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Washington (dpa) – A drug originally developed to treat Alzheimer's disease may also help teenagers with autism improve their communication skills, according to a new study. The drug, called memantine (sold under the brand name Namenda), works by blocking brain receptors for glutamate, a chemical messenger that can be harmful in high amounts. However, lowering glutamate levels can slow brain damage in certain conditions. One brain region with many glutamate receptors is the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC), which plays a role in social behaviour and emotional awareness. Autism spectrum disorder – an umbrella term for various forms of a developmental disorder – begins in early childhood and affects around 1 in 127 people worldwide. Children with autism have difficulties in social interaction and communication. They exhibit stereotypical behaviour and have limited interests, often avoiding physical or eye contact. At the same time, they are often reliable, honest and direct and have special talents in certain areas. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University tested memantine in a new clinical trial, giving the drug at higher doses to a specific group of children with autism. The study included 33 participants between the ages of eight and 17, most of them boys, who did not have intellectual disabilities. Half received 20 milligrams of memantine daily for 12 weeks, while the other half received a placebo. The strongest improvements were seen in children with unusually high glutamate levels in the pgACC. About 21% of the placebo group showed meaningful progress, but memantine had a greater effect, especially among children with higher glutamate levels, who often also struggle more with communication. However, the researchers noted some limitations. The participants were mostly white, which means the results may not apply to all racial or ethnic groups. In addition, the trial only included teens without intellectual disabilities, so the findings may not represent all children with autism. The following information is not intended for publication dpa yyfx n1

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By John Revill ZURICH (Reuters) -SoftBank Group said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB in a $5.4 billion deal. The deal marks a major push by SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son into robotics as he expands investing activity after a period of retrenchment. SoftBank, whose forays into robotics include the humanoid Pepper, has investments in the segment including in Berkshire Grey and AutoStore. The deal means ABB has abandoned its original decision to spin off and separately list the industrial automation business, which competes with Japan's Fanuc and Yaskawa, as well as Germany's Kuka in making factory robots. The decision is the first major move under ABB CEO Morten Wierod, who took charge last year, and comes after the robots business has struggled with falling profitability and sales in recent years. "ABB and SoftBank share the same perspective that the world is entering a new era of AI-based robotics and believe that the division and SoftBank's robotics offering can best shape this era together," said Wierod in a statement. "ABB Robotics will benefit from the combination of its leading technology and deep industry expertise with SoftBank's state-of-the-art capabilities in AI, robotics and next-generation computing," he added. ABB shares were indicated 3% higher in pre-market activity in Zurich after the sale announcement. SoftBank's shares rose around 1% in afternoon trading following the announcement but were still down 1.57% compared to Tuesday's close. Its shares have surged on a wave of enthusiasm for companies considered beneficiaries of artificial intelligence, more than tripling in the previous six months to hit a record intra-day high of 21,695 yen on Tuesday. The transaction is expected to close in mid-to-late 2026 and generate cash proceeds of roughly $5.3 billion from the divestment, ABB said. It said the money will be used towards its long-term capital allocation principles, which include investing in organic growth, acquisitions and returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. The robotics business, which employs 7,000 people, generated sales of $2.3 billion last year, equivalent to 7% of ABB's total revenues, but ABB saw limited crossover with the rest of its business, which is largely focused on electrification and automation. Robotics has struggled with subdued demand in Asia, with companies delaying capital investments due to economic uncertainty. New installations remained largely unchanged at 542,000 units in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics. (Reporting by John Revill; Additional reporting by Sam Nussey in Tokyo; Editing by Miranda Murray and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -Optasia, a fintech company partly owned by Ethos Capital, said on Wednesday it planned to list on South Africa's Johannesburg Stock Exchange and raise up to 6.3 billion rand ($375 million) by selling a combination of new and existing shares. The company, which operates AI-powered financial services in 38 countries, will raise about 1.3 billion rand in an initial public offering and also hold a private placement of at least 5 billion rand for existing shareholders, it said in a statement. "An IPO will allow us to accelerate our growth, raise our visibility as a leading global fintech and continue innovating to expand financial opportunity where it is needed most," CEO Salvador Anglada said. Optasia, headquartered in Dubai, provides micro-financing and mobile phone airtime credit to people who often don't have traditional bank accounts, primarily in emerging markets. The company said it had around 121 million monthly active users and processed over 32 million loan transactions daily. It was founded in 2012 and operates mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Its distribution partners include South African mobile operators MTN, Vodacom and Airtel ($1 = 17.2488 rand) (Reporting by Nqobile Dludla Editing by Mark Potter)

