Eli Lilly and Regeneron are among the first seven companies the U.S. Food and Drug Administration selected for a pilot program designed to accelerate reviews of new domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, CNBC has learned.

Lilly, Regeneron, Amneal, Cellares, Fujifilm Biotechnologies, Kriya Therapeutics and Kyowa Kirin are the first companies that will participate in the FDA’s PreCheck pilot program, according to FDA spokesperson Benjamin Nichols. The initiative will allow regulators to start reviewing new manufacturing facilities while they’re under construction to catch and correct any issues, which the FDA estimates could save companies up to 14 months.

Producing more drugs domestically has been a priority for the Trump administration. The initial recipients range from the most valuable healthcare company in the world to closely held biotechs developing gene therapies. The majority of them plan to make biologic drugs or genetic medicines, which involve more complex manufacturing than the pills most Americans know best.

To be eligible for the PreCheck program, companies needed to build a new manufacturing facility capable of making drugs that would address a market supply gap or improve access to therapies for unmet medical needs. Only drugs that rely on the facility will be covered by the program.

For example, the FDA selected Lilly’s Lebanon, Indiana, facility that will make the main ingredients of GLP-1 pills and shots. Lilly said it’s “evaluating how PreCheck and related regulatory improvements may impact the facility’s timeline and will continue to work closely with FDA to support the program’s success.”

The $2 billion Saratoga Springs, New York, site that Regeneron announced last fall was also chosen. In a statement, Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer said Regeneron has invested in U.S. biologics manufacturing and advocated for increased focus on domestic production of medicines.

“We’re pleased to see programs like the FDA’s PreCheck Pilot Program that encourage collaboration between innovators and regulators to build next generation manufacturing capabilities and strengthen America’s biopharmaceutical industry,” he said.

Another recipient is Fujfilm Biotechnologies’ new facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The contract manufacturer opened the site last year. It’s already making monoclonal antibodies for customers Regeneron and Johnson & Johnson, and will produce them for other customers as more parts of the site open in 2027 and 2028.

The PreCheck program includes two components: facility readiness, where the FDA gives the companies technical guidance before the site opens, and application submission, where participants can get more hands-on feedback from the FDA and expedited inspections and facility evaluation.

Fujifilm said it expects the operational readiness…

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday rejected a proposal to extend a key foreign surveillance program through July 2, as Democrats continued to withhold support over President Donald Trump‘s choice of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. The program will expire Friday.

Trump tapped Pulte for the role earlier this month, setting off bipartisan backlash. Pulte is currently the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and has used his perch to launch probes into several of Trump’s political opponents over allegations of mortgage-related wrongdoing. He has no prior national security experience.

House Democratic leaders came out against the short-term reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ahead of Thursday’s planned vote, effectively dooming the measure. Speaker Mike Johnson was attempting to approve it under a procedural tool normally used for noncontroversial bills that requires support from two-thirds of the House.

The measure failed by a vote of 198-218. The House left town after the vote and is not due back until June 23.

“Section 702 is a critical foreign intelligence authority, but we cannot in good conscience vote for reauthorization without significant reforms to protect both national security and the constitutional privacy rights of Americans,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., House Select Committee on Intelligence ranking member Jim Himes, D-Conn., and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said in a joint statement.

“Bill Pulte has no relevant national security experience. Consequently, his appointment is in defiance of the law that requires the Director of National Intelligence to have ‘extensive’ national security experience,” the Democratic leaders wrote. “The apparent motivation for his elevation is the demonstrated willingness of Bill Pulte to search government databases for alleged dirt on President Trump’s chosen political enemies.”

Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as permanent director of national intelligence. But the announcement did not come until after the House had left town.

“It’s seemingly a positive step, but the president’s timing couldn’t be worse, literally waiting until now when everyone has left town and there’s no possibility of a path forward on FISA until next week,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said on Thursday. “Why Clayton couldn’t have been nominated in the first place is a complete unknown.”

Section 702 of…

The House on Thursday passed on a vote of 261-111 a 45-day extension of a controversial foreign surveillance program, voting just as the program was set to expire.

The Senate earlier Thursday unanimously passed the measure, which will next go to President Donald Trump for his signature next. The president has urged Congress to reauthorize the program.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 allows the government to collect the communications of people outside the U.S., including when they are interacting with Americans. Opponents have argued that extending the program without amendments could lead to abuses and the U.S. government’s spying on American citizens, while proponents say it’s a crucial national security tool.

