AI · SaaS
-- The Consumer Electronics Innovation Congress 2026 (CEIC2026) was held at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center (Futian) from October 22 to 24. Bringing together industry representatives from 78 countries and regions, the congress served as a global platform for advancing consumer electronics innovation, industry collaboration, and AI-driven transformation. CEIC2026 featured an extensive program comprising
Oct 28 · 04:53·MarketersMEDIA
Finance · AI
HONG KONG, Oct 28, 2026 - Hong Kong's Transport Department has a number that nobody in the argument disputes. Its survey of personalised point-to-point demand puts the territory at about 880,000 passenger journeys a day. Taxis carry roughly 690,000 of them, or 78 percent. Ride-hailing carries about 190,000, or 22 percent. Those three figures are the closest thing this debate has to a shared fact, and every party has been quoting them for eighteen months.
The disagreement starts one step later, at the conversion. The government has decided that 190,000 daily ride-hailing journeys should be served by no more than 10,000 vehicle permits. The platform most affected says that cap cuts its active driver pool by more than two-thirds. The taxi trade says 10,000 is too many, too fast, and should be released in batches. Three parties, one demand figure, three incompatible conclusions — and, unusually for a regulatory fight, a paper trail detailed enough to check the arithmetic.
What each side committed to, in its own words
Most coverage of this file has quoted the bill's passage and the fee schedule. The positions are more useful than the statutes, because each one contains a falsifiable commitment.
Speaker
Position
What they said
What it commits them to
Mable Chan, Secretary for Transport and Logistics
Government, selling the bill
The bill would "modernise our services, attract younger drivers, and provide diverse traveling options for residents"
That supply expands, not just legalises
Transport and Logistics Bureau spokesman
Government, defending the cap
10,000 permits is "a prudent, sound and appropriate approach that balances considerations regarding road resources and the public transport ecosystem"
That road capacity, not demand, is the binding constraint
Andrew Byrne, Uber global head of public policy
Platform, opposing the cap
A quota in this range is "very unusual" by the standards of London, Australia and mainland Chinese cities
That Hong Kong is an outlier, not a normal case
Nicole Lee, Uber Hong Kong public policy head
Platform, on cost
"70% say the proposed insurance costs would push them off ride-hailing"
That the insurance rule, not the cap, may bind first
Taxi Owners' Association
Trade, opposing the cap
Government "must absolutely not release all 10,000 permits at once within a short period"
That phasing protects incumbent income
Hong Kong commentator, Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies
Pro-establishment, against the licence class
Government should issue more taxi licences rather than create a parallel ride-hailing permit
That the two services are substitutes, not complements
Read the third and fifth rows together and the shape of the fight appears. Uber's argument is comparative: no other dense city caps ride-hailing this tightly. The taxi trade's argument is distributive: whatever the number, it should arrive slowly enough that existing drivers absorb it. Both can be true. Neither addresses the government's actual claim, which is about road space.
The arithmetic the government published
Start with the vehicles. Hong Kong has 18,163 taxis — 15,250 urban, 2,838 New Territories, 75 Lantau — carrying close to a million passengers a day. Add the 30,000-plus drivers Uber says are active on its platform, and the current point-to-point fleet is roughly 48,000 vehicles serving 880,000 journeys. That is 18.3 journeys per vehicle per day across the whole system.
Now impose the cap. The fleet becomes 18,163 taxis plus 10,000 permitted ride-hailing cars, or 28,163 vehicles, for the same 880,000 journeys. That is 31.2 journeys per vehicle per day — a 71 percent increase in vehicle productivity, required immediately.
Scenario
Vehicles
Daily journeys
Journeys per vehicle
Current, taxis plus active ride-hailing
~48,200
880,000
18.3
Cap at 10,000 permits
28,163
880,000
31.2
Cap at 15,000 permits
33,163
880,000
26.5
Thirty-one journeys a day is not fantasy. Hong Kong taxis already achieve about 38 per cab, because street-hailing produces short trips with almost no idle time between fares. The question is whether a pre-booked ride-hailing model can hit the same productivity. It operates differently by design: the car travels to the passenger, waits, and often deadheads back. Independent estimates put deadhead mileage for app-dispatched fleets at 25 to 40 percent of distance travelled. Street-hailing taxis cruise for fares too, but they do it while available, not while committed.
So the cap is not arithmetically impossible. It requires ride-hailing to become as productive as street-hailing. That is precisely what the taxi trade has argued it should be, and precisely what ride-hailing's operating model makes difficult.
