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Russia's Space Program Is Another Casualty of the War in Ukraine
Russia's Space Program Is Another Casualty of the War in Ukraine

Scientific American

timea day ago

  • Business
  • Scientific American

Russia's Space Program Is Another Casualty of the War in Ukraine

As president, Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire for a U.S. rapprochement with Russia, in distinct contrast with the policies of previous administrations. On June 16, for instance, he called Russia's expulsion from the elite Group of Seven (G7) forum of major advanced economies a 'mistake.' (The nation was expelled in 2014 after it annexed Crimea in Ukraine.) And Trump has been far more lenient than his presidential predecessors in pursuing sanctions on Russia related to its war with Ukraine while also imposing relatively minimal tariffs on the nation as part of his overarching effort to realign global trade. Some experts have speculated that this high-level thaw in U.S.-Russia relations could extend to the nations' cooperation on the high frontier. The U.S. and Russia are already close partners on the International Space Station (ISS); NASA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, have worked together for more than 30 years to build and operate the orbital habitat. Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, in April Roscosmos's director general Dmitry Bakanov and NASA associate administrator for space operations Ken Bowersox met at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to discuss the status of the ISS partnership, which includes 'cross-flights' of U.S. astronauts on Russian rockets—and vice versa. Soon afterward, NASA confirmed the agencies had coordinated crew changes for upcoming cross-flights and extended the corresponding agreement through 2027. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. 'NASA, Roscosmos and our other international partners remain focused on the continued safe and professional operation of the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit,' a NASA spokesperson tells Scientific American. 'International Space Station cooperation continues smoothly, as it has throughout the continuous presence of our joint crews for nearly 25 years.' Even so, this partnership has an expiration date: NASA's current plan is for the ISS to be abandoned and deorbited by 2031. And apart from the ISS, these days, the two countries have minimal collaboration on space science and exploration. For instance, Russia has been conspicuously absent from the long-simmering U.S. efforts to return astronauts to the moon via NASA's Artemis program. Instead Roscosmos is pursuing an independent plan for robotic and crewed lunar exploration, and in 2021 it announced a partnership with China to construct a crewed moon base. Although neither Russia nor China have been especially forthcoming about the finer details and status of such plans, recent statements from Gennady Krasnikov, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), during a general meeting of RAS members at the end of May suggest that Russia is attempting to accelerate its lunar program, which will unfold across multiple missions. 'As for the lunar program, it includes seven lunar missions with various scientific objectives,' Krasnikov said. 'At the first stage of the study, our research works will be based on automatic flights.' Some, if not all, of these missions will target the moon's north and south poles, where significant deposits of water ice have been discovered. 'We also plan to send lunar rovers to study the area and prepare for the placement of a future lunar station,' Krasnikov said. 'This is a large and very important program and, of course, a serious challenge for our academic institutions.' Lev Zelenyi, chief research officer of the Space Research Institute, the leading organization within RAS on space exploration, tells Scientific American he has modest hopes for deeper cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in the space sector. 'Naturally, I see potential and hope that it will be realized in something concrete—although it is difficult to say what it will be yet,' Zelenyi says. 'However, in the case of the Russian lunar program, it is going its own way, and I do not see great prospects for cooperation here.' One potential area ripe for partnership, he adds, is Venus—a world that only the Soviet-era Russian space program has ever managed to land on. It remains a tempting destination for Russia's modern-day interplanetary probes. Bakanov, for example, treats Russia's return there as a foregone conclusion. In a recent Telegram post, he declared, 'We will explore Venus; we are the only country that has landed a device on it.' 'It seems promising to me to resume cooperation in Venus exploration programs,' Zelenyi says. 