LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Pfizer Inc said it has ended trials of PF-3512676 in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy as a treatment for lung cancer.The company said this includes two Phase 3 and two Phase 2 clinical trials.Pfizer said an interim analysis of the Phase 3 trials by an independent data safety monitoring committee (DSMC) showed there was no evidence that PF-3512676 produced additional clinical efficacy over that achieved with the standard cytotoxic chemotherapy regimen alone.’The DSMC concluded that the risk-benefit profile did not justify continuation of the trials,’ the company said.Pfizer said it licensed PF-3512676 from Coley Pharmaceutical Group Inc in 2005.tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.comwjCOPYRIGHTCopyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.
China’s Timeshare Media plans US listing – report
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) – Timeshare Media, a China outdoor advertisement agency, is planning a US listing, China Business News reported citing sources from the potential IPO underwriters.
The report quoted UBS and Morgan Stanley sources as saying that they are in talks with Timeshare Media for the underwriting mandate.
Timeshare Media received venture capital of 20 mln usd from Carlyle Group in November and is expected to raise another 30 mln this year in another round of funding from Carlyle.
(1 usd = 7.62 yuan)
susan.wang@xfn.com
Cameras may watch you take tests online
(AP) – New technology will place cameras inside students’ homes to ensure that those taking exams online don’t cheat.
This fall, Troy University in Alabama will begin rolling out the cameras for many of its approximately 11,000 online students, about a third of whom are at U.S. military installations around the world.
The device, made by Cambridge, Mass.-based Software Secure, is similar in many respects to other test-taking software. It locks down a computer while the test is being taken, preventing students from searching files or the Internet. The latest version also includes fingerprint authentication, to help ensure the person taking the test isn’t a ringer.
But the new development is a small Web cam and microphone that is set up where a student takes the exam. The camera points into a reflective ball, which allows it to capture a full 360-degree image. (The first prototype was made with a Christmas ornament.)
When the exam begins, the device records audio and video. Software detects significant noises and motions and flags them in the recording. An instructor can go back and watch only the portions flagged by the software to see if anything untoward is going on — a student making a phone call, leaving the room — and if there is a sudden surge in performance afterward.
The inventors admit it’s far from a perfect defense against a determined cheater. But a human test proctor isn’t necessarily better. And the camera at least ‘ensures that those people that are taking classes at a distance are on a level playing field,’ said Douglas Winneg, Software Secure’s president and CEO.
Troy graduate students will start using the device starting this fall, and undergraduates a year later. Software Secure says it has talked to other distance learning providers, too. A potential future market is the standardized testing industry, which has struggled to find enough secure testing sites to accommodate growing worldwide demand for tests like the SAT college entrance exam and the GMAT for graduate school.
An estimated 3.2 million students were taking online classes in the fall of 2005, according to the most recent figures from the Sloan Consortium, a group of online learning providers that studies trends in the field, and that figure is almost certainly substantially higher today.
But many distance learning providers do very little testing, including some of the largest, for-profit ones such as the University of Phoenix, Capella University and Walden University. Officials at all three schools said they rely mostly on student writing assignments. They say that’s the best method to assess their students, most of whom are working adults.
Still, they need to be thinking about assessment. The military, whose tuition assistance programs are a huge source of revenue for online universities, is asking questions about testing to make sure students are earning credible degrees, Winneg said. Distance learning programs also need to keep their accreditation agencies happy, as well as Congress, so that the programs can continue to receive federal financial aid dollars.
At Troy, like at many distance learning programs, past testing options have been less than ideal. One was to line up a proctor from a list of acceptable exam monitors such as clergy or commanding officers.
‘We just assumed and hoped the proctor would follow the instructions,’ said David White, direct of the Southeast region for Troy. ‘In some cases they did, and probably in some cases they didn’t.’
The other was to arrange proctoring with a testing company and travel to one of their centers. But that was inconvenient for many students — and, of course, impossible for soldiers in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The device will cost Troy students $125, White said.
Richard Garrett, a senior research analyst at Eduventures who closely follows online learning, said he finds the technology promising, particularly for large companies trying to streamline a now-messy part of their operation.
‘The great unknown is, ‘Will it be seen as too invasive?” he said.
Clearly, it won’t be a good idea for everyone. Stephen Slavin, dean of corporate and professional education at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, said his institution is always looking at new technologies, but recording students by camera ‘would be probably pushing the boundary of our comfort level.’
