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Macau Casino Win Tops Expectations, Revenue Climbs to $2.42B – Casino.Org News

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Posted on: April 1, 2024, 09:43h.

Last updated on: April 1, 2024, 09:50h.

The Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reported Monday that the enclaves casinos won MOP19.5 billion (US$2.42 billion) from gamblers in March.

March 2024 marked a more than 53% year-over-year boost and was 5.5% better than February when the city hosted many Chinese New Year travelers. March outpaced the consensus forecast among analysts focused on the region the only place under Chinas control where slot machines and table games are allowed which predicted a 49% year-over-year improvement.

March was Macaus second-richest monthly casino win since the city reopened its borders in January 2023.

Through three months of 2024, GGR in what was the worlds richest gaming market before the COVID-19 pandemic a title since reclaimed by Nevada has rebounded 65.5% from the same period in 2023. The regions six casino licensees Sands, Galaxy, MGM, Wynn, SJM, and Melco won $7.11 billion in the first quarter.

Macau has a vastly different operating climate for the six casino concession holders than it did pre-pandemic. China used the global health crisis to improve its national security, and a pillar of the undertaking was preventing large amounts of money stop fleeing the Communist Partys control.

During the health crisis, Beijing instructed Macau to more closely scrutinize casino junket groups that for years had brought the mainlands wealthiest VIP gamblers to the Special Administrative Region (SAR) to gamble in private high-roller rooms. China President Xi Jinping levied accusations that junkets facilitated the transfer of large amounts of cash through the tax haven. The Chinese leader says that poised national security risks.

Macau, a tax haven that operates under Chinas One Country, Two Systems policy that gives the region a high degree of governance autonomy, agreed to crack down on the VIP travel industry to limit the illicit flow of money from the mainland to Macau for the specific purpose to gamble. As a result, junkets are largely gone from Macau.

That has forced the six casino companies, which have invested many billions of dollars each into their resorts around town, to switch their focus to the general and premium mass public.

Some Macau analysts believe the casinos have already successfully pivoted to the general and coveted premium mass-public demographics.

Those market observers are optimistic about 2024 and the years ahead. Analysts at JPMorgan said last week there are no signs of an impending slowdown. Other brokerages arent so convinced.

March GGR was a significant improvement from March 2023, but the $2.42 billion represents 75% of the pre-pandemic March 2019 revenue. Since China and Macau began reopening their borders to international traffic by ending zero-COVID in late 2022, the best month related to 2019 was December 2023 when GGR returned to 81% of the pre-pandemic level.

Macaus post-COVID recovery path is slowing as Chinas economic growth loses momentum, Shirley Zhao and Katia Dmitrieva, economics correspondents for Bloomberg, said Monday. Slowing growth came despite rising numbers of tourists, suggesting per person spending weakened amid deteriorating consumer sentiment.

Paired with the public possibly scaling back their spending are ongoing rising costs for the casinos. Along with inflation, the casinos continue to meet their nongaming investment obligations as dictated through their 2022 relicensing terms.

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Macau Casino Win Tops Expectations, Revenue Climbs to $2.42B - Casino.Org News

Alumis TYK2 Blocker Clears Phase II in Plaque Psoriasis on Heels of Series C – BioSpace

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Pictured: Woman scratching psoriatic lesions on her elbow/iStock, helivideo

Alumis on Saturday posted promising data from the Phase II STRIDE study demonstrating that its investigational TYK2 inhibitor ESK-001 can significantly reduce the severity of lesions in patients with moderate-to severe plaque psoriasis.

The results, presented during a late-breaking session at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, showed that all dose levels and schedules of ESK-001 resulted in a significantly higher proportion of patients achieving a 75% improvement on the Psoriasis Area and Severity Score (PASI), which is a widely used tool to evaluate the severity of psoriasis.

At week 12, 64.1% of patients treated with a 40-mg, twice-daily regimen achieved the endpoint, also known as PASI-75. Meanwhile, 56.4% of those assigned to the 20-mg, twice-daily and 40-mg, once-daily schedules met the same outcome. These data were all significantly higher than in the placebo group, in which no participant achieved PASI-75.

Even the lowest dosing regimen of 10-mg, once-daily ESK-001 elicited a significantly higher rate of PASI-75 than placebo.

Alumis CMO Jrn Drappa in a statement said that these data support the potential for a best-in-class profile for ESK-001 in psoriasis, pointing to patients who demonstrated a high degree of clinical improvement at week 12 that continued to increase over time.

The biotech is now preparing to take ESK-001 into Phase III trials, with an eye toward launching the drug as an oral therapy with a better efficacy profile than current treatments on the market, Alumis CEO Martin Babler said in a statement. The company will also advance the candidate in other immune-mediated indications.

ESK-001 is a highly selective allosteric inhibitor of the TYK2 protein. The oral drug candidate works by dampening signaling through the IL-12, IL-13 and interferon- receptors, tempering the bodys immune and inflammatory responses.

In STRIDE, this mechanism of action also helped ESK-001 meet key secondary endpoints. At the highest dosing schedule40-mg twice-daily38.5% of treated participants achieved PASI-90, while 15.4% reached PASI-100, indicating a 100% improvement in PASI scores.

In terms of safety, ESK-001 was overall well-tolerated, inducing no treatment-related serious adverse events. Study dropouts due to side effects were low and the study did not find signs of toxicities associated with JAK inhibition.

STRIDEs open-label extension phase, which followed patients up to 16 weeks, likewise showed that PASI endpoint responses increased even further and that ESK-001 continued to be well-tolerated.

Saturdays readout comes days after Alumis closed its $259 million Series C funding round to help bring ESK-001 into late-stage development. The candidate will help it compete with Bristol Myers Squibb, which owns the TYK2 inhibitor Sotyktu that won the FDAs approval in September 2022 for the treatment of moderate-to-sever plaque psoriasis.

Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or email him at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.

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Alumis TYK2 Blocker Clears Phase II in Plaque Psoriasis on Heels of Series C - BioSpace