The arithmetic the platform published
Uber's numbers point at a different variable: the driver pool, not the vehicle count.
The company says it has more than 30,000 active drivers in Hong Kong. A 10,000-permit cap therefore removes more than two-thirds of them, and its submission to LegCo states that over 20,000 current drivers would lose the ability to earn through the platform. Its survey of 4,569 drivers found 74 percent "extremely concerned" about the quota and a further 18.5 percent "very concerned"; 41 percent said ride-hailing provides between 81 and 100 percent of household income; 76 percent expected immediate financial difficulty.
Those are self-reported expectations from a platform's own user base, collected in May 2026, and they should be read as such. A survey commissioned by the party that loses most from a policy will find that the policy is unpopular. The useful part is not the sentiment, it is the structural claim underneath: that the permit is attached to the vehicle and bound to its owner, so the number of permits is a hard ceiling on the number of people who can earn.
That claim is correct on the text. The owner-driver requirement means a permit holder must be the registered owner of the car they drive, a provision Mable Chan said was intended to stop permits being sublet or sold on a secondary market. It is a strong anti-rent-seeking design. It also means there is no legal way for a fleet owner to hold twenty cars and employ twenty drivers, which is how ride-hailing scales in most markets.
Uber's proposed fix is a phased allocation with 80 percent of permits reserved for existing active drivers and no more than 20 percent for people who already own a car, plus quarterly reviews using 90th-percentile indicators on wait times, completion rates and fares. The trade's fix is the opposite: batch release, and a floor under ride-hailing fares so they cannot undercut taxis.
The arithmetic the trade published
The Taxi Owners' Association's submission is the shortest and the most revealing. It asks for two things: that the 10,000 permits be released gradually rather than at once, and that ride-hailing fares be prohibited from going below taxi fares.
The second request is the important one, and it is not really about fares. It is an admission about the first. If the trade believed 10,000 permits were a small number, it would not need a price floor. A price floor only matters when you expect the new entrant to win on price at equal volume. The association is asking the government to remove the one advantage ride-hailing has, which suggests it expects the volume to be there.
The first request has a defensible economics behind it. Taxi plates in Hong Kong are traded assets. Anything that reduces expected earnings on a plate reduces its capital value, and a sudden release of 10,000 competing vehicles would do that in a single step. Phasing spreads the loss over time and lets incumbents exit through attrition rather than writedown. That is a legitimate transition-management argument, and the government has effectively accepted it by setting the permit regime to start in August 2027 rather than with the bill's commencement.
What the trade did not supply is any figure for how many permits would be acceptable. That absence is itself a position.
What the government got for the taxi trade, quietly
The bill was not only a cap on ride-hailing. It also carried three concessions to the taxi industry that were legislated separately and are already in force, and they change the competitive picture more than the permit number will.
Since 1 April 2026, taxi drivers must offer at least two electronic payment methods, one of them QR-based and one not. Five licensed taxi fleets, awarded under the fleet scheme the Transport Department introduced to raise service standards, are now operating with app-based booking. The combined driving test for taxi and ride-hailing vehicles, introduced in the same subsidiary legislation package, lets a single qualification serve both.
Measure
Status
Effect on the 2027 market
Two e-payment methods per taxi
In force 1 April 2026
Removes the "no card, no app" objection to taxis
Five licensed taxi fleets
Operating
Gives taxis app dispatch without a platform licence
Combined taxi and ride-hailing test
In subsidiary legislation
Makes driver supply fungible between the two
In-vehicle cameras
Rolling out
Raises the compliance floor for both modes
That third row is the one to watch. If a driver can qualify once and choose between a taxi and a permitted ride-hailing car, then the 10,000 permits are not competing against 18,163 taxis for labour. They are competing inside a single 28,000-vehicle pool for the same drivers, on the same test, with the taxi option carrying no permit queue.
Sixteen thousand applicants, ten thousand permits
There is a number in this file that has received almost no attention, and it is the one that predicts what happens next.
More than 16,000 people have already applied to sit the ride-hailing driver test, according to reporting from the mainland financial press on the eve of the licensing round. The permit ceiling is 10,000. Even if every permit is issued on day one — which the batch-release argument is designed to prevent — at least 6,000 people who have paid to qualify will have no vehicle to drive.
That surplus has three possible destinations. It can queue for permits released in later tranches. It can move into taxi driving, which the combined taxi and ride-hailing driving test makes easier by design. Or it can exit, having sunk the cost of a course and a test into a licence class that turned out to be rationed.
