Profit

NEW YORK - They frolic in empty boxes and stick their heads under faucet streams of water. They dance on tippy-toes and fly through the air with Pop-Tarts. They play piano wearing little frocks and get tickled to distraction to the delight of millions on YouTube. I speak, of course, of the cat stars of the Internet, a place filled with felines and their wacky uploading humans since the dawn of bandwidth. Now, after years of viral viewing, they're coming into their own in lucrative and altruistic ways.

Merck's fourth-quarter profit fell 7 percent as sales of its former best-selling drug Singulair were depressed by generic competition, and the company said Friday that it would delay seeking government approval of a much-anticipated osteoporosis drug. Full-year and fourth-quarter 2012 results were released Friday morning by Merck, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., and has a large facility in West Point, Montgomery County. Shares fell 3.3 percent, to close at $41.83. Singulair, a once-a-day pill for chronic asthma, brought in $5.48 billion in 2011 and followed its quarterly average of about $1.3 billion through the first half of 2012.

Pascal Soriot started as chief executive officer of AstraZeneca on Oct. 1. He has already made top-level management changes and his early observations might foreshadow more shifting in how the British-based drugmaker operates. "We have become a little bit complicated," Soriot said during a conference call with reporters Thursday morning as the company released 2012 fourth-quarter and full-year financial results. Soriot ran a division of Roche before joining AstraZeneca, so he is used to a big company.

D AN ROITMAN, 34, who lives in the Art Museum area, is the founder and chief executive of Stroll. The company has an Internet-based marketing platform that sells audio language-learning products. Stroll has 160 employees and is based at 16th Street and JFK Boulevard. It's one of the fastest-growing companies in the city. Q: How did you come up with the idea for Stroll? A: I started marketing professional-development products, and one subset was language learning. We focused on that, and the business took off in 2002.

The New Jersey comptroller is recommending strengthening the state's ethics laws after an investigation revealed that a longtime Burlington County official misused his position to reap hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nationally recognized farmland preservation program he helped create. Comptroller A. Matthew Boxer said Tuesday that a probe into Chesterfield Township's program revealed that Lawrence C. Durr, a former mayor and planning board member, profited by using "his political influence and insider knowledge to push a complicated development project through multiple governmental hurdles.

Valley Forge-based pharmaceutical wholesaler AmerisourceBergen Corp. said Thursday that its net income increased four percent in its first quarter, which ended Dec. 31, compared to the same period in 2011. Net income rose from $162.1 million to $168.6 million in 2012. AmerisourceBergen also said quarterly revenue rose 5.7 percent from the same period in 2011. The company is one of the three biggest drug wholesalers in the nation and the biggest Pennsylvania company as measured by revenue.

NEW YORK - Apple's profit surge halted in the latest quarter, as a flood of new products, such as the iPhone 5, meant high start-up costs for new production lines. Apple posted net income for the October to December quarter that was flat with the year before. It was the first time in years that Apple didn't post a double-digit earnings increase. The earnings report also made clear that Apple was no longer able to sustain the breakneck sales increases of the last three years, even with a fresh iPhone on store shelves.

US Airways Group, which is in talks with bankrupt American Airlines about a possible merger, said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit more than doubled on stronger demand, fuller planes, and higher revenue. US Airways CEO Doug Parker declined to take questions about a potential merger, citing a nondisclosure agreement that prevents the parties from commenting. Excluding onetime items, earnings more than doubled to $46 million, or 26 cents a share, from $21 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier.

The New York Knicks have surpassed the Los Angeles Lakers as the most valuable team in the NBA, according to Forbes' annual study. Boosted by renovations to Madison Square Garden, the Knicks' value increased 41 percent to $1.1 billion. The Lakers were second at $1 billion. The report, released Wednesday, estimated the average NBA team's value at $509 million, a 30 percent increase from last year. The Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, and Dallas Mavericks round out the top five.

Stapeley, a Germantown retirement community founded by Quakers in 1904, lost $5.7 million over five years through the first half of 2010 and needed an outside rescue. Stapeley's board sought help from Quaker organizations, such as Friends Services for the Aging and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, but neither was willing, according to records of a Quaker meeting. Urged to look beyond the Quaker community, Stapeley's board found Wesley Enhanced Living, a nonprofit Hatboro operator of retirement communities with United Methodist roots, which took over Stapeley on April 1, 2010.