The Senate had rejected a bipartisan House proposal to reauthorize the program for three years. That measure included unrelated language that would have banned the Federal Reserve from establishing a central bank digital currency.

Senators from both parties opposed the digital currency language and instead pivoted to their own short-term solution for FISA, punting on broader negotiations until lawmakers return to Washington in mid-May after a scheduled recess.

“This is not the outcome that any of us wanted for the FISA 702 program, but here we are,” Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said during debate on the House floor on Thursday.

“The 702 program is incredibly important for protecting our national security and advancing our interest abroad. This temporary extension will ensure that there is no disruption to the program while we work out our differences on a longer reauthorization,” Jordan said.

Thursday’s vote is the second short-term extension of the program in less than a month. On April 17, the House and Senate passed a 10-day patch that carried the surveillance program through Thursday.

Members on both sides of the aisle concerned with individual privacy have sought to end the government’s warrantless collection of its own citizens’ data as part of the program.

“Nothing about protecting our safety should prevent us from protecting our rights. We can have both,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the House Judiciary Committee ranking member, said from the House floor.

Microsoft will offer voluntary buyouts to some U.S. employees, a first for the 51-year-old software giant, as the tech industry grapples with major changes sparked by the artificial intelligence boom.

About 7% of U.S. employees are eligible, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the number isn’t being made public. The one-time retirement program, announced in a memo on Thursday, will be available to U.S. workers at the senior director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70 or higher.

Eligible employees and their managers will receive details on May 7. Those with sales incentive plans cannot participate.

Microsoft has been ramping up capital spending on data centers to supply cloud clients with computing power that can handle generative AI models. Technology peers such as Alphabet and Amazon are doing the same. Meanwhile, software stocks are getting hammered as coding tools from Anthropic and others threaten to disrupt established companies.

Last year Microsoft removed some costs through multiple rounds of layoffs. As of June 2025, the company had 228,000 employees, with 125,000 in the U.S.

“Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support,” Amy Coleman, executive vice president and chief people officer at Microsoft, wrote in a memo viewed by CNBC.

Additionally, Microsoft is adjusting the way it doles out stock to employees for annual rewards. The company will no longer make managers tie stock directly to cash bonuses.

This way, “managers have more flexibility to meaningfully recognize high performance,” Coleman wrote.

Microsoft is also simplifying the review process for managers, so they can choose from five pay options for employees instead of nine.

WATCH: Microsoft and CrowdStrike are favorites in the software space, says Powers Advisory’s Matt Powers

Amazon is pushing deeper into the booming weight loss market, unveiling Tuesday a new program that aims to simplify access to popular GLP-1 treatments.

The company said its primary care arm, Amazon One Medical, is launching a GLP-1 management program that integrates obesity treatment into routine care. The offering combines virtual and in-person visits, prescription management and pharmacy fulfillment, positioning weight management as a long-term chronic condition rather than a one-off prescription.

“Providing customers with fast, convenient medication access and clear, transparent pricing is integral to how Amazon Pharmacy is transforming the pharmacy experience,” said Tanvi Patel, vice president and general manager of Amazon Pharmacy, in the company’s press release.

“By expanding access to the latest GLP-1 medications with upfront, clear pricing, we’re making it easier for customers to get the treatments their health care providers prescribe and to stay on those medications because they are delivered reliably directly to patients,” Patel said.

Through Amazon Pharmacy, patients will be able to access medications including Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy as well as newer oral GLP-1 options. Insured pricing will start as low as $25 per month, Amazon said. For cash-paying patients, oral drugs start at $149 per month, it said.

Injectable treatments, including Wegovy shots and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, begin at $299 per month when paid for without insurance, Amazon said.

Those prices are roughly in line with much of the current market.

But Amazon’s edge is in same-day delivery and convenience as it looks to leverage its logistics network and consumer reach into another corner of the medical system.

The company also said it will offer on-demand prescription renewals, starting at $29 for message consultation and $49 for video care. Amazon plans to expand its same-day drug delivery offering to 4,500 cities by the end of 2026.

Shares of several companies tied to the obesity drug boom moved lower following Amazon’s Tuesday announcement, including Hims & Hers Health, Viking Therapeutics, Amgen and Septerna.

