The pandemic has accelerated innovation across industries—particularly in health care

Fortune is returning to a full slate of live conferences this year, starting in just a few weeks with our Brainstorm Health event in Marina del Rey, Calif. (May 10-11). The pandemic has turbocharged innovation at the nexus of health, science and technology, and this event provides an inside look at where the revolution is headed. 

The conference is by invitation only, but CEO Daily readers get special consideration. Shoot me a note if you are interested.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla will kick it off, describing how the lessons learned in the extraordinary vaccine “moonshot” (also the title of his book) can be applied to other big health problems. Abbott CEO Robert Ford will be there, talking about the future of wearable health devices. (The company recently launched Lingo, which tracks glucose, ketones, lactose and alcohol—well beyond the still-amazing capabilities of my Oura ring.) Cigna CEO David Cordani will talk about leading-edge innovations in telehealth and mental health which are making health care more accessible, and more focused on outcomes.

And Erik Lefkofsky, the founder and CEO of Tempus, will show how A.I. and machine learning are transforming diagnostics and therapeutics. Also on hand will be a covey of other CEOs including: David Ebersman of Lyra Health, Kristi Henderson of MedExpress, Kate Ryder of Maven Clinic, Michelle McMurry-Heath of BIO, Nick Stefanizzi of Northwell Direct, Gordon Sanghera of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Florian Brand of Atai, Neil Markey of Beckley Retreats, Patrick Collison of Stripe, Marlow Hernandez of Cano Health, Dean Bitan of Imagene AI, Tammy Sun of Carrot Fertility, Adrian Aoun of Forward, Paolo Pirjanian of Embodied, and more. A rout of VCs and a dazzle of doctors also will be on hand, including Stanford Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor.  

The mind-stretching program was put together by our fabulous four co-chairs:  Dr. David Agus, Arianna Huffington, Siobhan O’Connor, and Fortune’s Erika Fry. IBM Watson Health is founding partner for the event—and general manager Paul Roma will be with us. Salesforce and Bristol Myers Squibb are partners, and Stanford Medicine is our academic partner. More information here.

Other news below.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

Correction, April 4, 2022: A previous version of this newsletter misspelled the surname of Tammy Sun.

TOP NEWS

Stocks on the rise

Stocks in Europe are gaining in Monday morning trade, and U.S. futures are flat. That's after a mixed start to the week in Asia. Amazingly, last week's rally in equities erased all of the losses triggered since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. CNBC

Shanghai lockdown

Chinese stocks are treading water in Shanghai this morning even as officials begin locking down the city's 26 million citizens to begin an epic compulsory testing program to combat a COVID outbreak there. It's the biggest forced pandemic-related shutdown in two years, and it's hitting local factories and businesses hard, including Tesla's production operations in the Chinese financial hub. The EV maker now plans to suspend production for four days. Fortune

War, by another word

HSBC is under fire today following a Financial Times report it's been scrubbing client notes of any mention that the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine amounts to war. The W-word is instead being routinely changed to read "conflict," two sources tell the FT. That edit policy has set off an internal debate at the banking giant, which has deep business ties with Russia. Financial Times

Biden budget

President Joe Biden, back in the States following his four-day European tour, is expected to unveil a budget proposal today that contains a potentially significant change to the U.S. tax code: a minimum tax of 20% on households whose net worth exceeds $100 million. Fortune

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

Media crackdown

On Sunday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy conducted an extensive interview with Russian journalists in which he accused the Kremlin of seeking to destroy Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine. The interview prompted Russia's communications watchdog to warn domestic media outlets that they are not to report on the contents of Zelenskyy's comments. Reuters

Black box: found

A second black box has been recovered from the crash site of the doomed China Eastern Airlines flight that killed all 132 people on board. The devices precisely record over 1,000 performance data details, including airspeed and altitude, and investigators hope it will reveal further clues about what caused the crash. Wall Street Journal. 

VPN nation

There's been much made of Vladimir Putin's efforts to create a "splinternet," or a hived-off internet that effectively cuts Russians off from the outside world. Virtual private networks though are helping Russians get around the blockade, even as the Kremlin cracks down on citizens who attempt to access banned sites and social media outlets such as Google News and Facebook. One such VPN provider, Canada-based Windscribe, has even waived subscription fees, the CEO tells Fortune's Grady McGregor. Fortune

This edition of CEO Daily was edited by Bernhard Warner.