'Both Russia and the United States have great interest in this planet and have serious programs for its study. In my opinion, a meeting of Russian and American scientists to discuss all these issues would be useful. It could be held under the auspices of our [respective] academies of sciences, as both have their own space councils.' Still, despite such measured optimism, independent analysts of Russia's space activities believe it will be difficult for the nation to resume large-scale cooperation with the U.S. in this domain. In the case of Venus, one obstacle is that the White House has signaled it has other priorities for NASA. For instance, it has proposed to cancel the space agency's two planned Venus-focused missions, and to eliminate NASA's involvement in Envision, a Venus mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA). More broadly, Russia's war in Ukraine remains the chief stumbling block—not only because of the backlash it fostered from the U.S. and European allies but also because the war effort has strained Russia's coffers and distracted its scientific and technical workforce. All this has contributed to recent financial cuts and technical delays for Russia's space program. Vadim Lukashevich, an aerospace expert and a former designer at aerospace design bureau Sukhoi, tells Scientific American that because Russia's modern lunar program was developed before the Russian-Ukrainian war and the associated unprecedented international sanctions on Russia's economy, the planning had assumed active international cooperation, including with NASA. 'The first joint projects of NASA and Roscosmos in lunar orbit were considered possible as early as 2024,' Lukashevich says, referring to NASA's Gateway project, which is meant to be a 'way station' of sorts in high lunar orbit (and which the White House also has targeted for cancellation as part of its sweeping proposed cuts). 'It was expected that Russia had the most serious competencies in the field of creating habitable modules, which, together with a new [crewed] ship and superheavy rocket, would provide Russia with a strategically advantageous role in the international program for the exploration of the moon.' According to Lukashevich and other Russian scientists interviewed for this story, Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, upended those carefully laid plans, dramatically changing the nation's prospects for near-term progress in space. Now funding cuts and technical problems have curtailed plans for a new crewed spacecraft. Called Orel —Russian for 'eagle'—the project has been officially in development for more than a decade, and its first uncrewed test flight was targeted for 2023. That flight has now slipped to no earlier than 2028—and its intended launch vehicle, a modified Angara-A5 rocket, is still being designed. A similar cascade of delays and cuts is affecting other parts of Russia's space infrastructure, too. The superheavy Yenisei rocket intended for the nation's lunar missions had reached a critical milestone, the approval of its preliminary design, in late 2019. But today Yenisei's development is on hiatus because of a lack of funds, and the projected time frame for the first crewed flight to the moon has receded to an ill-defined target date in the 2030s. And in November 2024 Roscosmos announced that the already approved draft design of Yenisei 'will be finalized at the technical design stage' and that 'flights of Russian cosmonauts to the moon are postponed.' Hoped-for bright spots in this gloomy outlook have failed to materialize. In April 2022 the ESA, responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, pulled out of multiple planned Russian robotic lunar missions. In August 2023, under the management of Zelenyi, Russia plowed ahead on its own, launching its robotic Luna-25 lunar lander, but the spacecraft malfunctioned during an orbital maneuver and crashed to the moon's surface. In July 2022 ESA also officially nixed Russia's participation in ExoMars, an ESA-led robotic mission to the Red Planet. To relay ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover to the Martian surface, Roscosmos had been due to deliver a lander called Kazachok; ESA subsequently turned to NASA for a lander, although those plans are now in question because of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's budget, and the mission is unlikely to launch before 2028. The demonstrable diminution of Russia's space-exploration capabilities and plans makes the nation's need for partnerships all the more urgent—and, some analysts say, all the harder to come by because Russia seemingly has less to offer potential partners. This is a departure from previous eras in which Russia's prowess with rocketry and space stations enticed even the U.S., its cold war adversary, into multiple human spaceflight collaborations, with the jointly operated ISS as the relationship's crown jewel. And back then, even if the U.S. had been unable or unwilling to partner with Russia in support of its peaceful space activities, a more subtle partnership was inescapable because some workhorse U.S. rockets relied upon Russian-made engines. Now, however, that's no longer the case, says Pavel Koshkin, a senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies. 'While the program of cross-flights to the ISS still exists, the United States abandoned Russian RD-180 engines for its Atlas V launch vehicles in 2024, finding a domestic alternative to them of its own production,' Koshkin says. 'And this trend is unlikely to change in the near future despite Trump's favorable attitude towards Russia.'

