Merck

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Kenneth Frazier, president and chief executive officer of Merck & Co., was appointed Friday to lead an investigation into how Pennsylvania State University officials handled reports of possible sexual abuse of children by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Frazier, a member of the university's board of trustees, will lead the investigation for the trustees, whose governing board promised to conduct an impartial, open, and in-depth inquiry and to release the full findings to the public.

Merck & Co. said Thursday it has revamped its research operations to make them more productive, has started a new four-pronged business strategy to increase revenue and profit, and has some exciting drugs on the horizon. The drugmaker also boosted its quarterly dividend by 4 cents to 42 cents per share this quarter - the first increase since 2004. That was just before Merck pulled the painkiller Vioxx from the market because it increased heart-attack and stroke risk. Merck's shares rose sharply.

When he was 17, Ben Kaneda, his six siblings, and their parents were rounded up and sent to the San Joaquin County (Calif.) Fairgrounds. It was May 1942, about six months after the nation entered World War II, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ordered that Japanese Americans and those of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast be sent to camps guarded by the military. Despite the setback, Mr. Kaneda eventually prospered. On Saturday, Oct. 22, Mr. Kaneda, 86, a developer of pediatric vaccines at Merck & Co. Inc., died of a cerebral aneurysm rupture at Dock Woods, the retirement community in Towamencin Township, Montgomery County, where he had lived since 1995.

Once, small drug firms dreamed of becoming the next Merck or Pfizer . Now, they seem to have lowered their sights to simply being bought by them. On Monday, Adolor Corp. became the latest Philadelphia-area life-sciences firm to return the embrace from a cash-flush bigger company. Exton-based Adolor, which sells a drug called Entereg, will be acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $4.25 per share in cash, plus the promise of up to $4.50 per share more should Adolor meet certain milestones.

In the Region Tengion's shares face delisting Tengion Inc., an East Norriton biotech company, said it received notice that it was in danger of being delisted from the Nasdaq global market stock exchange because the shares' closing bid price was less than $1 for the last 30 consecutive business days. The company has six months to fix the problem by having 10 straight days with a closing price of $1 or more. Tengion said it would consider all options to regain compliance, while also exploring other options for listing the common stock.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first combination drug to treat type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol in one tablet. Merck & Co. Inc.'s Juvisync combines two previously approved prescription medicines in one tablet for adults who need both sitagliptin and simvastatin. About 20 million Americans have type 2 diabetes and many have high cholesterol.    - David Sell

Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. agreed to end a 22-year-old joint venture that sold consumer pharmaceutical products such as Pepcid and Mylanta brands. Both companies have big operations in the Philadelphia are. J&J, through its McNeil Consumer Healthcare division, will pay Merck $175 million, continue to market those products in the U.S. and Canada, and take full ownership of the factory in Lancaster. The new name for that business will be McNeil Consumer Pharmaceuticals Co. Merck still keeps rights to those products outside the U.S. and Canada.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that Merck & Co. has agreed to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to settle alleged violations of federal environmental laws at its pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in Riverside and West Point, Pa. According to an EPA statement issued Wednesday, Merck failed to follow reporting requirements for environmental regulations. It also alleges that Merck discharged pollutants in excess of its Clean Water Act permit. The EPA says Merck has already resolved the alleged violations.