GlaxoSmithKline PLC has tabled an offer to take over U.S. drug maker Human Genome Sciences Inc. which values the target at nearly $2.6 billion.
GlaxoSmithKline, which has profit-sharing agreements with HGS on three drugs but a minimal shareholding, said Wednesday it is offering $13 cash per share for the company. A private offer last month by GSK at the same price was rejected by HGS management last month.
GSK said its offer was 81 percent more than the HGS share price on April 18, before HGS disclosed the earlier private offer. HGS shares closed at $14.39 Tuesday on the Nasdaq exchange.
The tender offer, which is a direct approach to the target’s shareholders, will remain open for 20 days. GSK said it hoped to complete the deal on a friendly basis.
GlaxoSmithKline shares were down 0.7 percent at 1,414 pence in early trading.
Human Genome Sciences, based in Rockville, Maryland, has a 50-50 profit sharing agreement with GSK on the lupus drug Benlysta, which won regulatory approval in the United States and Europe last year small personal loans. Benlysta accounted for $31.2 million of HGS’ first quarter revenue of $47.1 million.
The two companies are also cooperating in late-stage development of darapladib, for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, and albiglutide, for type 2 diabetes.
“GSK values the long relationship it has with HGS and has clearly stated its preference to complete a transaction on a friendly basis in a timely fashion,” the company said. “GSK remains willing to meet and review its offer with HGS at any time.”
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Show off a new gadget to your friends or family and inevitably one person in the group will declare, "Soon they’ll just plug these things directly into your brain!" And everyone will laugh, as if they’ve never heard that joke before.
It’s no joke.
An Intel-commissioned white paper released Wednesday on the future of mobile technology concludes that connected devices interfacing with the human brain is an inevitability.
Here’s how the paper’s authors, from consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, put it: "As convergence continues across device types, functions, and capabilities, the melding of mobile technologies directly into the human body becomes the logical next step."
They add: "By harnessing the processing power and capabilities of mobile devices, for example, our biological brain will be augmented exponentially by a digital counterpart."
Don’t expect to plug your iPhone directly into your cranium in the next few years. There’s a few remaining steps on the path toward turning us all into cyborgs.
First, "form factors" need to die. If you can do it on your computer at work, you should be able to do the exact same thing on your smartphone, or even your glasses.
Processor speeds need to continue rising, and computers need to improve their natural-language support so we can interact with our devices like we would with another human being. Also, security has to advance so that devices can recognize their owners, eliminating the need for passwords.
It sounds like far-off sci-fi stuff, but all of those evolutions are in the works today.
Microsoft (, Fortune 500) is starting to show progress on its vision of one converged operating system for all devices. IBM (, Fortune 500) is making incredible strides in its Watson technology that can "understand" natural human language. Google’s (, Fortune 500) latest Android phones can recognize their owners’ faces to unlock their devices, and both Google and Microsoft are working on wearable computer displays.
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So that’s step one: a lag-free operating system that anyone can use intuitively to perform any computing task.
Step two: Interfacing with the body. These kinds of interfaces are already operating in a relatively rudimentary way, with implants and pacemakers. But in its paper, Intel suggests that the link-up will be much more robust.
How robust? Well, have you seen The Matrix?
"With thoughts able to be delivered seamlessly to the cloud and data projected in real time onto our vision … our bodies and minds will become the devices with all of the associated benefits," the paper’s authors write.
You’ll literally be "plugged-in" to the cloud, so your brain will have access to all the information on the Internet. You’ll never again forget a name or miss a meeting. You won’t have to get a routine check-up from a doctor, either, since your gadgets will monitor your vital signs and test your blood for you.
Of course, for every wonderful benefit, there’s an equally scary potential consequence.
Think about all the privacy issues we have today with sites like Facebook. Now imagine giving people the capability to record everything they see and hear and immediately post it to the Internet. The human race could turn into something like Star Trek’s Borg, who can access the entire network and literally knew everyone’s thoughts.
Plus, how would exam-taking work? If people begin to rely on their connectedness like a crutch, can it just be turned off or wiped out for security purposes?
We’d better be prepared to answer these questions, because Intel (, Fortune 500) says it’s coming soon, whether we like it or not.
"While the future is never certain, a future where humans are infused with mobile technology where we are part of the device, our own bodies and brains part of the technology, and where there are no barriers to pure capability, is becoming more believable by the day," Intel’s paper concludes.
The deal is done, and now the reviews are coming in on Anheuser-Busch InBev’s takeover of the Dominican Republic’s national brewer.
The consensus: Smart, but spendy.
Bernstein Research senior analyst Trevor Stirling calls the $1.2 billion deal for a controlling stake in Presidente parent Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana “strategically attractive,” if also “pricey.”