Revolution Medicines partners Royalty Pharma on $2bn funding
Revolution Medicines partners Royalty Pharma on $2bn funding

Yahoo

time6 days ago

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Revolution Medicines partners Royalty Pharma on $2bn funding

Revolution Medicines has partnered Royalty Pharma for $2bn in flexible funding to support the independent worldwide development and commercialisation strategy of its renin-angiotensin system (RAS) oncogene (ON) inhibitors. The RAS(ON) inhibitor portfolio is targeted at patients with RAS-addicted cancers. The funding agreement comprises up to $1.25bn through synthetic royalty monetisation on sales of Revolution Medicines' RAS(ON) multi-selective inhibitor, daraxonrasib, and up to $750mn in corporate debt. Revolution will retain complete strategic and executional control over product development, along with commercialisation efforts both within the US and globally. Revolution Medicines CEO and chairman Mark Goldsmith stated: 'Today's announcement represents a major boost to our bold vision on behalf of patients with RAS-addicted cancers. 'This funding agreement significantly increases the financial resources we can deploy while preserving optionality as we scale our operations to create the industry-leading global targeted medicines franchise for patients with RAS-addicted cancers based on our highly differentiated RAS(ON) inhibitor portfolio.' Royalty Pharma is set to offer as much as $1.25bn in return for tiered royalties over 15 years based on the global annual net sales of daraxonrasib. The synthetic royalty component is structured into five $250m tranches. Revolution received an initial tranche from Royalty Pharma on completion. The second is contingent upon positive results from the company's Phase III RASolute 302 study targeting pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). If zoldonrasib, another candidate in its pipeline, is approved for indications with daraxonrasib, its sales would contribute towards the total net sales subject to royalties under this agreement. However, if approved with exclusive indications for zoldonrasib, it would not incur royalty costs. The debt facility portion consists of three tranches totalling up to $750m linked directly to daraxonrasib's commercial milestones. The first tranche will be received by Revolution, following US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of daraxonrasib to treat metastatic PDAC by January 2028. Subsequent tranches depend on the company's decision and will be made available after achieving specific annual net sales of daraxonrasib. "Revolution Medicines partners Royalty Pharma on $2bn funding" was originally created and published by Pharmaceutical Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Revolution Medicines Announces FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for Daraxonrasib in Previously Treated Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer with KRAS G12 Mutations
Revolution Medicines Announces FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for Daraxonrasib in Previously Treated Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer with KRAS G12 Mutations

Yahoo

time23-06-2025

  • Business
  • Yahoo

Revolution Medicines Announces FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for Daraxonrasib in Previously Treated Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer with KRAS G12 Mutations

