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“We’re dividing up the haves and have-nots in Arizona,” said Farley. |
Democrats also complained the legislation lacks “means testing” to focus the dollars on students from low-income homes. |
Worsley said he could not get supporters to go along with that. But he said there is a provision which says students from homes where income is less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level — about $50,440 a year for a family of three — would get vouchers that are worth 10 percent more. |
He also said his amendment also adds something that does not exist now: a form of accountability. Schools that accept at least 50 students who are using vouchers will have to administer the same kind of achievement tests now required of students in traditional public and charter schools and make the results public. |
After the announcement, Biogen lost its bragging rights as the state’s most valuable biotech to Vertex Pharmaceuticals. |
Investing in biotech stocks is not for the faint of heart. |
Stomach-churning price drops are routine when a drug trial fails or regulators reject a new treatment. |
But what happened to Biogen Thursday was far from routine. |
The Cambridge company watched its stock plunge 29 percent, wiping out $18 billion in market value, after disclosing it had basically given up hope for an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that it — and many of its investors — were betting would be Biogen’s next blockbuster. |
The damage was so bad that Biogen lost its bragging rights as the state’s most valuable biotech to Vertex Pharmaceuticals, whose market cap rose to $46.7 billion by the end of the day as Biogen’s bottomed out at $44.6 billion. |
The Cambridge biotech and its Japanese partner concluded the drug was unlikely to benefit patients. Patients and families with dementia were discouraged by the announcement. |
This is reality for the state’s premier industry, one that employs more than 70,000 at hundreds of companies. Massachusetts is lauded as the biotech hub of the world; nearly every major company involved in drug development has a presence here. But with that comes the white-knuckle roller coaster ride of scientific brea... |
Implosions mostly happen to much smaller companies still working to get their first drug to market. Earlier this month, ImmunoGen’s stock fell 47 percent after the Waltham-based company said its ovarian cancer drug failed to meet targets in a late-stage trial. Karyopharm Therapeutics of Newton lost 43 percent last mont... |
But as bad as it was, Biogen’s blowup isn’t the worst the biopharma world has seen. In August 2016, Bristol-Myers Squibb shed $21 billion in market cap when its best-selling cancer drug, Opdivo, failed in a trial to treat lung cancer. For some investors, the pain was softened by the $16 billion surge in the value of Me... |
Yatin Suneja knew he was going to have a tough day the minute the Biogen news hit the financial wires at 7 a.m. Almost immediately, the e-mail box of the analyst at Guggenheim Securities began filling up with questions from clients: How far is the stock going to fall? Will Biogen buy another biotech to make up the lost... |
“Our traders were calling us, wanting to what’s going to happen,” he said. |
Despite the stock’s violent selloff, the news that Biogen halted two trials of its drug, called aducanumab, wasn’t a bolt out of the blue. So many other drugs for Alzheimer’s have failed that Biogen’s effort was considered a long shot. |
So why did so many investors own the stock? Fear, said Suneja. No one wanted to miss out if aducanumab was a hit. It could have been a home run — a long home run. |
But Suneja had advised investors in February to stay on the sidelines, saying the chance of a big payoff was not enough to offset the risk of big losses. |
What makes biotech investing so particularly volatile is that developing new drugs is a long, expensive crap shoot. Andrew W. Lo and other researchers at MIT estimated last year just under 14 percent of drugs make it from their first round of trials to final FDA approval. And that is the optimistic outlook; other studi... |
The cost of getting a new prescription drug to market is almost $2.6 billion, according to a 2014 study by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. |
But the payoff can be big when a company is successful. Even after Thursday’s drubbing, Biogen’s stock has risen almost 390 percent in the past 10 years, compared with 265 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a benchmark for the biggest US stocks. The Nasdaq Biotechnology index has climbed nearly 430 percent. |
With gains like that, investors are always willing to the roll the dice. Even now, some are wondering if it’s time to jump back into Biogen. The consensus among analysts was no. |
A common measure of a stock’s relative value is the multiple of its price to estimated earnings per share. At its current price of $226 a share, Biogen is trading at a multiple of about eight times earnings. It will take a decline of about 10 percent to put Biogen in the bargain bin. |
“Everyone is trying to understand where the floor is,” said Suneja, the Guggenheim analyst. |
That could take a while. Like I said, not for the faint of heart. |
Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeNewsEd. |
Joan Juliet Buck's 'Price of Illusion' recalls famous friends and glam editing days. |