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -Optasia, a fintech company partly owned by Ethos Capital, said on Wednesday it planned to list on South Africa's Johannesburg Stock Exchange and raise up to 6.3 billion rand ($375 million) by selling a combination of new and existing shares. The company, which operates AI-powered financial services in 38 countries, will raise about 1.3 billion rand in an initial public offering and also hold a private placement of at least 5 billion rand for existing shareholders, it said in a statement. "An IPO will allow us to accelerate our growth, raise our visibility as a leading global fintech and continue innovating to expand financial opportunity where it is needed most," CEO Salvador Anglada said. Optasia, headquartered in Dubai, provides micro-financing and mobile phone airtime credit to people who often don't have traditional bank accounts, primarily in emerging markets. The company said it had around 121 million monthly active users and processed over 32 million loan transactions daily. It was founded in 2012 and operates mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Its distribution partners include South African mobile operators MTN, Vodacom and Airtel ($1 = 17.2488 rand) (Reporting by Nqobile Dludla Editing by Mark Potter)

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(Reuters) -British car dealer Vertu Motors on Wednesday warned of a hit of up to 5.5 million pounds ($7.4 million) to annual profit from disruptions due to a cybersecurity incident at Jaguar Land Rover, sending its shares down 3.5% in early trading. Luxury carmaker JLR, owned by India's Tata Motors said on Tuesday that it was restarting some of its operations after it was forced into a near six-week shutdown following a major cybersecurity incident. Vertu, which operates 10 JLR dealerships, said about 2 million pounds of the profit impact was in September, with the full-year effect hinging on when JLR restores its systems. "We are currently working with our insurance brokers and insurers to assess a potential claim under our insurance policy, which extends to the impact of third-party systems outages," Vertu CEO Robert Forrester said in a statement. The company said it expects to report annual adjusted pretax profit in line with market expectations, excluding the JLR impact. Analysts on average were expecting profit of 27.2 million pounds, according to the company.  For the six months ended August 31, adjusted profit before tax was 20 million pounds, down nearly 10% from last year. ($1 = 0.7468 pounds) (Reporting by Simone Lobo and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

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By John Revill ZURICH (Reuters) -SoftBank Group said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB in a $5.4 billion deal. The deal marks a major push by SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son into robotics as he expands investing activity after a period of retrenchment. SoftBank, whose forays into robotics include the humanoid Pepper, has investments in the segment including in Berkshire Grey and AutoStore. The deal means ABB has abandoned its original decision to spin off and separately list the industrial automation business, which competes with Japan's Fanuc and Yaskawa, as well as Germany's Kuka in making factory robots. The decision is the first major move under ABB CEO Morten Wierod, who took charge last year, and comes after the robots business has struggled with falling profitability and sales in recent years. "ABB and SoftBank share the same perspective that the world is entering a new era of AI-based robotics and believe that the division and SoftBank's robotics offering can best shape this era together," said Wierod in a statement. "ABB Robotics will benefit from the combination of its leading technology and deep industry expertise with SoftBank's state-of-the-art capabilities in AI, robotics and next-generation computing," he added. ABB shares were indicated 3% higher in pre-market activity in Zurich after the sale announcement. SoftBank's shares rose around 1% in afternoon trading following the announcement but were still down 1.57% compared to Tuesday's close. Its shares have surged on a wave of enthusiasm for companies considered beneficiaries of artificial intelligence, more than tripling in the previous six months to hit a record intra-day high of 21,695 yen on Tuesday. The transaction is expected to close in mid-to-late 2026 and generate cash proceeds of roughly $5.3 billion from the divestment, ABB said. It said the money will be used towards its long-term capital allocation principles, which include investing in organic growth, acquisitions and returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. The robotics business, which employs 7,000 people, generated sales of $2.3 billion last year, equivalent to 7% of ABB's total revenues, but ABB saw limited crossover with the rest of its business, which is largely focused on electrification and automation. Robotics has struggled with subdued demand in Asia, with companies delaying capital investments due to economic uncertainty. New installations remained largely unchanged at 542,000 units in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics. (Reporting by John Revill; Additional reporting by Sam Nussey in Tokyo; Editing by Miranda Murray and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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ZURICH (Reuters) -Swiss engineering group ABB on Wednesday said it has agreed to sell its robotics business to SoftBank Group in a deal that values the business at $5.38 billion. The deal means ABB has abandoned its original decision to spin off and separately list the industrial automation business, which competes with Japan's Fanuc, Yaskawa and Germany's Kuka in making factory robots. The transaction is expected to close in mid-to-late 2026 and generate cash proceeds of roughly $5.3 billion from the divestment, ABB said. It said the money will be used towards its long-term capital allocation principals, which include investing in organic growth, acquisitions and returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. The robotics business, which employs 7,000 people, generated sales of $2.3 billion last year, equivalent to 7% of ABB's total revenues, but ABB saw limited crossover with the rest of its business, which is largely focussed on electrification and automation. (Reporting by John Revill, Editing by Miranda Murray)

