#pbm

Leaked internal messages reveal Sam Altman strategized in 2023 to release a local GPT-3-class model to suppress competitors and dry up funding; separately, a security researcher found a WordPress RCE using GPT-5.6 for $25, and Kimi K3's 2.8T open-weights release continued pressure on closed frontier labs. In pharma, Eli Lilly's psychedelics acquisition drew further industry analysis, GSK axed its key cough drug candidate, and a state Medicaid audit exposed PBM cost-obscuring tactics. The economy section covers Waymo safety data, the UK as a cautionary macro tale, and Basel III's hidden fragility inside bank holding companies.

Sebastian Raschka published a comprehensive 2025 LLM review covering DeepSeek R1, RLVR, inference-time scaling, and 2026 predictions, while Simon Willison released his annual year-in-LLMs retrospective. On the pharma front, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya confirmed that DEI-related grants restored under a court order will not be renewed in 2026, even as NIH began reviewing thousands of delayed proposals and funded 135 on the first day. Novo Nordisk priced its newly approved Wegovy pill below Eli Lilly's competing obesity drug in a direct-to-consumer push. On the economy side, researchers across 16 countries found that the post-1980 labor share decline is driven by the composition of capital, not its quantity, and building more structures may reverse it.