Peter O’Toole, Lauren Bacall, Federico Fellini, Jeanne Moreau — these were a few of the luminaries Joan Juliet Buck would encounter in her youth. Famous people were a dime a dozen in her parents' social circle. |
John Huston was her father's best friend and her godfather; Anjelica Huston was like a sister. Buck studied dance with a former prima ballerina in the Imperial Ballet. Her first language was French. The family suitcases were from Gucci. There were nannies and chauffeurs. Her upbringing was privileged, peripatetic and e... |
Born in 1948, Buck was the daughter of Hollywood producer Jules Buck, a domineering, troubled man (“My father knew that the key to success was the perception of success”) and Joyce, an actress. The author, who spent her early years in Paris, Beverly Hills and London, could have written a memoir solely on a childhood sp... |
When she lands a dream job at Paris Vogue, her life is enviably glamorous. Yet after being anointed in 1994 and enjoying a successful run, Buck suffered a bizarre, ignominious fall. She was fired and sent to rehab — though she had no addiction problem. She revisits the vicious rumors and backstabbing she suffered, with... |
Years later, Buck finds her way back to the Conde Nast empire — writing features for American Vogue — but the embrace proves short-lived. She is blamed for a tone-deaf piece caused by the poor editorial judgment of others, and is ostracized once again. |
When she is finally excommunicated by the Church of Conde Nast, the event proves humiliating, even maddening. Her identity is shaken to the core. Yet by the end of this exquisitely written memoir, Buck emerges triumphant — perhaps relieved to be in exile. |
Gov. Charlie Baker joins charter school advocates at the State House before they set off to lobby Beacon Hill lawmakers. |
BOSTON -- Gov. Charlie Baker, a strong advocate for charter schools, is using his fiscal year 2017 budget proposal to change the way in which district schools are reimbursed for charter school tuition. |
Baker wants to give district schools an extra $20.5 million next year through the charter school reimbursement formula, for a total of $101 million, with most of the extra money going to poorly performing school districts that have large numbers of charter school students. But the formula would give most districts less... |
The change comes as lawmakers are debating whether to lift a cap on charter schools, a move Baker supports and the state's teachers' unions oppose. Pro-charter school activists are working to put a question on lifting the cap on the 2016 ballot. |
One argument against lifting the cap is that district schools lose money when students switch to charter schools. |
"Folks who expressed this concern should feel some comfort that we're trying to take action and ensure that districts faced with that transition have the resources they need in order to get through it without having to reduce services or infringe on quality," Education Secretary Jim Peyser said in an interview. |
Baker said the extra money shows that his administration is willing to reform the funding formula as part of discussions over lifting the cap. |
"Our proposal with respect to the charter school funding formula is an attempt on our part to acknowledge this is a debate and a discussion that needs to be had, and we look forward to engaging with the Legislature on this," Baker said. "It is certainly our hope we can use this as an opportunity to do what many familie... |
But teachers' unions say that in the long term, the proposed funding formula would hurt them. |
"I think it is more evidence that our governor is not committed to fully funding public education," said Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. |
The funding formula is complex. The basic idea is when a student attends a charter school, the money the state would pay to educate that student is deducted from the amount the state pays the district and instead goes to the charter school. The district is then reimbursed for a portion of that money. The district today... |
However, the state has traditionally not had money to fully fund the reimbursement formula. So for the last two years, the state has only paid part of the first year of reimbursements and paid nothing for the next five years. |
Baker's proposal would change the formula to only provide reimbursement for three years, rather than six years. The formula would give a 100 percent reimbursement the first year, 50 percent the second year and 25 percent the third year. However, the second and third year funding would be reserved for districts that are... |
There are nine districts that fall into this category, including Holyoke and Springfield. More than half of charter school students statewide are in these districts. |
In fiscal year 2017, Baker's proposed budget would pay for the first two years of the funding formula. Peyser said the administration intends to fund all three years of the formula the following year. |
The budget also says that in order to receive the second and third years of funding, a district must submit a plan that shows how it will use the money to maintain and improve the quality of services. |
Baker's proposal is similar, though not identical, to a plan previously proposed by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. |
Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, praised the proposal. Kenan said he hopes the additional money for districts can encourage lawmakers to lift the cap, since the money would offset the impact of creating new charter schools. "We're very encouraged that the governor h... |