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By Stephen Nellis SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -U.S. lawmakers are calling for broader bans on chipmaking equipment to China after a bipartisan investigation found that Chinese chipmakers had purchased $38 billion of sophisticated gear last year. Inconsistencies in rules issued by the United States, Japan and the Netherlands have led to non-U.S. chip equipment manufacturers selling to some Chinese firms that U.S. companies could not, according to a report published on Tuesday by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on China. The committee called for broader bans by the U.S. and its allies on chipmaking tool sales to China, rather than narrower bans on sales to specific Chinese chipmakers. The $38 billion was purchased from five top semiconductor manufacturing equipment suppliers, without breaking the law, a 66% increase from 2022, when many of the tool export restrictions were introduced. That accounted for nearly 39% of the aggregate sales of Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, ASML and Tokyo Electron, the report found. "These are the sales that made China increasingly competitive in the manufacture of a wide range of semiconductors, with profound implications for human rights and democratic values around the world," the report said. Both U.S. Democratic and Republican administrations have sought to restrict China's ability to make microchips – crucial to fields such as artificial intelligence and military modernization. The two economic superpowers are also vying to sell advanced technology such as AI data centers to other nations. Mark Dougherty, president of Tokyo Electron's U.S. unit, said the industry's China sales have started to decline this year, in part due to new regulations and welcomed more coordination between the U.S. and Japanese governments. "I think it’s clear, from a U.S. perspective, there’s an outcome that is still desired that has not yet been achieved," Dougherty told Reuters in an interview. ASML and KLA declined to comment. Applied Materials and Lam Research did not respond to a request for comment. The committee said the toolmakers cooperated with the committee on the report and were informed of its findings. Three Chinese firms that have become major customers of toolmakers – SwaySure Technology Co, Shenzhen Pengxinxu Technology Co and SiEn (Qingdao) Integrated Circuits Co – are of particular security concern. They were flagged last year by the congressional committee's leaders, Chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, in a letter to the Commerce Department alleging ties to a secret network aiding Huawei Technologies, and U.S. officials barred exports to them in December.  The report recommended that the broader bans include tighter restrictions on components that China could use to build its own chipmaking tools. "China is attempting to rewrite the entire supply chain," said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank. "What used to be niche tool segments are now battlegrounds." (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Peter Henderson, Shri Navaratnam and Edwina Gibbs)

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MUMBAI (Reuters) -London-based digital finance firm Revolut said on Wednesday it will launch its payment platform in India, its first foray into one of the world's largest digital payments markets, as part of a planned global expansion. Revolut will let Indian users make domestic and international payments via its tie-ups with the Unified Payments Interface and Visa, starting with 350,000 waitlisted customers later this year before opening to others. The company aims to sign up 20 million customers by 2030, it said in a statement. The fintech firm invested over 40 million pounds in localising its technology to meet India's data sovereignty rules, its only market where it has done so, a spokesperson said. Revolut, which said last month it was exploring a U.S. bank purchase and credit card launch at home, is betting on India as a key plank of its global expansion. (Reporting by Jaspreet Kalra; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