The House and Senate on Friday approved a short-term extensive of a section of federal law that allows the warrantless surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence, though a renewal beyond the end of this month remains in jeopardy.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was set to expire on Monday and allows the government to collect the communications of people outside the U.S., including when they are interacting with Americans. Friday’s votes extend the program to April 30.

The short-term extension advanced out of the House only after GOP hard-liners spiked separate five-year and 18-moth proposals to extend the program in the early hours of Friday morning.

Why is Section 702 controversial?

Supporters argue the warrantless surveillance program is an invaluable tool in protecting U.S. interests and thwarting potential threats. The CIA said this month that the program helped to thwart a planned terrorist attack at a 2024 Taylor Swift concert in Austria.

But an extension without changes to the program is widely opposed by many GOP hard-liners and by some Democrats, like Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who briefly held up the short-term extension on Friday but relented in the hopes of striking a deal to more substantially change the surveillance program.

“Americans understand that every single day there are abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” Wyden said from the Senate floor on Friday, calling a straight extension unacceptable. “So it is clear it’s time for real reforms to protect Americans from a government that they rightly do not trust.”

What does the White House say?

President Donald Trump has called for a clean, 18-month extension of the program, posting his support on Truth Social on Wednesday and citing the need for robust defenses particularly amid the ongoing war in Iran.

“The fact is, whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our Military. I have spoken to many Generals about this, and they consider it vital. Not one said, even tacitly, that they can do without it — especially right now with our brilliant Military Operation in Iran,” Trump said.

What’s next?

The House and Senate both left town on Friday after advancing the short-term extension. Leaders in both chambers will have to resume negotiations when they return to Washington next week. And they’ll have to contend with members on both sides of the aisle who are calling for greater protections of U.S. citizens’ privacy.

Reps. Jim Himes, D-Conn., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrats on the House Intelligence, Judiciary and Rules committees, respectively, issued a joint statement on Friday slamming their Republican colleagues for trying to…

Apple announced a significant expansion of its American Manufacturing Program on Thursday, bringing four new partners — Bosch, Cirrus Logic, TDK, and Qnity Electronics — into its domestic supply chain.

The companies will manufacture essential materials and components in the U.S. for Apple products sold worldwide, with Apple planning to invest $400 million in the new programs through 2030.

CEO Tim Cook framed the move as a bet on American ingenuity, calling the partnerships “another powerful example of what is possible when we invest” in U.S. manufacturing.

The new additions will create jobs and strengthen the country’s manufacturing capabilities, the company said.

The expansion accelerates Apple’s American Manufacturing Program, or AMP, which sits at the center of its $600 billion, four-year pledge to U.S. manufacturing and innovation.

Apple launched AMP in August 2025 alongside a $100 billion spending increase, with Cook appearing at the White House with President Donald Trump for the announcement. The company’s U.S. operations currently support more than 450,000 jobs across all 50 states, and Apple plans to directly hire 20,000 more in R&D, silicon engineering, AI, and software development.

Among the new partners, TDK — a supplier Apple has worked with for more than 30 years — will manufacture sensors in the U.S. for the first time. The sensors, including technology used for iPhone camera stabilization, will be shipped in devices sold globally and will increase the volume of chips Apple sources from U.S. silicon supply chains.

Bosch will produce integrated circuits for sensing hardware at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing‘s facility in Camas, Washington — chips essential for features like Crash Detection and activity tracking in Apple products.

Cirrus Logic will work with GlobalFoundries at its Malta, New York, fab to develop mixed-signal semiconductors, including advanced chips to power Face ID systems. Qnity Electronics and HD MicroSystems will supply materials and technologies for semiconductor manufacturing and high-performance computing.

TSMC’s facility in Arizona and GlobalFoundries are also involved as foundries producing chips for Apple.

Since AMP’s launch, Apple has already exceeded its initial target and sourced more than 20 billion U.S.-made chips from 24 factories across 12 states. In 2026, the company is on track to purchase well over 100 million advanced chips from TSMC’s Arizona fab — a significant increase from 2025.

Other early wins include Amkor breaking ground on a $7 billion semiconductor packaging facility in Peoria, Arizona, where Apple will be its first and largest customer, and GlobalWafers beginning production at a new $4 billion silicon wafer plant…