Wednesday, May 6, 2026
In today’s digest, congestion pricing funds asthma care, a change to your bagel, and AI speeds up drug recovery. 💊🤖
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Dollars generated through the congestion pricing toll are now flowing into Bronx asthma care, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani announcing $20 million for school-based case management and community programs in neighborhoods still facing high childhood asthma rates. 🫁 (Patch)
The money comes from the MTA’s $100 million congestion pricing mitigation plan, which is aimed at communities hit hardest by pollution and health inequities.
The city will add 15 Bronx schools to its asthma case management program and replace a paper-based medication system with an electronic platform before the 2026–27 school year.
A new analysis says the state Labor Department miscounted home healthcare jobs, and NYC actually added about 22,000 jobs last year, not lost 20,000, after adjusting for distorted home care data. 📊 (The CITY)
While that job increase was slower than in recent years, it was considerably better than the national jobs increase in percentage terms.
That matters for everything from economic development planning to tax revenue forecasts, especially as officials watch slower job growth in leisure, hospitality, and construction.
A New York slice or bagel might taste a little different soon. State lawmakers approved a bill that would ban potassium bromate, a dough conditioner used in some commercial flours to make dough more consistent. 🥯 (Time Out New York)
Supporters cite health concerns around the additive, which is already banned in California, Canada, and the European Union.
Others argue it stabilizes the dough and keeps that bagel tasting great regardless of weather conditions.
In other reading:
The unspoken ‘rules’ for how to behave in parks, according to New Yorkers (Gothamist)
A free mobile cat therapy pod is landing near Washington Square Park this week (Time Out New York)
The state of small business operating conditions in New York City (Manhattan Chamber of Commerce)
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AI Is Giving Drug Discovery a Speed Boost
Drug discovery has long been slow, expensive, and failure-prone. But new AI tools are starting to speed up how researchers design molecules, test candidates, and improve manufacturing.
💊 The pharma race: Drug companies are investing heavily in AI to address drug development’s 90% failure rate.
Eli Lilly expanded its Nvidia partnership into a $1 billion, five-year collaboration, and the company believes that LillyPod, their Nvidia supercomputer, is the most powerful in the industry.
Recursion, the first biopharma to build an Nvidia supercomputer, used AI to design an experimental cancer drug in about 18 months, compared with an industry average of about four years.
Japanese drug maker Astellas used AI to perfect its experimental pancreatic cancer drug.
Right in our backyard: NYU researchers recently helped develop PropMolFlow, an AI method that designs molecular candidates faster while keeping results chemically valid.
👉 PropMolFlow designs molecules backward, starting with desired properties and generating structures that could match them.
The method can generate molecular candidates roughly 10 times faster than existing approaches.
It cuts the process from about 1,000 computational steps to roughly 100.
⚠️ Yes, but: The clinical proof is still developing, and there’s not yet definitive proof that AI improves clinical trial outcomes.
Much of the AI payoff for drugmakers has been streamlining back-office tasks and speeding up manufacturing.
Still, experts estimate AI could save the U.S. pharma industry about $90 billion over the next five years,
🚀 The big takeaway: AI is not replacing the hard science of drug development, but it is compressing key steps from molecular design to manufacturing.
In other reading:
It’s never been easier to do too much (Fast Company)
Research: Why you shouldn’t treat AI agents like employees (HBR)
Writers are going to extremes to prove they didn’t use AI (Wall Street Journal)
Grow-NY’s Food & Agriculture Startup Competition, focused on growing an enduring food and agriculture innovation cluster in New York. Finalists will pitch their food and agtech business ideas for a chance to win up to $1 million. Apply here by May 15.
Apply for the Best Places to Work in NYC, a free initiative designed to recognize organizations that excel in workplace culture and employee satisfaction. Eligible companies with at least 15 employees and one year in operation can participate and gain valuable employee feedback while earning recognition as an employer of choice. Appy here by May 22.
The Tech Week team has a list of companies open to co-hosting events in their offices/venues for NY and Boston Tech Week, a great way to reach customers, find co-hosts for Tech Week events, and increase your footprint at Tech Week. Apply to be a venue partner here.
CUNY 2x Tech’s NYC Tech Talent Pipeline Residency Program, connecting high-potential Computer Systems Technology students with NYC-based employers for 10-week, full-time internships focused on software engineering and data analytics. Employers, express interest here.
HubSpot’s How You Hustle, where you and your business could be featured and receive free press exposure to their 1.5 million subscribers. Apply here.
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership’s Living Lab is seeking innovative technologies that address operational and quality-of-life challenges in urban parks and public spaces. Participants will use DBP-operated streets and plazas as real-world testing grounds for their technologies. Apply here.
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