???? OpenAI's for-profit pivot | ???? Paracetamol, Pan-D fail drug tests |

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Market Watch

• Indian benchmark indices ended the day in the green with the Sensex up 666.25 points at 85,836.12, and the Nifty up 211.80 points at 26,216.
• All sectoral indices barring Consumer Durables and Midsmall Healthcare ended the day in the green. Sensex and Nifty 50 ended the day at fresh highs, while over 250 stocks hit fresh one-year peaks.

ICYMI

• ?? The suspect in the murder of a woman in Bengaluru has died by suicide and allegedly confessed to the crime in his suicide note.
• ?? Popular YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia's channels were hacked and renamed “Tesla,” with all videos deleted in a sophisticated cyber attack
• ?? With lower oil prices, there seems to be room for a Rs 2-3 cut in fuel prices. Meanwhile, GST on 100 items may also be reduced to ease the financial burden on customers.
• ??? Mumbai rains have claimed at least 4 lives, and this time is during the unseasonal fag end of the monsoon.
• ?? The Kerala Directorate of Higher Secondary Education has banned sharing study materials by teachers via social media platforms like WhatsApp.
• ?? Have you checked out Meta’s new AR glasses?
• ?? Russian President Vladimir Putin has amended Russia’s nuclear doctrine in the face of increasing threats from the West.

OpenAI to convert to a for-profit company, give Sam Altman 7% stake

OpenAI is discussing a significant shift from its nonprofit roots by granting CEO Sam Altman a 7% equity stake and converting to a for-profit company.

• The non-profit OpenAI board, which currently oversees the company's for-profit operations, will relinquish control but retain a minority stake in the new for-profit OpenAI entity.
• The transition is still under discussion with no determined timeline, but the nonprofit aspect will continue to exist.

Why? This shift is intended to make the company more attractive to outside investors, as the current non-profit structure has a cap on returns for investors. The new structure could also pave the way for an eventual initial public offering (IPO).

Flashback: Earlier this month, OpenAI was said to be in talks to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion pre-money valuation, significantly higher than its $86 billion valuation from earlier this year.

• The funding round is expected to be led by Thrive Capital, with significant participation from Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.
• OpenAI is also negotiating a $5 billion debt facility with banks, a move similar to strategies used by other tech giants before IPOs.

What they’re saying: Elon Musk has called OpenAI's move to become a for-profit entity "deeply wrong", and argues that this transition goes against the company's original mission and purpose.

• Musk says a for-profit motive would jeopardize OpenAI’s founding principles as a nonprofit to benefit humanity and develop safe AI.
• Others pointed to Sam Altman’s comments on the All-In Podcast a couple of months ago where he seemed averse to taking any equity in the company, calling his moves “sneaky” ??

The intrigue: The sudden departure of Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati has also raised questions, as it follows the exit of co-founders Greg Brockman (on extended leave), John Schulman (joined rival Anthropic), Ilya Sutskever and other engineers.

• In another recent unprecedented move, OpenAI agreed to disclose its training datasets to the attorneys of authors who are suing the company saying their work was used to train their models.

Clip du jour

It’s Joe Biden in New York, welcoming world leaders to Washington ??

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Paracetamol, Pan D, Shelcal, anti-diabetes & high BP drugs fail quality tests at govt labs

India's drug regulatory agency has flagged numerous essential medicines, including Pan D and Shelcal, for failing quality tests, with manufacturers attributing the results to counterfeit batches.

The context: The Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) releases a monthly list of drugs that fail quality tests under the name “Not of Standard Quality (NSQ) alert” to provide full disclosure to consumers. The medicines in the list are from the August alert sent by CDSCO.

• You can find the full lists for August here?and here.

The details: Some of the commonly used drugs which found mention include Paracetamol tablets, Pan D (antacid), Shelcal (calcium and vitamin D3 supplement), Glimepiride (anti-diabetic drug), Telmisartan (high blood pressure medication), Metronidazole (antibiotic for stomach infections), Clavam 625 and Pan D antibiotics, and Cepodem XP 50 Dry Suspension (pediatric antibiotic).

• The manufacturers whose batches found mention in the list include Glenmark, Sun Pharma, Hetero Drugs, Alkem Laboratories, Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL), Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Pure & Cure Healthcare, and Torrent Pharmaceuticals.

What they’re saying: Alkem stated the flagged products "seem to be spurious and not manufactured by Alkem", and similarly Sun Pharma said the batches of Pulmosil, Pantocid and Ursocol 300 found substandard were "not manufactured by Sun Pharma".

• Manufacturers hinted at possible counterfeiting of these drugs as the source of the problem.

The intrigue: In January last year, Sun Pharma had complained to CDSCO’s Kolkata office regarding the sale and storage of fakes of their products in Kolkata.

• Authorities subsequently arrested 2 individuals in August last year for storing and selling fake drugs under the names of big manufacturers like Sun Pharma, Alkem, Cipla, Glenmark, GSK, Abbott, Novartis, Dr. Reddy’s, and Aristo.