Eileen O'Connor, a spokeswoman for Great Schools Massachusetts, a coalition of charter school supporters working to lift the cap, said, "We support the Governor's budget proposal, and urge legislators to take it to heart as they consider legislation that would lift the cap and give 37,000 kids access to great public sc... |
But Madeloni countered that the formula makes lifting the cap less appealing, since it means that districts - particularly those that do not qualify for second and third year funding - would be eligible for less money. |
"I don't even know what to say about a governor who says 'Jeez, we haven't been giving them enough money to begin with, so it doesn't matter if we're not going to continue to have enough money,'" Madeloni said. |
Madeloni said the formula will destabilize districts that are only eligible for one year of funding. |
"If the governor was interested in high quality public education for every child in Massachusetts... he would be talking about fully funding every public school not bleeding more funds from public education," Madeloni said. |
The state Senate is currently trying to develop its own plan for reforming the charter school law and lifting the cap. Asked whether the Senate might go along with Baker's proposal, a spokesman for Senate President Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst, said Rosenberg is still reviewing it. |
TAG: First graders at OES had a blast today at their Sub Zero Ice Cream AR Party! These students earned 20 or more points this school year. Great job 1st grade! |
It’s 9am, and in a small corner of a hotel in Gaziantep, southern Turkey, a group of Syrian activists are huddled together discussing their work in the war-torn city of Aleppo. |
This is not an uncommon scene in Gaziantep, a city playing host to thousands of Syrian refugees. What sets this group apart is the reason I’m here for the next week. Along with Amnesty UK’s chief Kate Allen, we’re working with these activists from the Syrian Institute for Justice (SIJ), trying to help them enhance how ... |
Saeed, the institute’s PR Director, has a warm smile as I approach. Up until today, all our communications had been virtual so it was lovely to finally meet him in person. |
Outlining their work to us, he tells us that the SIJ were established in Aleppo in 2011 by a group of lawyers specialising in human rights, investigations and criminal documentation. |
A number of the SIJ team have come all the way from Syria to attend this meeting, some walking for hours and choosing their routes with great care as they sought to avoid the most dangerous Syria-Turkey border crossing points. These incredibly brave, dedicated activists can go to places within Syria that Amnesty resear... |
The training session we are here to deliver is part of Amnesty UK's Syria “Transition” work. We’re seeking to empower, equip and mobilise brave Syrian activists like these so they can help develop an independent civil society in Syria, taking human rights messages out to a wider audience and all the while being better ... |
For SIJ’s staff, they fully understand, at a professional and a personal level, that deep-seated impunity is one of the key drivers of the Syrian crisis. They understand that too many people in Syria, mainly - but not exclusively - in the Syrian government and armed groups like ISIS, literally feel they can get away wi... |
As we introduce ourselves at the start of the training session, Abdulkader, the institute’s Executive Director, touches on this point and tells me “The institute has expertise and a lot of business, and we hope that we utilise it in the service of justice and respect for the law”. That “business” Abdulkader is referrin... |
The staff and activists at SIJ are restless for change. They’re one of the comparatively rare Syrian groups fully and genuinely using human rights to fight back against lawlessness, against injustice and in support of a Syria where human rights are actually respected and protected. |
It’s an uphill task to say the least. SIJ’s core work involves investigating and documenting abuses on the ground in Syria, regardless of who has committed them. They’re also creating a database with official documents and records to support future prosecutions. They spend a lot of their time highlighting the need for ... |
That modesty is coupled with an ambition to grow their organisation. Abdulkader tells me: “We want to benefit from Amnesty International’s experience and its transition from a local organisation to an international one which has an active role in decision-making”. |
As well as the communications training, Amnesty UK will be assisting SIJ with their strategy and structure so they can become more effective and continue their vital human rights investigations. This brave group of activists are putting all human rights abusers in Syria on notice - one day there will be no climate of i... |
... as well as many others! |
The commitment: Depending on your choice of study, earning your graduate degree can take anywhere from 1 to 8 years. |
The cost: Many college graduates have debt to repay from earning their undergraduate degree. Attending graduate school could mean incurring more loans and debt. |
The location: If you decide not to earn your degree online, oftentimes it will involve you moving to another town, state, or another country. Before you submit your application, ask yourself if living in that area will suit your needs. |
