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Mon. Dec. 17, 2012 Brennan to leave Greenway conservancy The head of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy is stepping down after eight years in charge of the downtown Boston park system, officials annnounced today. Nancy Brennan will leave the conservancy in mid-January to take a job as chief of philanthropy at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Officials with the conservancy said they will soon begin a search for her replacement.	Advertisement
Mass. gas prices fall 5 cents a gallon, AAA Southern New England says The average price for gas in Massachusetts is $3.429 a gallon in the latest weekly AAA survey, down 5 cents from the previous week’s average, AAA Southern New England said Monday. Over the past month, the local average has fallen 16 cents. The current national average is $3.24 a gallon. A year ago at this time, the Massachusetts average price was $3.21.
Sun Life to sell annuity business, a move that will affect its Wellesley operations Canada’s Sun Life Financial Inc., which has a major presence in Massachusetts, said Monday it plans to sell its ailing US annuity business and a small portion of its individual life insurance products to Delaware Life Holdings for $1.35 billion next year. The deal will affect 3oo employees in Wellesley, where Sun Life’s US headquarters is based, and 200 more in Lethbridge, Alberta, and Waterford, Ireland. They are expected to join Delaware Life Holdings, which is owned by shareholders of Guggenheim Partners.
Promedior, a biotech relocating from the Philly area, opens Lexington office Promedior Inc., a biotechnology company relocating here from Greater Philadelphia, has opened new office and lab space in Lexington, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center said Monday. The Bay State’s life sciences “unique resources” were a big reason for the move, Promedior’s CEO said. The company is looking to develop treatments for fibrosis, and it said it has raised a total of $65 million in funding to date.
Staples president Michael A. Miles Jr. plans to resign in February Staples Inc., the office-supply giant headquartered in Framingham, said Monday that Michael A. Miles Jr., president and chief operating officer, will resign from the company, effective Feb. 2. Miles has accepted a position with Berkshire Partners, the Boston-based investment firm. In September, Staples announced plans to turn around its retail business by closing US and international stores, reducing the size of existing shops, restructuring its international business, and shaking up leadership.
CureLab, Canton vaccine firm, plans North Dakota move FARGO, N.D. — Fargo biotechnology company Aldevron has been chosen to produce cancer vaccines being developed by a Boston-area research company that plans to move most of its operations to North Dakota. The DNA-based vaccines have shown promise in animal studies in suppressing lung and breast cancers, the Forum newspaper reported. CureLab Oncology will keep a lab and office in Canton, but plans to move most of its operations sometime next year to North Dakota, possibly to Fargo or Grand Forks, where it also is collaborating with Avianax, a biotech company at the University of North Dakota.
New Ironwood drug for irritable bowel syndrome with constipation is now available in the US Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge and Forest Laboratories Inc. said that Ironwood’s new drug for irritable bowel syndrome with constipation is now available in the United States. The drug is being marketed in the US under the brand name Linzess. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this year as a treatment for adults suffering from irritable bowel syndrome with constipation. (Linzess is a trade name for linaclotide.)
Private equity firm TA Associates makes majority investment in DigiCert TA Associates, a private equity firm with offices in Boston, said Monday that it has completed a majority investment in DigiCert Inc., a provider of enterprise security solutions. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Headquartered in Utah, DigiCert provides online authentication and encryption services to companies, government agencies, financial institutions, and educational and medical institutions worldwide.
Tom Leighton will be Akamai’s new CEO Akamai Technologies Inc., a Cambridge firm that delivers massive amounts of online data for the world’s biggest companies, said that its board has elected company co-founder and chief scientist Tom Leighton to become chief executive, effective Jan. 1. Leighton will succeed Paul Sagan, who announced earlier this year that he intended to step down as chief executive by the end of 2013. Leighton and Sagan will remain Akamai directors, with Sagan becoming a senior advisor to the company. Akamai also announced promotions for Bob Hughes and Rick McConnell.
FDA grants approval for potential ‘blockbuster’ leukemia drug made by Cambridge-based Ariad Federal regulators Friday approved a drug developed by Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. to treat two rare blood and bone marrow diseases, giving the Cambridge biotechnology company the green light more than three months ahead of schedule to sell the treatment in the United States. The once-daily pill, known by its chemical name of ponatinib during years of research and clinical trials, will be marketed under the brand name Iclusig, the company said. It was approved to treat chronic myeloid leukemia and Philadelphia chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia for patients who can’t tolerate, or have developed resistance to, existing therapies.
BioChemics in Danvers, CEO sued by SEC Federal securities regulators on Friday filed civil fraud charges against BioChemics Inc. of Danvers and its chief executive, alleging that they lied to investors in a scheme to raise $9 million.
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