The government has been explicit that it is building the queue on purpose. Its requirements for platform applicants — a track record in a city of 7.5 million or more, an average of 100,000 daily orders across two cities, HK$50 million paid-up capital, HK$30 million in bank deposits and HK$30 million in credit facilities, three years of audited accounts, a permanent office and staff in Hong Kong — are not tests of whether a platform can operate. They are tests of whether it can absorb a bad year. The HK$1.2 million annual licence fee is trivial against those balance-sheet requirements. The application is a filter, and the filter is capital.
Mean capacity is fine. Variance is not.
Here is where the arithmetic gets more interesting than either side's talking points.
At 10,000 permits, the system has enough vehicles to absorb 190,000 daily journeys on average, provided each car works a long shift. What it cannot absorb is the shape of the demand curve. Point-to-point demand in Hong Kong is brutally peaky: the morning build-up, the evening release, Friday and Saturday nights, and above all rain. Uber's rider survey found 86 percent expecting greater difficulty booking in peak hours or on rainy days. That is not a claim about average capacity. It is a claim about the tails.
A fixed permit cap is a tool for managing the mean. It is the wrong tool for the tails, because the tail is served by drivers who are marginal — part-time, second-income, available on the bad night and not on the good one. Uber says 41 percent of its drivers depend on the platform for most of their household income, which implies 59 percent do not. That 59 percent is the flexible layer that covers the rain. A permit system that requires an owner-driver to buy a car and hold a permit will select for the 41 percent and eliminate much of the 59.
This is the strongest version of the platform's case, and it is not the version the platform makes. Uber argues volume. The better argument is elasticity: 10,000 full-time professional drivers will deliver a very reliable Tuesday and a very unreliable typhoon.
The counter-argument is equally strong. The 59 percent flexible layer is also the layer with the least insurance, the least vehicle maintenance and the weakest incentive to comply with the owner-driver rule. A regulator that wants enforcement has a reason to prefer 10,000 known drivers over 30,000 partly-known ones, and the vehicle data management system the Transport Department is building — real-time operational data from licensed platforms, used to assess performance and inform future policy reviews — only works if the population is enumerable.
The question none of them answered
Three questions went unanswered in every submission I read, and they decide more than the cap does.
· Insurance. Uber says 70 percent of drivers would leave if required to buy commercial third-party cover costing HK$10,000 to HK$30,000 a year, and that 84 percent prefer platform-provided blanket cover priced per trip. No party has published what the actual premium would be under a permit regime. Until someone does, the insurance rule, not the permit number, may set the real ceiling.
· Vehicle age. The 12-year cap was relaxed from seven after authorities accepted that seven would squeeze supply. Nobody has published the age distribution of the current active fleet. If a large share sits at nine to twelve years, the first renewal cycle will remove cars faster than permits are issued.
· The cross-hire question. The owner-driver rule forbids subletting. It does not address whether a permitted driver may work across multiple platforms. If they can, the 10,000 permits are 10,000 drivers serving the whole market and the cap bites less than expected. If they cannot, each platform's share of 10,000 becomes the number that matters, and the licence round turns into an allocation fight.
The government has promised the permit quota will be revisited through subsidiary legislation. That is where these three questions will actually be settled, and none of them were in the bill.
What the first licence round will show
The application window closes at noon on 30 October 2026. The licences run five years. The permit regime begins in August 2027.
Between those dates, three observable things will tell you whether this framework works, and none of them is the headline permit number.
The first is how many platforms apply. The capital and track-record requirements are calibrated to admit a small number of large operators and exclude everyone else. If two or three applications arrive, the regime has produced an oligopoly by design and the 10,000 permits will be divided by negotiation. If five or more arrive, the fee and capital thresholds were set too low to do the filtering job they were written for.
The second is the first quarterly data release from the vehicle management system. Wait times and booking success rates by district, at peak and off-peak, are the only figures that will show whether 10,000 was right. The government has committed to using exactly these indicators for review. It has not committed to publishing them.
The third is what happens to the 6,000 surplus test applicants. If they convert to taxi drivers, the policy has done what Mable Chan said it would — modernise the trade and attract younger drivers — and the taxi fleet gets the renewal it has needed for a decade. If they exit, the policy has created a queue and called it a market.
The taxi trade's price-floor request and the platform's 80 percent allocation request are both attempts to control the same unknown: who holds the 10,000 permits when the music stops. The government's answer, so far, is that the market will decide within a ceiling it sets. That is a coherent position. It is not yet an evidenced one, and the evidence that would support it — insurance premia, fleet age, cross-platform rights, peak wait times — is all in the government's hands and none of it is public.
