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Category Archives: news

  • Raleigh's Salix merges with Italian drug company

    Raleigh’s largest home-grown pharmaceutical company, Salix Pharmaceuticals, will merge with a subsidiary of Italian company Cosmo Pharmaceuticals.

    After the merger is complete, Salix (Nasdaq: SLXP) shareholders will own 80 percent of the new company, called Salix Pharmaceuticals, plc, with Cosmo shareholders owning 20 percent. Cosmo shares are traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the symbol “COPN”. Officially, Salix will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Irish-domiciled Cosmo Technologies…

  • How a revamped Apple operates under Tim Cook vs. Steve Jobs

    As Apple makes moves like a massive $100 billion share buyback and relaxes its traditionally granular focus to launch new product categories, the company’s famed “Think Different” mentality built by Steve Jobs is taking on a new meaning under CEO Tim Cook.

    That’s the thesis of a Wall Street Journal piece that parses the differences in leadership between the two Apple chiefs, highlighting its largest acquisition since 1997 when it paid $3 billion to buy Beats Electronics Co. and the simmering down…

  • New guidance shows Lenovo is an increasing thorn in Samsung's side

    Samsung is feeling the pain as cheaper Chinese rivals – Lenovo among them – snatch market share.

    The Korean firm issued a weak quarterly earnings guidance Tuesday that makes it very likely it will be reporting the worst results in two years. Specifically, the smartphone maker anticipates a profit of about $7.1 billion for the three months ending in June, a decline of 24 percent from a year ago.

    And that has analysts saying Samsung may need to slash prices.

    Recent predictions from research…

  • Insurance group to close Morrisville call center, lay off 107 people

    A Morrisville call center office for global insuance company QBE North America will be shutting down by next March, per a WARN notification sent to the state Department of Commerce this week.

    The move will eliminate about 107 jobs in Morrisville, according to the WARN notice. Most of the jobs are related to positions in customer care, loss draft representatives and their supervisors.

    QBE’s corporate legal counsel Bruce Larson in his letter to the state did not specify why the Morrisville office…

  • For-profit hospitals learning what nonprofit hospitals already know

    For-profit hospitals seem to be entering a game that nonprofit hospitals in the Triangle have already long been playing: Urgent Care.

    Health care experts nearly unanimously agree that one of the big drivers of health care costs in the United States has been from emergency room visits for non-emergent reasons. People get bumps, bruises or minor cuts and go to the emergency room, which is really meant for major incidents. Because these ERs have such expensive equipment – useful for major injuries,…