Breakthrough Therapy Designation based on promising early clinical evidence observed with daraxonrasib in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) RASolute 302, a Phase 3 registrational study of daraxonrasib in patients with previously treated metastatic PDAC, expected to substantially complete enrollment this year REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Revolution Medicines, Inc. (Nasdaq: RVMD), a late-stage clinical oncology company developing targeted therapies for patients with RAS-addicted cancers, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to daraxonrasib, the company's RAS(ON) multi-selective inhibitor, for previously treated metastatic PDAC in patients with KRAS G12 mutations. The Breakthrough Therapy Designation is based on encouraging data from the Phase 1 RMC-6236-001 clinical trial evaluating daraxonrasib in patients with previously treated metastatic PDAC. 'This Breakthrough Therapy Designation underscores the enormous need for new treatments for patients with pancreatic cancer and highlights the potentially important role the investigational drug, daraxonrasib, may have in helping patients living with this disease,' said Mark A. Goldsmith M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer and chairman of Revolution Medicines. 'We look forward to substantially completing enrollment of the RASolute 302 study this year to enable an expected readout in 2026, and should the results support it, working closely with the FDA and other regulatory agencies around the world to bring daraxonrasib to patients as quickly as possible.' Breakthrough Therapy Designation is intended to expedite the development and review of potential new medicines designed to treat serious conditions and address significant unmet medical needs. The medicine needs to have shown encouraging preliminary clinical evidence that demonstrates substantial improvement on a clinically significant endpoint over available medicines. More than 90% of patients living with PDAC have tumors carrying a RAS cancer driver mutation with ~85% carrying a KRAS G12 mutation. Revolution Medicines is currently enrolling patients in RASolute 302, a global Phase 3 registrational study of daraxonrasib in patients with previously treated metastatic PDAC. The study design focuses on a core population of patients with PDAC harboring RAS mutations at position 12 (RAS G12X) and an expanded population that includes patients with tumors harboring RAS mutations at position G12 (RAS G12X), G13 (RAS G13X) or Q61 (RAS Q61X), or those without any identified targetable mutation. The dual primary endpoints for the study are progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in the core patient population. Key secondary endpoints include PFS and OS in the expanded population of patients. Additional information about RASolute 302 (NCT06625320) is available at About Pancreatic Cancer and Pancreatic Ductal AdenocarcinomaPancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies, characterized by its typically late-stage diagnosis, resistance to standard chemotherapy, and high mortality rate. In the U.S., recent estimates indicate that in 2024, approximately 60,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer1, and about 50,000 people will die from this aggressive disease. The most common form of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and its variants, accounts for approximately 92% of all pancreatic cancer cases2. Due to the lack of early symptoms and detection methods, approximately 80% of patients are diagnosed with PDAC at an advanced or metastatic stage. It is the most commonly RAS-addicted of all major cancers, and more than 90% of patients have tumors that harbor RAS mutations3. Metastatic PDAC remains one of the most common causes of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., with a five-year survival rate of approximately 3%4. About DaraxonrasibDaraxonrasib (RMC-6236) is an oral, direct RAS(ON) multi-selective inhibitor with the potential to help address a wide range of cancers driven by oncogenic RAS mutations. Daraxonrasib suppresses RAS signaling by blocking the interaction of RAS(ON) with its downstream effectors. It does so by targeting oncogenic RAS mutations G12X, G13X and Q61X that are common drivers of major cancers, including pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer (CRC). About Revolution Medicines, Inc. Revolution Medicines is a late-stage clinical oncology company developing novel targeted therapies for patients with RAS-addicted cancers. The company's R&D pipeline comprises RAS(ON) inhibitors designed to suppress diverse oncogenic variants of RAS proteins. The company's RAS(ON) inhibitors daraxonrasib (RMC-6236), a RAS(ON) multi-selective inhibitor; elironrasib (RMC-6291), a RAS(ON) G12C-selective inhibitor; and zoldonrasib (RMC-9805), a RAS(ON) G12D-selective inhibitor, are currently in clinical development. The company anticipates that RMC-5127, a RAS(ON) G12V-selective inhibitor, will be its next RAS(ON) inhibitor to enter clinical development. Additional development opportunities in the company's pipeline focus on RAS(ON) mutant-selective inhibitors, including RMC-0708 (Q61H) and RMC-8839 (G13C). For more information, please visit and follow us on LinkedIn. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements in this press release that are not historical facts may be considered "forward-looking statements," including without limitation statements regarding progression of clinical studies and findings from these studies, including the safety, tolerability and antitumor activity of the company's candidates being studied and the durability of these results; dosing and enrollment in the company's clinical trials; potential regulatory interactions by the company; and the ability of the company to bring its clinical candidates to patients. Forward-looking statements are typically, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "may," "will," "would," "believe," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," and other similar terminology indicating future results. Such forward-looking statements are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's development programs, future results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include without limitation risks and uncertainties inherent in the drug development process, including the company's programs' current stage of development, the process of designing and conducting preclinical and clinical trials, risks that the results of prior clinical trials may not be predictive of future clinical trials, clinical efficacy, or other future results, the regulatory approval processes, the timing of regulatory filings, the challenges associated with manufacturing drug products, the company's ability to successfully establish, protect and defend its intellectual property, other matters that could affect the sufficiency of the company's capital resources to fund operations, reliance on third parties for manufacturing and development efforts, changes in the competitive landscape, and the effects on the company's business of the global events, such as international conflicts or global pandemics. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of Revolution Medicines in general, see Revolution Medicines' Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the 'SEC') on May 7, 2025, and its future periodic reports to be filed with the SEC. Except as required by law, Revolution Medicines undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Revolution Medicines Media & Investor Contact:media@ 1 Siegel RL, et al. CA Cancer J Clin. 2024;74:12-49.2 Hallbrook CJ, et al. Cell. 2023;186:1729-1754.3 Lee JK, Sivakumar S, Schrock AB, et al. Comprehensive pan-cancer genomic landscape of KRAS altered cancers and real-world outcomes in solid tumors. NPJ Precis Oncol. 2022;6(1);91. Doi:10.1038/s41698-022-00334-z.4 American Cancer Society. Survival Rates for Pancreatic Cancer. Available at: Accessed June in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Aontú leader says social housing waiting list figures are 'out by the population of Tullamore'
Aontú leader says social housing waiting list figures are 'out by the population of Tullamore'

The Journal

time19-06-2025

  • Politics
  • The Journal

Aontú leader says social housing waiting list figures are 'out by the population of Tullamore'