ABI was already in the market - the Caribbean’s second-largest - with its Brahma label, but by combining two competitors, the brewer will now control 99 percent of all beer sales, which will allow them to “restore a healthy pricing environment” (in other words, beer’s about to get more expensive in Santo Domingo). It’ll also give them a strong platform to keep growing in that part of the world.
Stirling was confident in ABI’s ability to cut costs and make the operation more efficient. But he also noted that, at a price that’s 24 times CND’s earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization, the deal was the most expensive beer merger in recent memory (on an EBITDA basis it cost twice what InBev paid for A-B in 2008, for instance) business card.
Fitch Ratings, too, calls the deal “a strategic positive,” and notes that the terms of the purchase mean that ABI could eventually own a 90 percent stake in CND. The Dominican brewer could “benefit greatly from the expertise” at InBev, which has a “great track record of integrating acquisitions and increasing profitability.”
“But at what a price!” wrote Beer Business Daily, which, like several other outlets reports that interest from Heineken drove up the price tag for CND. Still, BBD wrote “La Maquina (The Machine) continues to feed on what acquisitions they can get done out there.”
European officials travel to Washington this week seeking a bigger global war chest to combat the debt crisis as Spain
The U.K. trade deficit widened to the most in three months in February as exports of cars and heavy machinery fell, especially to the U.S., China and Russia.
The goods-trade gap widened to 8.77 billion pounds ($14 billion) from a revised 7.88 billion pounds in January, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median of 18 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a deficit of 7.65 billion pounds. Exports fell 3.4 percent while imports were unchanged.
Prime Minister David Cameron is in Asia this week, leading a trade and diplomatic mission seeking to boost commercial ties with the region. The government hopes exports can bolster the British economy as manufacturers cope with rising unemployment and inflation that
Bank of England policy makers will maintain the size of their bond-buying program next week amid a split over whether the economy needs more stimulus, economists forecast.
The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee led by Governor Mervyn King will hold the target at 325 billion pounds ($521 billion) on April 5, according to all 39 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. They will also leave their key interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent, said all 53 economists in a separate poll.
Divisions have emerged as a surge in oil prices threatens to stoke an inflation rate now in its third year above target while Europe
BERLIN
World stock markets rose Wednesday after Greece indicated a willingness to commit to spending cuts to secure its bailout and moves by Japan’s central bank to support the economy lifted its powerhouse export sector.
Benchmark oil rose above $101 per barrel while the dollar fell against the euro and was steady against the yen.
European shares rose in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.2 percent to 5,912.27 and Germany’s DAX added 1.1 percent to 6,799.65. France’s CAC-40 gained 0.7 percent to 3,399.91.
Wall Street was set to head higher, with Dow Jones industrial futures rising 0.4 percent to 23,893 and S&P 500 futures adding 0.4 percent to 1,353.30.
The gains followed strong advances in Asia. The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo soared 2.3 percent to close at 9,260.34, its highest close since Aug. 5. The surge comes a day after the Bank of Japan announced a further loosening of monetary policy through increased purchases of government bonds, raising hopes the yen’s strength could abate.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.1 percent to 2,025.32. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.1 percent to 21,365.23, its highest finish since Aug. 4. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index closed up 0.3 percent at 4,253.40. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia also rose while Indonesia and New Zealand fell.
Markets found hope in reports quoting Greek government officials as saying party leaders would promise by Wednesday to implement deep spending cuts and other reforms.
That came after talks to extricate Greece from a two-year debt crisis appeared to unravel late Tuesday after European finance chiefs canceled a meeting to discuss a second international bailout for the country.
The meeting was called off after Athens failed to deliver on several demands made by its partners in the euro currency union. Greece needs a $171 billion (euro130 billion) bailout by March 20 to avoid a default that could rattle the world financial system.
The country has already passed some of the deep spending cuts its lenders were demanding but hasn’t really satisfied anyone. Greeks have rioted, saying the cuts are too harsh, and Greece’s neighbors have expressed concern that the cuts are not enough.
Greece also said its economy shrank drastically at the end of last year, and Europe is expected to report Wednesday that the economies of the 17 countries that use the euro shrank 0.4 percent after growing 0.1 percent the quarter before.
Late Monday, Moody’s also downgraded its debt ratings on six European countries, including Italy, Portugal and Spain. Moody’s also said it might cut France, Austria and the U.K. as well.
Japanese exporters rose sharply as the persistently strong yen showing signs of abating on the heels of the central bank’s surprise announcement Tuesday. Mazda Motor Corp. jumped 8.3 percent and Toyota Motor Corp. surged 4.7 percent. Sony Corp. was 5.7 percent higher. Nintendo Co. added 4.5 percent.