White predicts some students will find it odd and even threatening, and may decide to drop out. ‘I think there will be some people who won’t take any more courses with us because they feel like during the test they are being watched,’ he said.
But he insists that’s OK because it will improve the credibility of a Troy degree.
For Sandra Kinney, a state employee from Stockbridge, Ga., pursuing a master’s in public administration and one of the students on Troy’s trial run, having a camera in her home was no big deal. It was worth it not to have to drive to an exam center.
‘For me in Atlanta, it outweighs sitting in two or three hours of traffic,’ she said.
Once, that traffic made her an hour late to an exam.
‘At that point I was like, there’s got to be a better way.”
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Google to build data center in Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Google Inc. will build a $600 million data center in western Iowa, Gov. Chet Culver announced Tuesday.
The Internet leader has already begun construction on a 55-acre site in Council Bluffs, across the Missouri River from Omaha, Neb. The center is expected to create about 200 jobs with an average salary of about $50,000.
‘In making its decision, Google recognized what we in Iowa have known all along — our workforce and quality of life is second-to-none,’ Culver said in a statement.
The center, which will be part of Google’s worldwide network of such centers, is expected to open in the spring of 2009 at the Council Bluffs Industrial Foundation’s new business park. It will house computers that run the search engine’s services.
There is plenty of room for expansion at the site, as Google purchased about 1,185 acres, according to state economic development officials. Google has said it is particularly interested in the central region of the United States because it is a crossroads for Internet activity.
In an effort aimed at attracting Google, Iowa lawmakers last session passed a bill that would exempt electricity and capital investment requirements from sales tax for computer-related businesses.
Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, who helped push the measure through the Legislature, said it was exciting to see Iowa attract a cutting-edge company that could bring similar businesses to the state.
‘I really think that this is just the start of these server-type businesses, and Google’s decision to come to Iowa is probably going to lead to other server companies coming to Iowa,’ he said.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company will get a property tax break through 2024, but will end up paying about $65 million in property taxes over the next 15 years. State economic development officials said that is the equivalent of the property tax collected annually from 3,771 homeowners based on numbers from 2000.
Google also will pay an estimated $6 million in sales taxes over the next couple of years as it purchases building materials, and will spend hundreds of thousands on electricity franchise fees.
The company said it is trying to use local vendors and suppliers whenever possible, spreading the economic impact of the new center throughout the western Iowa community.
‘We look forward to joining the community and are grateful for the support from the state and local governments throughout our evaluation process,’ Paul Froutan, director of operations for Google said in a statement.
Bob Mundt, president and CEO of the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that the community has been hoping to attract new businesses.
‘I think it demonstrates that all the hard work the community has put in to make Council Bluffs an attractive place for business has paid off,’ he said.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Private firms get half U.S. Colombia aid
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – American officials always planned to have Colombians take over the tasks of fighting cocaine traffic and leftist rebels under the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia aid package.
But seven years after it began, about half the U.S. aid goes to private U.S. contractors, according to a U.S. State Department report, and critics say that raises questions about whether Colombians will be able to continue the campaign when the U.S. support finally ends.
The State and Defense departments spent about $300 million on private contractors in 2006, just under half of the roughly $630 million in U.S. military aid for Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside of the Middle East and Afghanistan.
In 2002, private contractors got about $150 million of the roughly $400 million destined for Colombia’s security forces.
‘We need to be working ourselves out of a job in Colombia but these contracts are creating dependency on U.S. contractors and are not helping build a sustainable or peaceful Colombia,’ said Rep. Sam Farr, Democrat of California.
The past decade has seen a major increase in U.S. government use of military contractors around the world, with billions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it was in Colombia that the policy got its trial run.
‘The drug war in general, but Colombia in particular, was the testing ground for the use of military contractors,’ said Adam Isacson, an analyst with the liberal Center for International Policy think tank.
Last year, Virginia-based Dyncorp, whose pilots fumigate coca fields with armored crop dusters, took in $164 million for work in Colombia, according to the recent State Department report. That was double what Dyncorp got in 2002.
Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, which does much of the maintenance for Colombia’s air fleet, saw the value of its contracts more than triple over the same four years to about $80 million.