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By Hannah Lang and Elizabeth Howcroft NEW YORK/PARIS (Reuters) -A race by crypto companies to sell tokens pegged to stocks is raising alarm bells among traditional financial firms and regulatory experts who warn that the fast-growing novel products pose risks to investors and market stability. Buoyed by President Donald Trump's pro-crypto stance and his administration's push for friendly regulations, the crypto industry is rushing to capitalize on a global surge in enthusiasm for the sector.  Robinhood, Gemini and Kraken among others have launched tokenized stocks in Europe, while Coinbase, Robinhood and startup Dinari are seeking approval to launch similar products in the United States. Nasdaq, meanwhile, last month became the first major exchange to propose offering tokenized shares.  The industry says tokenized shares — blockchain-based instruments that track traditional equities — could revolutionize stock markets by allowing shares to be traded 24/7 and settled instantly, boosting liquidity and reducing transaction costs. The combined value of tokenized public stocks geared toward retail investors as of September grew to $412 million, compared with just a few million dollars 12 months ago, according to tokenization tracker RWA.xyz. Although many products are marketed like stocks, they rarely offer the same rights, disclosures and protections as traditional equities. Instead, they more closely resemble riskier derivatives, according to a Reuters review of several products and interviews with a dozen industry executives and legal experts. That increases the hazards for investors, while tokenization more broadly could undermine market integrity and fragment liquidity if left unsupervised, critics say. "You're buying exposures to those shares through creating some sort of synthetic instrument," said Diego Ballon Ossio, a partner at law firm Clifford Chance in London. "A lot of the burden gets shifted on you to understand what exactly it is that you're buying." A few companies have issued their own experimental stock tokens on the blockchain – software that acts as a shared digital ledger – but most tokenized shares are pegged to public companies and issued by third parties like Ondo Global Markets and Dinari. Some tokens are backed 1:1 by underlying stocks, while others provide economic exposure through derivatives.  The industry is divided over which regulations apply to stock tokens, and investor rights and protections vary. Often, the products provide no ownership, voting rights or traditional dividends, while creating counterparty risk exposure to the token issuer.  For example, there are multiple tokens pegged to Nvidia and Tesla with a range of structures and terms and conditions. "The fact that different tokenized offerings have different rights and different disclosures … that's a real big worry," said Gabriel Otte, CEO of Dinari, which offers 1:1 collateralization.  Robinhood in June launched trading in tokens pegged to public companies and said it plans to offer tokenized stocks of private companies. To promote the launch, it gave away tokens pegged to OpenAI. Those tokens are derivative contracts backed by Robinhood's ownership of fund units in a special-purpose vehicle that holds OpenAI convertible notes, according to its terms and conditions. The announcement drew pushback from OpenAI, which said it had not blessed the offering. It also prompted scrutiny from Robinhood's European regulator. Johann Kerbrat, general manager of Robinhood Crypto, said the company clearly flags that its tokens are derivatives. "It's just one step forward to be able to have the benefits of no longer having multiple days to settle," he added.  While Robinhood is issuing public company tokens on the blockchain, it is not yet settling the trades on the blockchain, a spokesperson said. Gemini declined to comment. CORE INVESTOR PROTECTIONS In Europe, Robinhood, Kraken and others operate under the "MiFID" derivatives rules but some legal experts say that law is insufficient to oversee the novel products. Trump's crypto-friendly chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, has indicated the agency plans to grant would-be issuers exemptions from securities rules.  That plan is facing opposition from powerful Wall Street players including Citadel Securities and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which say such major structural changes should go through a formal rulemaking process.  "Just because a security is represented on blockchain, that doesn't change the core investor protections and other provisions that apply to securities," said Peter Ryan, head of international capital markets at SIFMA.  In a July letter to the SEC, Citadel Securities raised concerns that tokenization would siphon liquidity away from public markets.  Spokespeople for the SEC declined to comment, while Citadel Securities did not provide comment beyond the letter.  A spokesperson for the European Securities and Markets Authority, which helps oversee MiFID, said it was aware of the potential risks of tokenization and was monitoring developments.  The World Federation of Exchanges recently urged regulators to crack down on tokenization, citing insufficient investor protections and liquidity fragmentation, although the group told Reuters it supports Nasdaq's proposal because it would treat tokens like traditional stocks. Coinbase is also in talks with the SEC about launching tokenized securities that would similarly grant investors the full legal rights and benefits associated with conventional stocks, according to a source familiar with the matter. Other issuers said they hew closely to traditional securities, anti-money laundering, bankruptcy protections and other rules.  Mark Greenberg, Kraken's global head of consumer, said the company offered the "gold standard" including 1:1 collateralization and investor disclosures, while dismissing derivative offerings as "IOUs." "Done right, tokenization enhances investor protections, rather than eroding them," said Ian De Bode, chief strategy officer at Ondo Finance.  (Reporting by Hannah Lang in New York and Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris; Editing by Michelle Price and Matthew Lewis)

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