Sourcing note
The direct quotations in this article come from published statements and submissions, not from interviews conducted for it. Mable Chan's remarks were made in the Legislative Council on 15 October 2025 and reported by Hong Kong Free Press; the Transport and Logistics Bureau spokesman's "prudent, sound and appropriate" formulation appeared in the government's gazette statement on the subsidiary legislation; Andrew Byrne's "very unusual" characterisation and the 70 percent fare-increase estimate were given at a briefing in May 2026 reported by local outlets; Nicole Lee's insurance comment came from Uber's own newsroom release of its May 2026 survey; the Taxi Owners' Association's position is taken from its written submission to the LegCo bills committee, translated from Chinese.
Survey figures attributed to Uber — 10,009 riders, 4,569 drivers, conducted May 2026 — are the company's own research and are identified as such throughout. The 880,000 / 690,000 / 190,000 demand split is the Transport Department's survey estimate as reported by local media; the department has not published the underlying tables. The 16,000 test applicants figure comes from mainland financial press reporting and has not been confirmed by the Transport Department.
Sources
· Transport Department 🔗 — Ride-hailing Vehicles: licensing regime, fees, applicant eligibility, accessed October 2026
· Transport Department 🔗 — Taxis: fleet size, daily patronage, electronic payment requirement, accessed October 2026
· Hong Kong Free Press 🔗 — "Hong Kong passes bill to regulate ride-hailing platforms under licensing regime", 16 October 2025
· China Daily Hong Kong 🔗 — "Subsidiary bills on regulation of ride-hailing services in HK gazetted", 2026
· China Daily Hong Kong 🔗 — "Hong Kong opens license applications for ride-hailing services", August 2026
· Uber Hong Kong 🔗 — rider and driver survey findings, May 2026
· Hong Kong Business 🔗 — "Uber says 83% expect higher fares under Hong Kong cap", 2026
· HK01 🔗 — submissions by Uber and the Taxi Owners' Association to the LegCo bills committee, 2026（Chinese-language original）
· Jiemian News 🔗 — "Hong Kong ride-hailing is coming: 16,000 have already registered for the test", 2026（Chinese-language original）
This article was prepared by the expert team at Global Infinity Labs, drawing on insights and data provided through its MCP data services.
About Global Infinity Labs
Global Infinity Labs is an AI innovation company specializing in MCP data services.
Email: support@globalinfinitylabs.com
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Oct 28 · 04:30·ACN Newswire
AI · SaaS
London, UK, 28th October 2026, FinanceWire … Read More
The post NexCento Announces Focus on AI-Powered Enterprise Software and Digital Transformation Solutions appeared first on FinanceWire - Financial Press Release Distribution, Finance PR.
Oct 28 · 03:06·FinanceWire
SaaS · Consumer goods
KingClean Electric Co., Ltd., a global supplier of home appliances and cleaning technology solutions, has unveiled its ODM reference platform for cleaning appliances at the 140th Canton Fair, running October 15–19, 2026. The platform portfolio includes cordless stick vacuums with docking...
Oct 28 · 03:00·PRWeb
SaaS · Retail
Bringing avatars, outfits, and other creations by Japanese creators to users around the world TOKYO, Oct. 27, 2026 -- transcosmos today announced a partnership with Metaverse Creators Inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan; CEO: Kazuo Wakamiya) to begin the global distribution of...
Oct 28 · 02:00·PR Newswire
AI · SaaS
780 Lynnhaven Pkwy #400, Virginia Beach, VA 23452, United States Tuesday Oct 27, 2026 @ 10:00 PM Eastern —
As more individuals explore online options for emotional support animal (ESA) evaluations, questions about provider qualifications, assessment procedures, documentation requirements, and service legitimacy have become important considerations for consumers. My ESA Therapist is highlighting the value of consumer awareness to help individuals better understand online ESA letter services and make informed decisions before beginning an evaluation.
An emotional support animal may provide comfort and emotional support to an individual experiencing a mental health-related disability. However, obtaining documentation for an emotional support animal is not simply a matter of purchasing a certificate or registering a pet online. Understanding the role of a qualified mental health professional, the purpose of an evaluation, and the applicable housing rules can help consumers avoid misleading claims and unrealistic expectations.
Understanding What Online ESA Letter Services Actually Provide
Online ESA letter services connect individuals with mental health professionals who may evaluate whether an emotional support animal is appropriate for their circumstances. Depending on the provider, these services may include an initial screening, a professional consultation, an assessment of the individual's needs, and documentation when clinically appropriate.
