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Tue. Apr. 17, 2012 Edmunds.com: Most hybrid drivers in Boston don’t buy hybrids again Only 38.4 percent of hybrid vehicle owners in Greater Boston opted to buy a hybrid again when they returned to the car market in 2011, said Edmunds.com Inc., a California company that seeks to be online resource for automotive information. The national rate of repeat hybrid buyers was 35 percent. Both locally and nationally, many consumers who had previously bought hybrids are concluding that fuel-economy improvements in conventional compact and midsize cars make those conventional cars a better value than pricey hybrids.	Advertisement
Tax reminder: Procrastinators have only a few more hours Time’s almost up! As of noon Tuesday, procrastinators had another 12 hours to meet the midnight deadline for filing federal and state tax returns. Returns can be filed electronically at irs.gov/efile for federal taxes and mass.gov/dor for state taxes. Or they can be sent by mail, as long as they are postmarked by midnight. You can also ask for an extension through the websites or by mail, but if you owe taxes, you still must pay them by Tuesday midnight.
Richards Barry Joyce will be the leasing agent for SouthField Corporate Center Commercial real estate firm Richards Barry Joyce & Partners has been tapped to be the exclusive leasing agent for the SouthField Corporate Center. The center is part of Southfield, a master-planned, mixed-use development located on the grounds of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station. Boston-based Richards Barry Joyce has been hired by developer LNR Property LLC to be the leasing agent for the commercial component of the project. Southfield has up to 1.7 million square feet of capacity for office, biomedical research, and research-and-development uses.
Ocean Spray breaks ground on Pennsylvania facility Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., the local juice and fruit cooperative with headquarters in Lakeville and Middleborough, broke ground Tuesday on a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania. The $110 million facility, located in Upper Macungie Township, a town in the Lehigh Valley area of the state, will add approximately 165 jobs to an area known for its industrial parks, according to Ocean Spray. Ocean Spray aims to open the new plant in September, 2013.
PerkinElmer launches ‘Ensemble for Biology’ suite of research tools PerkinElmer Inc., a Waltham-based life sciences company, said it has launched an informatics platform that is designed to improve collaboration and workflow for biology research. Such improvements will reduce the time needed to develop new products, in part by giving biologists tools for analysis, screening, and visualization, PerkinElmer said in a press release. PerkinElmer is calling the new product the “Ensemble for Biology” platform.
State Street 1Q profit falls 6.6% on interest rates State Street Corp., the third- largest custody bank, said first-quarter net income on an operating basis fell 6.6 percent as interest rates near record lows eroded income. Profit decreased to $410 million, or 84 cents a share, from $439 million, or 88 cents, a year earlier, the Boston-based company said today in statement. Excluding certain items, 22 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated earnings of 87 cents a share on average.
Alcresta secures $10m Series A round Alcresta, a Newton start-up looking to commercialize enzyme-based nutritional products such as infant formulas, emerged from the stealth mode Tuesday by announcing a $10 million Series A venture capital financing. The financing was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Frazier Healthcare, and Third Rock Ventures. According to Alcresta, nutritional products for infants, adults, and patients with chronic condidtions make up a $33 billion global market.
Kim chosen to head World Bank, extending US monopoly on job Jim Yong Kim was chosen to be president of the World Bank, becoming the first physician and Asian-American to head the lender after emerging markets failed to rally around a challenger to the US monopoly on the job. The World Bank board of directors said Monday it chose Dartmouth College president Kim to succeed Robert Zoellick, whose term ends June 30. A specialist in HIV/AIDS with a Ph.D. in anthropology, Kim, 52, faced rival bids from Nigeria and Colombia.
Becker College team wins MassDiGI video-game contest A team of five Becker College students won the grand prize in the MassDiGI Game Challenge; their winning entry is titled “Nano Swarm,” a game cited for its vivid graphics and the potential to be played on touch-screen devices such as the iPad. In the game, nano bots find themselves imprisoned under the watchful eye of guards wielding machine guns and flame throwers. Game players are tasked with devising a successful bot jail-break. Twenty-eight teams competed over the weekend for the competition’s top prize.
J&J ordered to pay Boston Scientific $40m over stents A Johnson & Johnson unit owes Boston Scientific Corp. more than $40 million in damages for intentionally infringing a patent for coronary stents, a federal judge said in a post-trial ruling. Boston Scientific, a Natick-based medical device company, won about $20 million from Cordis Corp. in a May 2011 jury trial in Wilmington, Del. US District Judge Sue Robinson said in an opinion April 13 that Boston Scientific deserved twice that much.
Mass. gas prices rise another 2 cents a gallon The Massachusetts average price for gas is $3.899 a gallon in the latest weekly AAA survey, up 2 cents from the previous week’s average, AAA Southern New England said Monday. It is the fifth consecutive week of increases. The current national average price for gas is $3.90 a gallon. A year ago at this time, the Massachusetts average was $3.66 a gallon.
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