In brief: WSU to offer degree combining Doctor of Pharmacy, MBA

In a move it hopes will appeal to entrepreneurial-minded pharmacy students, Washington State University is rolling out a new joint degree program.

Students will be able to simultaneously earn Doctor of Pharmacy and Master of Business Administration in four years, the university announced. The  joint degree will be available to students at WSU’s pharmacy college in Spokane and through its extension program at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima. Enrollment will open this summer.

“This collaboration makes the business core curriculum available to our students and allows them to come out of school with the credentials … to not only be outstanding pharmacists but also successful health system leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs,” Linda Garrelts MacLean, an associate dean at the WSU College of Pharmacy, said in prepared remarks.

The MBA portion of the curriculum will be through WSU’s online program and students will have to be accepted separately into the university’s pharmacy and business colleges.

Oil rig owner settles over spill

NEW ORLEANS – A committee of lawyers representing businesses and individuals claiming damages from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill announced a $211 million settlement Wednesday with Transocean Ltd., owner of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

In a separate development, oil giant BP – which leased the rig from Transocean – reached settlements resolving years of complicated spill-related litigation with Transocean, and with contractor Halliburton, which did cement work on the rig before it exploded in April 2010.

Court rulings have put the brunt of responsibility for the disaster on BP. But Transocean and Halliburton also were found to have some responsibility.

The accident killed 11 workers and sent oil spewing into the Gulf for 87 days.

WILMINGTON, Del. – A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Wednesday refused to reopen a disputed auction for the sale of RadioShack’s intellectual property, including trademarks and data on some 67 million customers of the electronics retailer.

Following a hearing Wednesday, Judge Brendan Shannon said he would not second-guess a decision to change an open bidding process at last week’s auction to a call for final sealed bids from three potential buyers.

The auction ended with General Wireless, an affiliate of hedge fund Standard General, declared the winner with a bid of $26.2 million.

While certain issues remain to be resolved, Shannon said he was prepared to approve the sale of the RadioShack brand and other intellectual property to General Wireless, which also is acquiring more than 1,740 RadioShack stores.

Fed: No rate hike in June

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve policymakers largely agreed when they met last month that June would be too early to start raising interest rates, as they debated whether the economy’s winter weakness would fade or persist.

While “a few” Fed officials believed that the U.S. economy would be ready to raise rates in June, they were outnumbered by “many” Fed officials who viewed it as “unlikely” that the economic data would be strong enough to justify a hike next month.

The divergent views were revealed Wednesday in the minutes of the central bank’s discussions at their April 28-29 meeting. The Fed has kept its key rate near zero since December 2008.

The Fed next meets on June 16-17. Many private analysts have pushed the first rate hike date to September or even later given unexpected weakness at the start of this year.