Consumers should understand that an online evaluation does not automatically guarantee an ESA letter. A qualified professional must determine whether the individual's circumstances support the recommendation. A service that promises approval to every applicant without meaningful assessment deserves careful scrutiny.
My ESA Therapist emphasizes the importance of understanding the difference between a professional evaluation and commercial products that offer registration certificates, identification cards, or other materials without establishing whether an individual qualifies for an emotional support animal recommendation.
These distinctions are particularly important for people who are unfamiliar with the process and may assume that every website offering ESA-related products provides the same type of service.
Why Provider Credentials Matter
One of the most important considerations when comparing online ESA letter services is the professional responsible for conducting the evaluation and issuing any resulting documentation.
Consumers should look for clear information about provider qualifications, professional licensing, and the process used to determine eligibility. They should also understand whether the professional is authorized to provide services in the individual's state.
State requirements can differ, and some jurisdictions have additional rules governing emotional support animal documentation. For example, California has specific requirements relevant to ESA documentation and professional relationships. Consumers seeking an ESA letter in California should review the applicable state rules rather than assuming that a service operating online automatically satisfies them.
Before scheduling an evaluation, individuals can ask who will conduct the consultation, what information may be required, how the assessment works, and whether the provider follows applicable state and professional standards.
Transparent answers to these questions can help consumers distinguish professional services from providers that rely primarily on marketing promises.
Recognizing Warning Signs Before Paying for a Service
The availability of online services can make it easier for consumers to explore their options, but it also creates a need for careful decision-making.
Several warning signs deserve attention when researching online ESA letter services.
Guaranteed approval without an evaluation: A promise that every applicant will receive a letter regardless of individual circumstances may indicate that the service does not prioritize professional assessment.
Unclear provider information: Consumers should be cautious when a website does not explain who conducts evaluations, how credentials can be verified, or which professional is responsible for the resulting documentation.
Confusing registration with professional documentation: Purchasing an ESA registration, certificate, or identification card does not, by itself, establish eligibility for an emotional support animal accommodation.
Unclear pricing or refund policies: Before submitting payment, consumers should review the total cost, any additional charges, cancellation terms, and the circumstances under which a refund may be available.
Unrealistic housing promises: No service should imply that its documentation guarantees approval in every housing situation. Housing providers may assess accommodation requests under applicable laws, and specific circumstances can affect the outcome.
Reviewing these issues before making a payment can help individuals reduce the risk of unnecessary expenses and misunderstandings.
Understanding ESA Letters and Housing Rights
Many consumers seek an emotional support animal letter because they want to request an accommodation from a housing provider. However, the rules governing assistance animals are not identical across every setting.
Under the federal Fair Housing Act, qualifying individuals may request reasonable accommodations involving assistance animals in covered housing situations. Emotional support animals may qualify under these provisions when the applicable legal requirements are met.
A housing provider may request reliable information when a disability or disability-related need for an animal is not apparent or already known. However, the documentation and information that may appropriately be requested depend on the circumstances. Consumers should avoid assuming that a particular certificate or registration automatically establishes a right to an accommodation.
ESA letters also differ from service animal requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Emotional support animals are not generally considered service animals under the ADA, and the legal protections applicable to service animals in public places do not automatically extend to ESAs.
Understanding these distinctions can help consumers identify the type of documentation they need and avoid relying on inaccurate online claims.
Questions Consumers Should Ask Before Choosing an Online ESA Service
A few practical questions can help individuals assess whether an online ESA service is appropriate for their needs:
Who will conduct my evaluation, and can I verify their professional credentials?
Is the professional authorized to provide services in my state?
What does the evaluation involve, and what information will I need to provide?
Will a licensed mental health professional determine whether an ESA recommendation is appropriate?
What are the total costs, cancellation conditions, and refund policies?
How is my personal and mental health information collected, stored, and protected?
What documentation may be provided if the professional determines that I qualify?
Are the service's claims consistent with applicable housing laws and state requirements?
Consumers should feel comfortable asking these questions before committing to a service. A transparent provider should explain its process clearly without pressuring individuals to purchase documentation.
My ESA Therapist Encourages Informed Decisions
My ESA Therapist connects individuals with licensed mental health professionals for emotional support animal evaluations and provides educational resources related to ESAs, housing, and emotional well-being.
Through its consumer-awareness focus, the organization encourages individuals to understand the purpose of an ESA evaluation, verify professional qualifications, review service terms, and learn about the rules that may apply to their circumstances.