AONTÚ LEADER PEADAR Tóibín has claimed that the Government is 'understating' both homelessness figures and the numbers of people on social housing waiting lists. Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon during Leader's Questions, Tóibín said he had submitted Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to every Local Authority and that the information he received 'contradicted the information the Government is giving out'. He said he asked all Local Authorities for the 'number of homeless people that exist throughout the State' and that the current figure provided is 16,472. The most recent figures released by the Government stood at 15,580. 'Your government is understating the number of homeless people in this state by 892 people currently,' said Tóbín. He added that he also asked Local Authorities for the number of people on housing waiting lists and that the combined figure across the State that he received was 75,000. The most recent official government figure is 58,824. 'Your ability to count the number of people who are on the housing waiting list at the moment is out by the population of Tullamore,' said Tóbín. Tóbín also asked Local Authorities about the number of council-owned homes that are currently empty, and this figure across the State is 3,779. 'Having empty homes in the middle of a housing crisis is akin to exporting food in the middle of the famine,' said Tóibín. In a statement to the PA news agency, Aontú said the highest council-owned home vacancy rate was in Cork City at 355, followed by Dublin City Council at 336, Fingal at 323 and Limerick and City Council at 315. Speaking in the Dáil, Tóibín added that the government is 'paying nearly €600 million to house people in RAS (Rental Accommodation Scheme) and HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) home while so many Local Authority homes are empty'. Tóbín asked if this was government 'incompetence' or if it was 'actually misleading the general public'. In response, Tánaiste Simon Harris said: 'I hate to burst your 'gotcha' moment, but I'd suggest that you might wish to interrogate your numbers'. Harris said there 'can be duplications' and people 'involved with more than one Local Authority'. Advertisement Meanwhile, Harris said that 'this is what people do when they seek to be divisive, to try and dispute official figures'. He added that these figures 'aren't calculated by government in a party political sense' and that they are calculated in a 'robust, impartial manner'. 'If we could at least have the decency to respect the impartiality and robustness of those who gather statistics in Ireland, because if we start trying to erode belief in statistics, that's part of a bigger agenda I think,' said Harris. However, Tóbín said 'you cannot be on two social housing lists simultaneously'. 'Either you're incompetent and you're not able to count the number of people who are actually on waiting lists at the moment, or you're trying to hide the fact,' said Tóbín. 'The reason why I think you're misleading the people is because you have previous on this. 'Right up to the jaws of the last general election, you were determined to give the impression that 40,000 homes were going to be built that year. 'As soon as that election was finished, it became very clear that that statement was wrong. 'This housing crisis is far too serious for misinformation,' said Tóibín. The government has previously defended supplying the public with incorrect figures in the lead-up to the 2024 General Election, with Taoiseach Micheál Martin insisting that he and his party had not attempted to mislead the public with the inflated figures. Harris replied by stating that 'this is far too serious to engage in conspiracy theories'. 'You suggest I'm going around counting people here,' said Harris. 'The reality is we have robust, politically independent, impartial structures in our state. 'I want to know who in the public service you're calling 'incompetent', it's our public service and they do a bloody good job.'. 'I made the point in relation to the duplication regarding how you can report homelessness in more than one area and that didn't suit you,' said Harris. He added: 'We're working on trying to make progress – day in, day out, new ideas, big, bold decisions, every day to get to the 300,000 homes (by 2030). 'You're just simply over there throwing brickbats and engaging in conspiracy theories.' Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal

Diverging fortunes in Singapore's F&B scene as diners turn to cheaper options
Diverging fortunes in Singapore's F&B scene as diners turn to cheaper options