But shares of Japanese computer chip maker Elpida Memory Inc. plunged 14.4 percent, after the company said Tuesday that talks were not going well with other companies on investments, loans and partnerships to improve its dire financial conditions.
South Korean technology shares jumped. Samsung Electronics Co. added 5.1 percent while Hynix Semiconductor Inc. gained 5.3 percent.
Mainland Chinese shares advanced with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbing 0.9 percent to 2,366.70, its highest close this year. The Shenzhen Composite Index gained 1.5 percent to 925.99.
A pledge by China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, for China to continue investing in crisis-stricken Europe helped fuel the rally, said Peng Yunliang, an analyst based in Shanghai.
“Trading volume was about 30 percent more than yesterday and investors expect the authorities to boost liquidity,” he added.
Shenzhen-based Dongfang Electronics Co. and Gohigh Data Networks Technology Co. both hit the daily upside limit of 10 percent on expectations that authorities will promote further development of the Internet as a national strategy.
Benchmark oil for March delivery was up 74 cents to $101.48 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 17 cents to finish at $100.74 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.
In currency trading, the euro strengthened to $1.3158 from $1.3095 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar slipped slightly to 78.43 yen from 78.45 yen.
Jim O
BRIDGETON • Officials at the new 60-bed SSM Rehabilitation Hospital hope that it will become a regional center for the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries.
Doug Brewer, president and chief executive of SSM-Select Rehabilitation, says the hospital brings together several services that previously were provided at other SSM sites, and the hospital also has all new equipment to help improve the rehab services offered by SSM.
Brewer said the hospital would focus particularly on helping those with brain or spinal cord injuries, in addition to providing a variety of other rehab services.
The $23 million Rehabilitation Hospital on the campus of DePaul Health Center, 12380 DePaul Drive in Bridgeton, began accepting its first patients this week. The three-story, 66,914-square-foot hospital was built over the past 18 months and has opened on schedule.
“I think we can all agree that this building has exceeded our expectations,” Brewer said at a dedication ceremony last week.
“Yes,” he added, “it’s a beautiful building, but exceptional, compassionate care for patients cannot be faked, and that’s what we’ll strive to provide here.”
The new hospital features these amenities:
• Therapy gyms on the third and fourth floors with ceiling-to-floor windows that provide a panoramic view of nearby interstates 70 and 270 and St. Charles Rock Road. Brewer said viewing the hustle and bustle outside can help stimulate those with certain types of brain injuries and hasten their recovery.
• Private, windowless therapy and consultation rooms for those whose injuries respond best to very little outside stimulation.
• Brightly lit patient rooms and hallways designed to look more like a hotel than a hospital. Large photos of St. Louis-area attractions hang in each patient’s room. Brewer said most patients will be at the hospital for at least two weeks or much longer, so designers tried to make the rooms as inviting as possible without forgetting the facility’s medical mission.
• A large dining area with both indoor and outdoor seating.
• An outdoor ambulation course for patient therapies.
• A courtyard for use by patients and their families.
• Nurses’ stations facing large windows on the nearby therapy gyms and therapy rooms, giving workers a good view and allowing them to respond quickly to any emergencies credit reports free.
The new hospital also houses the SSM Day Institute, a specialized outpatient program for people who are recovering from a traumatic injury or illness but who no longer require 24-hour nursing or acute rehabilitation care.
The hospital opened with about 150 employees and will employ 250 when it reaches full occupancy. SSM Rehabilitation Hospital is operated by SSM-Select Rehab LLC, a joint venture of SSM Health Care-St. Louis and Select Medical, which is based in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
David Chernow, Select Medical’s president and chief development and strategy officer, said he was excited about the new hospital and all of its new equipment and technology.
“But it will be the patients’ experience itself that they and their family members will remember the most after they go home,” he said.
“Our mission is to help them regain their independence. Truly, we will improve their quality of life.”
Chris Gonzalez, the hospital’s director of rehabilitation, said, “One area that will differentiate us is our care of people who have dual diagnoses — a spinal cord injury and a brain injury. Many times when there are traumatic injuries, especially in car accidents, both of these injuries occur.”
The brain injury rehab program is being relocated from St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights to the new hospital. The SSM Rehabilitation network will continue to operate general inpatient rehab programs at both St. Mary’s and St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles.
Dan Blaker, vice president of design and construction for Select Medical, said the new hospital looks in many ways like other medical facilities Select Medical has helped build in recent years.
“We basically incorporated rehab design features that we have incorporated over a number of years at other facilities,” he said.
He said the SSM Rehabilitation Hospital site was somewhat unusual in that it is long and narrow and on a hilltop. So the hospital was built with long hallways to fit the terrain.
Alberici Constructors Inc. was the general contractor on the project, and Stock and Associates were consulting engineers.
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