Cochlear device gets nod for US
BAIJIU is China’s national drink, much like vodka is to Russia.
Yet, while the latter has become a staple of bars, homes and restaurants abroad, baijiu is either unknown overseas or viewed as undrinkably strong and harsh.
Now major producers are looking to expand into global markets. Here are five things to know about China’s favourite tipple, which may be coming to a bar near you.
It has a resulting wide flavour range, but nearly all baijiu features an intense and complex flavour profile prized by connoisseurs.
Production methods vary but generally involve steaming grains then fermenting them for months after adding a yeast-like substance called “qu”. The fermented grains are then distilled and the resulting liquor is aged, often for years. Laojiao and Wuliangye Yibin, form what’s known as baijiu’s “Golden Triangle”. ducers into larger companies and created production standards.
The official support helped trigger a baijiu boom.
In particular, Kweichou Moutai — now the world’s most valuable spirits company — gained enduring fame when Premier Zhou Enlai and President Richard Nixon raised glasses of it to toast the historic 1972 USChina rapprochement. COCHLEAR is ready to launch its Nucleus Profile Plus Series hearing implant in the US following regulatory approval.
The ASX-listed hearing device manufacturer said yesterday its Nucleus product had been given FDA approval and would launch immediately.
Shares in Cochlear slipped $2.40 cents, or 1.18 per cent, to $201.83 at the end of trade yesterday.
The new implant is designed for routine 1.5 and 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scans without the need to remove the internal magnet and was first made commercially available in Germany in April.
Cochlear’s shares jumped by 7.86 per cent after the European launch and are still up more than 15 per cent so far this year despite subdued trade yesterday.
Cochlear’s interim net profit rose 16 per cent to $128.6 million, but it said in February its growth in US and Europe had slowed.
The company in November announced it would appeal a $268.1 million US district court fine, following a patent infringement lawsuit filed by the Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Scientific Research and Advanced Bionics LLC.