The organization also emphasizes that an emotional support animal recommendation should be based on an appropriate professional assessment rather than a guaranteed commercial outcome. Consumers benefit from understanding both the potential role of an emotional support animal in their lives and the responsibilities involved in requesting an accommodation.
As online ESA letter services continue to attract attention, access to clear, accurate information remains an important part of responsible decision-making. By asking informed questions and evaluating providers carefully, individuals can approach the process with more realistic expectations and a better understanding of their options.
About My ESA Therapist
My ESA Therapist provides access to licensed mental health professionals for emotional support animal evaluations and offers educational resources concerning emotional support animals, housing-related considerations, and emotional well-being. The organization aims to help individuals better understand the ESA evaluation process and make informed decisions about seeking professional guidance.
Media Contact:
My ESA Therapist
Website: https://myesatherapist.com/
Oct 28 · 02:00·Newsworthy.ai
SaaS · Investing & markets
-- On October 27, 2026, UXUY (uxuy.com), a decentralized exchange incubated by Binance Labs and backed by YZi Labs, announced the launch of UStock (ustock.finance). Positioned as an on-chain capital markets platform for publicly listed companies, UStock plans to help companies listed in the U.S. and Hong Kong establish borderless on-chain capital markets through share issuance, on-chain investor distribution, and pos
Oct 28 · 01:39·MarketersMEDIA
AI · SaaS
Firmable earned 17 badges in G2's Fall 2026 reports and improved its ranking in 28 of the 32 reports it featured in last season, holding its position in the other four. MELBOURNE, Australia and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 27, 2026 -- Firmable, the AI-native B2B sales platform, has...
Oct 28 · 01:38·PR Newswire
SaaS · Media
Broadcaster works with New Relic for end-to-end infrastructure visibility, successfully scaling to reach 64% of Australia's population SYDNEY, October 28, 2026--New Relic , the intelligent observability platform, today announced its end-to-end infrastructure monitoring was used by Special Broadcasting
Oct 28 · 01:00·Business Wire
SaaS · Fashion & luxury
Rent a single authenticated designer bag by the week, from $72, with no membership required, or join from $119 a month. Every bag is examined by an in-house authentication expert and verified with Entrupy. -- Saclyn LLC , a New Jersey-based luxury handbag membership and designer handbag rental platform founded by Neha Mahajan, has launched with a curated collection of authenticated designer handbags available through
Oct 28 · 00:21·MarketersMEDIA
SaaS · Healthcare
Wednesday 28 October, 2026
Aachen, Germany, 28 October 2026 –
The trial (n=409) showed that Qutenza®
“Post-surgical neuropathic pain can be difficult to manage with current treatment options, and there is an urgent need for patient-centred, effective solutions. The RISE trial provides encouraging evidence that Qutenza® can deliver clinically meaningful and sustained pain reduction for up to 42 weeks, having shown a greater reduction in average pain intensity than the control,” said Prof. Patrice Forget, MD, PhD, FFPMRCA, Clinical Chair (full professor) in Anaesthesia, University of Aberdeen, and Honorary Consultant, NHS Grampian, Aberdeen, UK. “As IASP shines a global spotlight on neuropathic pain at this year's congress, findings such as these are important to help improve outcomes for patients and reduce the burden of pain on families and healthcare systems.”
“Post-surgical neuropathic pain has been relatively understudied and continues to go under-recognised in clinical practice,” said Uli Brödl, Chief Scientific Officer, Grünenthal. “These results build on the robust body of evidence for Qutenza® and reinforce its potential to provide meaningful, long-lasting pain relief for people living with pain.”
Post-surgical neuropathic pain is a poorly recognised potential complication of surgery that can result in devastating outcomes. It affects millions of patients every year, with pain lasting for months or years post-procedure.1 It can also have a significant mental health impact, with patients reporting feeling extremely depressed or anxious, and having problems with daily activities.[4]
Qutenza® is already approved in Europe for the treatment of peripheral neuropathic pain in adults, either alone or in combination with other medicinal products for the treatment of pain.[5] It is also approved in the US for the treatment of neuropathic pain associated with postherpetic neuralgia and for the treatment of neuropathic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) of the feet in adults.[6]
About the RISE trial2,3
The RISE (AV-001) trial is a Phase III multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, parallel-group trial to confirm the efficacy and safety of Qutenza 179mg cutaneous patch versus a low-dose capsaicin control patch in people with moderate to severe post-surgical neuropathic pain.
It included eligible adults with a 24-hour average pain intensity (API) score of 4 or more, a pain duration of 6 to 60 months after index surgery and a DN4 (Douleur Neuropathique 4) Interview score of 3 or more.
