. His death is classified as a homicide.

The shooting happened at about 10 p.m. Monday at the InTown Suites, 2221 S. Havana St., police said.

Monceaux was hospitalized in critical condition. He died on Tuesday.

Anyone with information about the shooting, or on a suspect, is asked to call police at 303-739-6113.

BOJ to offer longer-dated loans under lending scheme to combat pandemic pain

TOKYO, May 22 (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan said on Friday it would extend the term of loans for a lending scheme aimed at combatting the coronavirus fallout to six months from three months.

In a statement, the central bank also said it would cut the number of market operations to offer the loans to once a month, from the current twice a month, beginning in September.

The BOJ launched the lending scheme in April as part of measures to ease funding strains for companies hit by slumping sales from the pandemic. (Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

FDA : Abbott’s Rapid Coronavirus Test May Deliver Inaccurate Results

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that an early data suggested that Abbott’ rapid coronavirus diagnostic test for Covid-19 may deliver inaccurate results.

The Abbott ID NOW point-of-care test may return false negative results, the FDA said.

The FDA alert comes a day after New York University researchers reportedly alleged that the Abbott ID NOW test missed a third of samples collected with nasal swabs that tested positive with a test from rival Cepheid.

The FDA said that it is still evaluating the information about inaccurate results and is in direct communications with Abbott about the important issue.

Meanwhile, Abbott said the NYU study results are not consistent with other studies.

“While we understand no test is perfect, test outcomes depend on a number of factors including patient selection, specimen type, collection, handling, storage, transport and conformity to the way the test was designed to be run. ID NOW is intended to be used near the patient with a direct swab test method,” Abbott said in a statement.

Abbott said it has been working in collaboration with FDA throughout the Emergency Use Authorization process.

Roche Acquires Stratos Genomics To Advance Development Of Nanopore Sequencer

Roche (RHHBY) has acquired Stratos Genomics, an early-stage sequencing technology company. Roche said the acquisition provides it access to Stratos Genomics unique chemistry, Sequencing by Expansion, or SBX. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Stratos Genomics will continue operations in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Roche said the addition of the SBX chemistry, once fully developed, is expected to provide the healthcare community an affordable, fast and flexible result, for multiple targeted clinical applications as well as whole exome and whole genome sequencing.

RBI extends moratorium on loans for another 3 months till Aug

Accordingly, the repayment schedule shifted across the board by three months.

Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday extended the moratorium on payment of loans by another three months till August to provide much-needed relief to borrowers whose income has been hit due to the coronavirus crisis.

In March, the central bank had allowed a three-month moratorium on payment of all term loans due between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020.

Accordingly, the repayment schedule and all subsequent due dates, as also the tenor for such loans, were shifted across the board by three months.

As a result of this moratorium, individuals’ EMI repayments of loans taken were not deducted from their bank accounts, providing much-needed liquidity.

The EMI payments will restart only once the moratorium time period expires on August 31.

Genentech: New Longer-Term Data Reinforce Satralizumab’s Safety In NMOSD

Genentech, a member of the Roche Group (RHHBY), Friday announced its plans to present new pooled pivotal satralizumab safety results for the treatment of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder or NMOSD.

The company noted that the new longer-term data reinforce safety of Satralizumab in adults and adolescents with NMOSD. Satralizumab was well-tolerated in a broad patient population – including adolescents, for whom there is no approved medicine.

NMOSD is a rare, lifelong and debilitating autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. Satralizumab is an investigational humanized monoclonal antibody that targets the interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor, believed to play a key role in the inflammation that occurs in people with NMOSD.

Satralizumab was designed using novel antibody recycling technology, allowing for longer duration of antibody circulation and subcutaneous dosing every four weeks.

Genentech noted that the pooled data from the double-blind periods of the SAkuraStar and SAkuraSky Phase III studies showed that the rates of adverse events and serious adverse events were comparable between satralizumab and placebo groups, as a monotherapy or in combination with baseline therapy.

The company will present the new data at the 6th Annual Meeting of the European Academy of Neurology or EAN.