The timing: While some people plan to attend graduate school directly after earning their undergraduate degree, some programs actually discourage it. For MBA programs, the average matriculation age is 27. Many applicants have at least 2-5 years of professional work experience prior to entering a graduate business progr... |
This app is designed to provide easy access for the patients and clients of CheapShots in Florida. With this app you can:One touch call, text and email usRequest appointmentsView our upcoming locationsReceive notifications about.....hospital promotions, lost pets in our vicinity and recalled pet foods. Receive monthly ... |
You are logged in as . Please submit your review for CheapShots. |
Sometimes looking in the mirror can be a bit scary. Particularly if it's for the first time ever. |
French photographer Xavier Hubert Brierre set up mirrors in Gabon to capture the local wildlife interacting with their reflections for the the first time ever. Some animals are curious about their newfound identical twins, while others would rather, um, punch first and ask questions later. |
And of course, there are a few who would just like to sit and admire themselves, much like people. |
A Bermuda delegation attending a high-profile conference for the global submarine cable industry this week will promote the island as a strategic Atlantic landing hub for fibreoptic corridors. |
SubOptic, a triennial event being held from today through Thursday in New Orleans, Louisiana, is the longest running and most comprehensive conference series in the world for the submarine cable industry. |
The four-day summit attracts 800-plus attendees and features presentations by the global industry’s leading experts, including tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. |
“The delegation will be promoting Bermuda as an Atlantic hub for the interconnection of fibreoptic cables that are currently being built by some of the world’s largest tech companies,” said David Burt, the Premier. |
Also attending SubOptic 2019 will be Kevin Richards, BDA business development manager and Jeane Nikolai, director of telecommunications and energy for the Bermuda Government, which is working in partnership with the BDA to progress a national subsea corridor initiative. |
Legislation to create a dedicated fibreoptic corridor will be tabled in the House of Assembly in the next few months with the aim of attracting new cable business and boosting connectivity. |
The effort builds on research overseen by Ms Beck and carried out at the BDA last summer by Notre Dame University’s Thomas Tran and Berkeley Institute graduate Tyrese Coakley whose report indicated an undersea corridor in Bermuda waters could help the island become a hub for trans-Atlantic fibreoptic links. |
Mr Tran, a Kansas native, will attend SubOptic 2019 to present his follow-up white paper on the Bermuda project after it was accepted for peer review. |
More than 97 per cent of the world’s information passes through cables, making them indispensable for connected societies and business centres. Bermuda’s location creates a logical stopover for cables connecting the Americas to Western Europe. |
While the island already hosts three cables, a dedicated corridor would attract more and demonstrate best practice. Branching units from planned cable systems could also create significant infrastructure to satisfy Europe’s new economic substance requirements, supporting IP assets, Ms Beck said, and offer additional ad... |
A few subsea telecoms companies, including Southern Cross Cable Network and Australia-Japan Cable, currently have head offices in Bermuda. |
“It’s a timely opportunity that could help position Bermuda as a point of major strategic benefit to these submarine projects,” Ms Beck said. |
The center fuel tank explosion that tore TWA Flight 800 apart and hurled it into the sea probably was ignited by a short circuit somewhere else in the plane that transferred excess voltage into the tank, federal officials said Tuesday. Although the blast and crash off Long Island on July 17, 1996, destroyed most of the... |
An explosion and fire gutted a synagogue in Syracuse, N.Y., and local and federal agents were attempting to determine whether the building had been bombed. No one was injured. Tension over violence in the Middle East was "in the back of everyone's mind," police Sgt. Joe Sweeny said. The fire that raced through Temple B... |
A backhoe operator accidentally cut into a gas main at a construction site Saturday, setting off an explosion that leveled a building, killed a worker and injured 11 other people, police said. The blast demolished the Penn Furniture Building, which had been undergoing renovations, and shattered windows of buildings wit... |
Equipment containing superheated steam exploded Thursday at a General Electric Co. manufacturing plant, killing one worker and burning two others, one critically, officials said. The cause of the explosion was under investigation. |
A leaking liquid propane pipeline exploded in flames Tuesday, killing one person, injuring three others and leveling 10 homes in this farm town, authorities said. "The houses in that area are completely devastated," said Chris Becker of Middleburgh Telephone Co. "It looks like somebody dropped a bomb." The underground ... |
What about sides? Can't go wrong with cranberry sauce. Learn how to make the perfect sauce below (and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube page for more tips!). |
What do chefs make for thanksgiving? Niki Nakayama loves a little mac 'n' cheese! |
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