Pfizer

As strip shopping centers go, Gateway Plaza in West Chester is as uninspiring as most. But when you're killing time on a Sunday morning waiting for the pizza you ordered, there's no telling what passes for entertainment. Greg Brandner had just placed his order at Domino's on East Gay Street about a year ago when a storefront in Gateway caught his eye. Rather than manicures or almost anything for $1, the store - its logo a yellow lightbulb - was selling "bright ideas. " The Marketing Department is a unique franchise selling (with no appointment necessary)

In the Region Pa. jobless rate at 7.8% Pennsylvania has reported the biggest monthly drop in joblessness in nearly 30 years. The state Department of Labor and Industry said the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent in November from 8.1 percent, the largest drop since 1983. The national unemployment rate is 7.7 percent. - AP Constar to cut 80 jobs Constar International L.L.C. , a plastic-container maker with headquarters in Trevose, said that by Jan. 31, it would close a soft-drink container facility in Jackson, Miss., putting 40 employees out of work.

A big slice of the U.S. prescription-drug market will change Wednesday, when Lipitor, the world's best-selling drug, gets generic competition. Black Friday-like rushes on pharmacies are not expected, but the change, at least in theory, will lower prices for patients trying to lower their cholesterol. The drug still requires a doctor's prescription. Ian Read, chief executive of Lipitor's maker, Pfizer Inc., said recently that the company hoped to create a nonprescription version.

A 312-acre tract in East Goshen Township that recently was the proposed site of a pharmaceutical company's world headquarters will apparently remain much as it is now - lush, open and green. Applebrook Farm, owned by Pfizer Inc., will become a park and golf course with a small amount of residential and commercial development under an agreement expected to be announced today at the Chester County Board of Commissioners' meeting. The agreement calls for $5 million in public funds and $15 million from the private sector.

The good news is that some pharmaceutical companies now disclose payments they make to doctors for speaking engagements or consulting and to researchers, hospitals, and other medical institutions for clinical studies. The bad news is that each company discloses the information differently. That will change as part of the overhaul of the nation's health insurance system, but we won't see the results of that until 2013. For now, we'll need to make do with nonstandard disclosures, such as those released by GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C.

A group of baseball boosters has visions of a minor-league diamond in an abandoned industrial site in West Chester. The Turks Head Stadium Alliance on Tuesday described some details of its proposed stadium, before key parts of the estimated $40 million plan were officially in place. The group was nudged to go public when State Sen. Andrew E. Dinniman (D., Chester) added a $20 million request for a matching grant to the state's pending capital budget last week. Many significant obstacles remain before the sounds of cracking bats could fill the 32-acre site in the southeastern part of the borough.

INDIANAPOLIS - Birth-control pills are known to be nearly 100 percent effective when taken properly, but a recall of the drugs could send a shudder through women of childbearing age. A manufacturing mix-up by Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, led to some packets being distributed with the pills out of order. That means a patient could have unknowingly skipped a dose and raised her risk of an accidental pregnancy. Pfizer has recalled about one million packets of Lo/Ovral-28 and its generic equivalent, but the company estimates that only 30 packets were flawed.

Prescription painkillers have surpassed cocaine and heroin as the leading cause of death in drug overdoses, which is why the Food and Drug Administration said Monday that pharmaceutical companies must finance educational programs for doctors in hopes that greater knowledge will help curb the abuse. The opioid painkillers, also known as narcotic or opioid analgesics, are a class of drugs that includes oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone. More than 20 drugs companies make them, including Endo Health Solutions Inc., Pfizer, Inc. and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., which have operations around Philadelphia.

One of Chester County's most desirable pieces of real estate, a 312-acre slice of lush open space between West Chester and Paoli, may become the new world headquarters of Astra Pharmaceuticals L.P. if the company is able to strike a deal with local officials. Astra's facilities planning director, Charles Manula, said the company had signed a nonbinding letter of intent with Pfizer Inc. to buy Applebrook Farm. The farm was the home of SmithKline Beecham PLC's animal health care division before it was sold to Pfizer in 1995.

"It's as public as Paris Hilton porn movies. " - Steven Salbe, Ponzi scheme victim, on publication of a 163-page Bernard L. Madoff client list "Barring a miracle, I don't see how they make it. " - U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), on Chrysler L.L.C. "We are facing a shortfall of about $2.5 trillion. The package will mitigate the gap; it is an amelioration, not a solution. " - economist Paul Krugman, on the federal stimulus "But what gets people upset - and rightfully so - are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.