Critics were already questioning the effectiveness of U.S. aid in Colombia. Despite record drug eradication efforts — the bulk of it carried out by the contractors — a U.S. survey earlier this month found coca planting in Colombia rose for a third consecutive year in 2006.
Many are also asking why private U.S. companies are still performing functions they were supposed to be training Colombians for.
‘The Colombians should assume more responsibility,’ said Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate subcommittee on foreign aid. ‘With the right training they could do the job better and cheaper.’
Dyncorp did not return telephone calls seeking comment and a spokesman for Lockheed Martin referred inquiries to the State Department.
Former President Andres Pastrana, who helped design and oversee Plan Colombia’s start, said the contractors have provided needed expertise.
‘In aviation, when Plan Colombia began seven years ago, we were starting from practically nothing, and we have managed to build up this impressive program,’ he said in an Associated Press interview. ‘It takes a lot of time to train pilots and mechanics.’
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Colombia wants to ‘take more control of Plan Colombia. We think we can do it cheaper and more efficiently.’
Back in 2003, then-U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said: ‘There is the feeling in Washington that we will not be here forever and that we should begin to ‘Colombianize’ the projects as quickly as possible.’
A 2002 report detailing Dyncorp’s mission explained that a ‘primary responsibility’ of contractors was to train Colombians.
A U.S. Embassy statement suggested that the figures could be misleading. It said some projects have grown without an increase in costs because ‘the Colombian army is taking more responsibility for their systems.’ But increased eradication missions have left little time for training, the State Department said.
Some contractors have even come under fire. In 2003, leftist rebels killed an American contractor whose U.S. surveillance plane crashed and captured three others, who remain captives.
The outsourcing has extended even to helping rescue them.
Last year, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary earned some $50,000 for ‘in-country support to the continuing investigation and activities associated with the safe, speedy recovery, and return of the three American hostages.’
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Louisiana: Monroe’s KNOE-TV sold
MONROE, La. (AP) – KNOE-TV, founded in 1953 by former Louisiana Gov. James A. Noe Sr. and still owned by his family, is being sold to Dallas based-Hoak Media Corp., Noe Corp. president George Noe said Wednesday.
Terms of the purchase, which is expected to close in the third quarter, were not disclosed. The deal requires approval of the Federal Communications Commission.
‘This is a bittersweet day for the Noe family,’ George Noe was quoted in a news release. ‘While we as a family agreed that we wanted to sell this asset, we are sad that our 54-year stewardship of KNOE-TV is coming to an end.’
KNOE-TV went on the air in September 1953. James Noe was serving as Louisiana lieutenant governor in 1936 when Gov. Oscar K. Allen died. He served as governor for five months. Noe died in 1976.
Hoak Media owns 19 stations in Lincoln-Hastings and North Platte, Neb.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Fargo, Bismarck, Minot, Williston and Dickinson, N.D.; Wichita Falls, Texas; and Grand Junction, Montrose and Glenwood Springs, Colo.
The company was formed in 2003 to buy, develop and run radio and television stations in small and medium-size U.S. markets. In some markets it operates more than one station.
Hoak president and chief executive Eric Van den Branden said the KNOE purchase ‘allows our company to acquire a station that is not only top ranked in the market in terms of audience and billings, but also one of the strongest CBS affiliates in the country.’
Noe Corp. also operates KNOE-FM radio in Monroe. The company expects to sell the station in the next few months, George Noe said.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Amway brand on the way back
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) – Quixtar is on its way out. Amway is on its way back.
Direct-sales giant Alticor Inc. confirmed Wednesday it will phase out its 7-year-old Quixtar Inc. label during the next 1 1/2 to two years and rebuild its Amway Corp. name in North America.
There also will be less use of the name Alticor, which represents a holding company.
U.S. employees received the news last week in an internal memo from company Chairman Steve Van Andel and President Doug DeVos, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
The Grand Rapids Press earlier reported on the memo.
‘The realities of a crowded and competitive global marketplace have made us realize that we need to `fly one flag’ to put significant resources behind establishing one opportunity brand wherever we do business,’ the memo said. ‘That brand will be Amway, in North America and all over the world.’
Although no public announcement was made, Ada-based Alticor confirmed the changes Wednesday. No jobs were expected to be eliminated as a result.
The public won’t see the Amway name associated with the company’s North American business for another 18 to 24 months, Van Andel and DeVos wrote.