Participants were randomly assigned to receive treatment with either a 60-minute Qutenza patch (8%) or a low-dose capsaicin control patch (0.04%).
The trial had two primary endpoints:
Change in 24-hour API from baseline to the average score of the entire period between Week 2 and Week 12. Change in 24-hour API from baseline to the average score at Week 12.
The primary sponsor of the trial is Averitas Pharma, Inc., Grünenthal’s U.S. subsidiary.
About post-surgical neuropathic pain
The signs and symptoms of peri- and post-surgical pain can vary based on the person and the severity of the injury caused in surgery. Reported symptoms include pain caused by stimuli that are normally painless (allodynia), abnormally increased sensitivity to pain (hyperalgesia), tingling, numbness, phantom pain and scar pain.[8],[9],[10]
About Qutenza®
Qutenza®
Qutenza®
About Grünenthal
Grünenthal is headquartered in Aachen, Germany, and has affiliates in 28 countries across Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. Our products are available in approx. 100 countries. In 2025, Grünenthal employed around 4,100 people and achieved revenues of €1.8 billion.
Follow us on LinkedIn
For further information, please contact:
Matt Crabb, Head of Global Communications (Interim) at Grünenthal
matt.crabb@grunenthal.com
###
References
[1] Gregory P & Settles K. Pract Pain Manag. 2013;13(9):1–6.
[2] Wallace M et al. Efficacy of high-concentration capsaicin patch in post-surgical neuropathic pain (RISE). Presented at the International Association for the Study of Pain World Congress 2026.
[3] Wallace M et al. Safety and tolerability of high-concentration capsaicin patch in post-surgical neuropathic pain (RISE). Presented at the International Association for the Study of Pain World Congress 2026.
[4] Santos MP, Lemos F, Gomes J, Romao JM, Veiga D. Br J Pain 2024;18(1):42–56.
[5] European Medicines Agency. Qutenza 179 mg cutaneous patch SmPC. Available at: https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/573/smpc
[6] US Food and Drug Administration. Qutenza® Prescribing Information. Available at: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2020/022395s019lbl.pdf
[7]
[8] Werner MU & Kongsgaard UE. Br J Anaesth. 2014;113(1):1–4.
[9] Macrae WA. Br J Anaesth. 2008;101:77–86.
[10] Searle RD & Simpson KH. Contin Educ Anaesth Crit Care Pain. 2010;10:12–14.
Oct 28 · 00:00·Pressat
AI · SaaS
We're entering a new era of application security. Frontier AI models are uncovering complex flaws that traditional tools overlooked, and attackers are using the same models to exploit them faster. Remediation isn't keeping pace: Verizon's 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) measures the median time to fully remediate a known-exploited vulnerability at 43 days, up from 32 in 2025.
Security teams are already stretched across growing application portfolios, third-party dependencies, and a steady stream of new disclosures. And while agents that find vulnerabilities and write fixes are becoming more accessible, integrating them into how enterprises actually build and ship software remains difficult.
A generated patch still needs to be tested. Security policies need to be enforced. Changes need to be reviewed and approved. And eventually, the fix needs to reach production safely.
This is where I believe the next major shift in application security will happen. We need to put autonomous agents to work inside the software factory. That's why we've brought Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5.1 into GitLab, and why we're connecting discovery, remediation, and prevention in one trusted workflow.
When critical vulnerabilities emerge, the clock starts ticking
Critical vulnerabilities like PHP2Shell send security teams scrambling to understand exposure. For a large organization, that means assessing impact across hundreds or thousands of repositories, applications, and dependencies.
Identifying exposure is only the first step. Teams then need to assess exploitability, prioritize affected applications, coordinate fixes, run tests, and get changes into production. Every handoff takes time, and speed is vital: 31% of breaches now start with vulnerability exploitation, the top initial access vector for the first time in the DBIR's 19 years.
As more critical vulnerabilities emerge, the traditional model of manually investigating findings, assigning tickets, and waiting for developers to write fixes becomes harder to sustain.
The time between vulnerability discovery and verified remediation needs to shrink dramatically. That requires security workflows capable of operating at machine speed, while preserving the controls organizations depend on to ship reliable software.
Bring agentic remediation into the software factory
AI agents can do impressive work in vulnerability discovery and remediation. The challenge is making that work reliable and repeatable across an enterprise.
An agent can generate a patch in seconds. Whether it understood the application, whether it validated the change against the real build, and whether it followed your security policies are separate questions. They get harder to answer, and more expensive to get wrong, as you deploy agents across thousands of projects.
