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Title: WEEK IN REVIEW ,  Crain’s New York Business, 8756789X, 8/25/2003, Vol. 19, Issue 34

Performance anxiety

PFIZER INC.’S VIAGRA, THE BLOCK-buster treatment for erectile dysfunction, got its first serious competition in the form of Levitra, which was approved last week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Levitra, made by Glaxo-SmithKline and Bayer, should hit pharmacies within weeks. Eli Lilly s Cialis, another erectile dysfunction drug, is expected to get OK’d by the PDA by year’s end.

2 steps forward, 1 step back

A STATE SUPREME COURT JUDGE declined to issue an injunction to block New York City from selling bonds to refinance debt left over from the 1970s fiscal crisis, saying the legislation providing for the sale appeared to be constitutional. But an appellate judge stayed a temporary restraining order, preventing the city from proceeding until a full panel of judges holds a hearing on the state’s application to block the sale.

Chips down

IBM CORP. IS LAYING OFF 600 EMployees and furloughing 3,000 others for a week without pay as it seeks to cut costs in its money-losing chip-making business. The bulk of the job cuts will affect manufacturing support employees in Burlington, Vt.

Venzon talks, and it listens

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC. and its unions resumed talks last week with a federal mediator; discussions centered on health care COStS and job security. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless sued union officials for paraphrasing the company’s tag line, “Can you hear me now,” during a conference call with journalists. The Communications Workers of America then sued the company for allowing executives to listen to the call.

Bank deal

PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP Inc. agreed to buy Bridge water, NJ.-based United National Bancorp for about $638 million in stock and cash. United National, with $3 billion in assets, operates 52 offices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Domino sours on NY plant

THE DOMINO SUGAR PLANT, A FIXture on the Brooklyn waterfront since the 1880s, is planning to cease refinery operations by February. The company will lay off about 190 workers at the Williamsburg facility. It will maintain some of its packaging and warehousing operations, and the plant’s remaining 60 employees may continue working in those areas or be offered jobs at other locations.

Twinlab’s bitter pill

HAUPPAUGE, L.I., SUPPLEMENT maker Twinlab Corp. said that it plans to sell all its businesses and that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The $138 million company said sales have been declining since November, when it stopped selling weight-loss supplements containing ephedra, which has been blamed for the deaths of some users.

Tying one on

RYE, N.Y.-BASED JARDEN CORP. agreed to buy privately held Lehigh Consumer Products Corp. for $155 million in cash and an additional $25 million in cash or stock, contingent on future performance. Jarden is best known for its Ball preserving jars; Macungie, Pa.-based Lehigh is a rope and twine supplier.

Merck spinoff spun off at last

MERCK & CO. SPUN OFF ITS MEDCO Health Solutions Inc. pharmacy benefits management unit to shareholders, completing a separation it had tried to carry out for a year. Merck’s relationship with Medco has been controversial, since Medco has been accused of favoring Merck drugs over other companies’ products.

Biotech news

MANHATTAN-BASED ANTIGENICS Inc. said that more than half of the patients who took its cancer vaccine Oncophage to treat metastatic colorectal cancer demonstrated “significant im-munological response” in Phase II trials. … The PDA sent Manhattan-based Forest Laboratories Inc. a letter demanding that it stop selling hypothyroidism drug Levothroid. In the late 1990s, the PDA decided that drugs containing levothyroxine sodium, like Levothroid, needed the agency’s approval.

Phishing scam

CUSTOMERS OF CITIBANK WERE targeted in a “phishing” scam in which the company’s corporate logo was appropriated by crooks seeking customers’ personal information via e-mail. Consumers received e-mails directing them to a fake Web Site set up to resemble the company’s site; they were then asked to verify or update sensitive account information.

Schering the pain

SCHERING-PLOUGH CORP. CEO Fred Hassan, brought in 100 days ago to effect a turnaround, slashed the company’s dividend by 68%, warned of a continued profit decline, and said that the drugmaker will eliminate 1,000 jobs in the United States. The Kenilworth, N.J.-based company has seen sales plummet since its patent on allergy medicine Claritin expired two years ago.

B2B chief

PRIMEDIA INC. APPOINTED A MEdia banker as chief executive for its B2B Group. Martin Maleska, whose expertise lies in shopping around media properties, joins the firm from merchant bank Veronis Suhler Stevenson, where he was managing director of business information services.

PHOTO (COLOR): DOMINO EFFECT: After more than a century of operations, the Domino plant in Brooklyn will cease refining sugar and eliminate about 190 jobs by February 2004.

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Source: Crain’s New York Business, 8/25/2003, Vol. 19 Issue 34, p22, 1p

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