‘That’s because this is — this has to be — more than just a name change,’ the memo said. ‘We want other key elements of the transformation initiative to be in place before we invite customers in to see the new Amway.’
The company dropped the Amway name in the United States and Canada in 2000 as part of an overhaul that took what had started as a door-to-door vitamin sales business into the world of online sales through Quixtar.
The move also was widely viewed as a way of helping the company shed some of the negative connotations the Amway name had acquired. The Quixtar name, however, never resonated with the public.
‘Research has shown us that the Quixtar name is weaker and less known in the U.S. and Canada than we ever expected,’ the memo said. ‘Meanwhile, even eight years after leaving North America, the Amway name is stronger and better known than we realized.’
The Amway name has enjoyed a resurgence overseas as the company focused on expanding operations under that banner in Asia. Amway China last year accounted for more than $2 billion of Alticor’s $6.3 billion in annual sales.
The Amway name began to re-emerge in the United States last year when the company bought the naming rights to the arena in which Amway co-founder Rich DeVos’ Orlando Magic of the NBA play their home games.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Budapest shares lower in thin trade; emerging markets could suffer risk aversion
BUDAPEST (Thomson Financial) – Budapest shares edged lower in thin morning trade, tracking developments in major markets, as equity investors remain cautious over rising US bond yields.
Local analysts added that riskier emerging market stocks may be among the biggest losers if global equities see a downward correction.
At 11.48 am, the leading BUX index was down 0.1 pct at 26,263.55. By midday trading volume was about one tenth of the daily average.
Blue chips were mixed with MOL and Magyar Telekom edging higher.
MOL was up 0.51 pct at 24,525 forints, trading erratically as oil prices eased ahead of weekly data on US energy stocks.
OTP Bank dipped 0.43 pct to 9,260 forints, after falling 1.1 pct in the last session, bringing the index down with it.
FHB, the state-controlled mortgage bank, edged up slightly, climbing 0.70 pct to 2,300 forints as speculation over a possible buyer for the government’s stake rumble on.
Elsewhere, pharmaceuticals were down, as Richter dropped 0.92 pct to 36,165 forints, and its smaller sector peer Egis dipped 0.05 pct to 21,250 forints.
Richter CEO Erik Bogsch said in an interview that government regulatory changes have cost the industry 25 bln forints so far this year.
Magyar Telekom ticked up 0.11 pct to 950 forints as analysts said that announcements yesterday concerning further integration steps will have little impact on the share price as the most significant measures were already know.
tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com
ek1/jlw
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EU says member states must do more to cut deficits during recovery
BRUSSELS (Thomson Financial) – The European Commission said it is of the ‘utmost importance’ that national governments in the EU use the current economic recovery to improve their public finances, and added that the preventative element of the stability and growth pact needs to be ‘more effective’.
‘Although the budgetary situation has improved remarkably in the last few years, it is quite clear that most member states need to improve their track record in implementing their budgetary targets,’ said Joaquin Almunia, Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner.
The commission said in its report that whilst the corrective part of the stability and growth pact — which enables the commission to fine member states who fail to comply with its requirements — is working, the preventative part ‘is not functioning as well’.
It has therefore set out proposals to change the way governments formulate and apply budgetary strategies over the medium term, and has also called for strengthening of surveillance and coordination of economic and budgetary policies at a European level.
‘The main thrust of the first set of proposals is to broaden the scope of the EU’s fiscal surveillance,’ said the commission, adding that fiscal surveillance should be put into a broader economic perspective, and focus more on internal and external imbalances that may pose a risk to fiscal and economic stability.
It added that there is ‘considerable scope’ for strengthening the link between national budgets and the targets presented at the EU level.
frances.robinson@thomson.com
fr/cmr
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Alcan signs multi-year supply contract for Airbus A350, A380 models
LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Canadian aluminium producer Alcan Inc said it has has signed a new long-term agreement to supply aircraft constructor Airbus with products for the full range of Airbus’ programs, including the A380 and the new A350 XWB planes.
No financial details were disclosed.
Alcan will also supply Airbus’ parent company, the European aerospace and defence group EADS, with aluminium-based products for its range of aerospace applications, the company said.
‘This agreement underscores Alcan’s position as the largest supplier of aluminium products to Airbus and the importance of the aerospace market segment to Alcan’s strong business portfolio,’ said Christel Bories, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alcan’s Engineered Products division.
tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com
jag/tc
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