Briefcase
Study goes wrong way for AstraZeneca
Drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC’s big gamble, an attempt to prove its top-selling drug works better than rival cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor, appears to have backfired.
A study meant to show AstraZeneca’s cholesterol drug Crestor prevents plaque buildup in heart arteries better than Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor showed no clear advantage for Crestor.
Two generic versions of Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug for several years, are expected to hit the U.S. market on Nov. 30. Analysts wrote Friday that the study result will make it hard for the British drugmaker to argue patients would fare better on its Crestor than on much-cheaper generic versions of Lipitor.
AstraZeneca shares fell $1.50, or 3.2 percent, to $45.19 in late afternoon trading. The company released preliminary study results earlier in the day.
Bezos’ spacecraft fails during flight
Van Horn, Texas – An unmanned spacecraft bankrolled by Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos failed during a recent test flight.
The vehicle became unstable at 45,000 feet, and ground controllers had to terminate it as a precaution.
“Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we’re signed up for this to be hard,” Bezos wrote in a blog post Friday.
Bezos founded Blue Origin to develop a vertical takeoff and landing rocket ship that would fly passengers to suborbital space. It recently won money from NASA to compete to go into orbit as a space taxi now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.
The mishap occurred during a test flight last week from Blue Origin’s West Texas spaceport. The ultra-secretive company notified the Federal Aviation Administration about the launch and only acknowledged the accident publicly Friday.
Boeing schedules delivery of freighters
Seattle – Boeing Co. said Friday it will deliver the first of its new 747-8 freighters to customer Cargolux on Sept. 19.
Cargolux will take another 747-8 freighter on Sept. 21, Boeing said. The freight hauler has 13 of the 747-8s on order.
Boeing said Aug. 19 it had received safety clearance from the U.S. and Europe for the freighter. The new freighter is 250 feet long – 18 feet, 4 inches longer than the 747-400 freighter.
Murdoch son declines bonus, citing scandal
New York – News Corp.’s 38-year-old heir apparent, James Murdoch, says he’s declining his $6 million bonus for the past fiscal year because of the phone hacking scandal at the British tabloid he oversaw as an executive.
Even without the bonus, he was awarded a pay package totaling $11.5 million in the fiscal year through June, a 31 percent increase from $8.8 million a year earlier, according to an Associated Press review of a securities filing.
“In light of the current controversy surrounding News of the World, I have declined the bonus that the company chose to award to me,” Murdoch, the company’s deputy chief operating officer, said in a statement. “While the financial and operating performance metrics on which the bonus decision was based are not associated with this matter, I feel that declining the bonus is the right thing to do.”
Two-thirds of the bonus for executives is meant to reflect how much the company grew compared with its forecasts, according to the filing. The other third is based on qualitative factors such as contributing to various goals, including non-financial ones.