Business Times

time19-06-2025

  • Business
  • Business Times

Diverging fortunes in Singapore's F&B scene as diners turn to cheaper options

[SINGAPORE] Fortunes are diverging in the local dining scene, with restaurant takings on the decline but other food and beverage (F&B) outlets seeing some recovery, based on official data. Maybank co-head of macro research Chua Hak Bin said: 'Consumers are downtrading to cheaper food options, like food courts and fast food chains, from restaurants.' Sales of Chinese restaurant Ka-Soh, for instance, fell about 15 per cent since January. Weekday deliveries have plunged from six a day to just one, said owner Cedric Tang. From January to April, restaurant sales fell 20.1 per cent with a consistent downward trend, based on the government's Food & Beverage Services Index. In contrast, fast food outlet sales were down 7.5 per cent in the period, but have risen since February. Cafes, food courts and other eateries also picked up since February, and were up 1.4 per cent from the start of the year. Restaurant Association of Singapore (RAS) president Benjamin Boh said the data reflects trends on the ground, though some of the effect is seasonal. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up January sales were strong partly due to Chinese New Year, but February was a short month and March was Ramadan, when outlets serving halal food typically experience a 15 per cent decline in sales, he observed. Yet the current decline goes beyond seasonality. Fast casual chain Jinjja Chicken's sales dipped 5 to 10 per cent during Ramadan last year, but 'took a greater hit' this year, said founder Bernard Tay. Similarly, sales were down 20 to 30 per cent at Enjoy Eating House & Bar, compared with the same period last year. Director James Ang noted that sales have been declining 'for a while', since around the second half of last year. Loh Lik Peng, founder of hospitality brand Unlisted Collection, believes the trend is affecting 'more expensive restaurants' as well as those in the middle. 'If you look at the one-Michelin stars, if you look at the amount of closures in the last year, it tells you that they have been having a very hard time,' he said. 'But if you look at the very top end of the market, and then you look at the restaurants that are more affordable, they could be doing okay.' Smaller appetite to splurge One reason for the decline is that consumers are preferring to spend abroad and tightening their belts at home, said economists and F&B players. Said RAS' Boh: 'Apart from the seasonality factors above, a big factor that is contributing to most categories declining – except the likes of food courts – is also continued tightening of consumer spending.' Some consumers now routinely visit Johor Bahru on weekends to 'get more bang for the buck', he added. 'With that, naturally the likes of restaurants would get hit the most, as weekends are when restaurants would make the most revenue.' Such trips over the Causeway also worry Jinjja Chicken's Tay, who expects the local F&B situation to worsen as transport links between Singapore and Johor Bahru improve. Beyond Malaysia, the strong Singapore dollar has made travel attractive, said CGS International economic adviser Song Seng Wun. 'People are just flying off to Japan, South Korea, or other places overseas to spend.' Even if consumers stay home, per-head spending has fallen. 'At the start of the year, many customers bought multiple bowls of noodles and added desserts,' said Ka-Soh's Tang. 'Now, customers typically buy one bowl of noodles.' Casual cafe chain Grub has also seen customers order less for a meal. Said owner Amanda Phan: 'Previously they might have had a drink or added a dessert; now, they just have water.' Companies, too, are being more cautious about spending and thus cutting back on corporate dining amid economic uncertainty, said Song. For individual restaurants, sales have suffered due to rising competition, as new F&B outlets continue to open. 'Many new outlets opening seems to signal positive prospects for the industry, but big brands are the ones opening these outlets, which kill the business of small and independent restaurants,' said Ka-Soh's Tang. Amid rising competition, Arron Poh, owner of Mexican restaurant Huevos, felt the need to set lower prices for his dishes. Along with the opening of a second outlet last year, these lower prices may have contributed to a 'steady increase' in sales between January and May, he said – while acknowledging that his restaurants buck the trend. Such belt-tightening, however, means that casual outlets have not been hit as hard. While business is 'not as good as last year', sales across Grub's three outlets have not fallen drastically, said Phan. 'I would say that we are probably not a splurge.' Food courts may be doing better because of their 'location and price point', with meals under S$10, said RAS' Boh, adding that their acceptance of Community Development Council vouchers helps too. Similarly, fast food 'is not hit as badly because they can still reach consumers on weekdays' and offer meals for S$5 to S$10, said Boh, who is the managing director of McDonald's Singapore. Spending slowdown expected despite festive bump Maybank's Chua expects consumers to continue preferring cheaper options amid 'a more uncertain economic and job outlook arising from US President Donald Trump's tariff tantrums and the adoption of artificial intelligence'. Similarly, Song expects the industry's struggles to persist over the next 12 months, given worries about geopolitics and downside risks to growth, driven by trade tensions. Said RAS' Boh: 'I foresee that the outlook for sales volume will be choppy and patchy from the second half of the year. Some will do well; some will continue to struggle.' June sales may be soft as families travel during the school holidays, but he expects 'some uptick in July and August' with SG60 celebrations. 'The festive mood plus the disbursement of more goodies will encourage people to spend more in Singapore.' 'Post-August, I believe people will start cutting back again, so that's when the industry will struggle,' he added. Restaurateurs themselves are downbeat. Enjoy Eating House & Bar's Ang said: 'The concerns over cost of living are going to remain. The instability of the financial markets is also going to remain. So it doesn't look like there's anything that will brighten the outlook in the near future.'

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