At GitLab, we're bringing agentic security workflows into the environment where teams develop, test, and ship software.
Everything an agent does rests on how well it understands your system, and that understanding extends beyond the repository. GitLab Orbit, a live context graph of your software lifecycle, connects findings to the changes that introduced them, the pipelines that shipped them, and the teams who own the fix. It's also how you answer the questions that follow a disclosure like PHP2Shell: Are we exposed? Is it reachable? How far does it spread, and how do we fix it without breaking production?
GitLab Duo Agent Platform investigates findings in the context of your software and how it's built, filtering out likely false positives and prioritizing by exploitability and reachability.
For the findings that matter, Duo writes a fix and puts it through your pipeline to check for regressions and rerun security scans. In a single merge request, developers review the change, Duo's explanation, and the pipeline results.
Security teams move from understanding exposure to initiating remediation in one pass, and developers shift from chasing findings to reviewing fixes. Because these workflows run inside the software factory, agents operate within the same processes and controls that organizations already use to deliver software.
That's how we turn agentic security from an isolated capability into something an enterprise can trust and operate across thousands of projects, at machine speed.
Put frontier AI to work on the most critical vulnerabilities
Some of the most dangerous application vulnerabilities require a deep understanding of how software is intended to work: missing authorization checks, broken ownership logic, and business logic flaws that expose customer data or let users take actions they shouldn't.
Traditional scanners struggle with these issues because finding them requires reasoning about the application's behavior and the relationships between components.
Our new Business Logic Security Analyzer, the first GitLab capability to support Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5.1, examines how your application enforces its rules: it reads the whole repository and incoming merge requests, infers what each endpoint should enforce, and flags the gaps that pattern-based scanners often miss.
But the real opportunity comes from connecting those discoveries to the workflows teams already use. When a critical flaw is found, teams need to understand its impact, initiate remediation, validate the proposed fix, and ship it safely. Integrating frontier AI into the software factory creates a path to run that entire process at machine speed.
The intelligence of the model is only as valuable as your ability to act on it.
Prevent risky code from reaching production
Finding vulnerabilities earlier is valuable, and keeping vulnerable code and unsafe packages out of production altogether is even better. These protections become even more important as agents gain autonomy.
Security controls need to be embedded throughout the software factory and enforced independently of the people and agents making changes, with every change clearing the same gates before it moves forward.
GitLab Ultimate brings static analysis, dependency and container scanning, secret detection, policy enforcement, and approval gates directly into the software delivery process. Those policies are set centrally and apply consistently across projects and pipelines, so the author of a change, human or agent, cannot change or waive the controls evaluating its work.
The same scrutiny needs to extend to third-party software. Modern applications rely heavily on open source dependencies, and a vulnerable or malicious package can introduce serious risk before developers write a single line of code.
GitLab's Dependency Firewall blocks policy-violating packages before they enter your build. GitLab Secrets Manager lets each job access only the credentials it requests and is authorized to use, so a compromised dependency can reach only the secrets of the job it runs in.
Agents need the freedom to work quickly, within boundaries they can't cross. GitLab Duo Agent Platform gives each agent a composite identity that limits it to the permissions it shares with the requesting user, a sandbox that's destroyed when the task ends, and a record of every action. These boundaries are part of the GitLab Security Standard, under which agents earn more autonomy only as the controls at each stage are proven to hold.
The controls that make a change trustworthy need to hold at every step, even when the work happens at machine speed.
The next chapter of security will be defined by trusted execution
Frontier models will keep improving, security agents will get more capable, and vulnerabilities that were once difficult to discover will become easier to find. That progress will put enormous pressure on how organizations respond.
A security team can deploy the most advanced models available, but its ability to reduce risk will still depend on how quickly and safely it can turn findings into production-ready fixes.
This is why the software factory matters. It's where agents get the context needed to understand applications, where changes are validated against real builds and tests, where security policies are enforced, and where human oversight applies without slowing every step of the process.
At GitLab, we're bringing these capabilities together so you can automate remediation, uncover complex flaws, and prevent unsafe changes from shipping, all inside the workflows you already use.
The next security advantage will come from how quickly organizations can turn a critical discovery into a verified, trusted fix.
We invite you to run your next security sprint on us. Qualifying teams can request access to GitLab Ultimate, GitLab Duo Agent Platform, GitLab Orbit, and GitLab Secrets Manager, with free credits. Request access to the security sprint offer.
Oct 28 · 00:00·GitLab