1. Cancer patients now using mice as personal guinea pigs
Scientists often test drugs in mice. Now some cancer patients are doing the same — with the hope of curing their own disease. They are paying a private lab to breed mice that carry bits of their own tumors so treatments can be tried first on the customized rodents. The idea is to see which drugs might work best on a specific person’s specific cancer. Studies can suggest a certain chemotherapy may help, but patients wonder whether it will work for them. Often there’s more than one choice, and if the first one fails, a patient may be too sick to try another. So hundreds of people have made ‘‘mouse avatars’’ over the last few years to test chemotherapies. But there are no guarantees the mice will help. Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, cautions that the approach should be considered highly experimental. It’s also expensive and time-consuming. Mouse testing costs $10,000 or more, and insurers don’t cover it. It takes several months, so patients usually have to start therapy before mouse results are in. Several labs breed these mice but the main supplier to patients has been Champions Oncology, a company based in Hackensack, N.J.
2. PetSmart fetches $8.7 billion in leveraged buyout deal
PetSmart agreed Sunday to sell itself to an investor group led by the private equity firm BC Partners for about $8.7 billion in the biggest leveraged buyout of a company this year. Under the terms of the deal, the consortium will pay about $83 a share in cash, about 6.8 percent higher than PetSmart’s closing price on Friday and about 39 percent higher than the company’s closing price on July 2, the day before a prominent activist hedge fund unveiled a stake in the retailer. Sunday’s agreement marks the biggest leveraged buyout in a year that has been defined by huge mergers — most of which have been by corporate buyers, not private equity firms. PetSmart operates more than 1,300 pet stores in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
3. Sony Pictures to media: Stop publishing our hacked data!
Sony Pictures Entertainment warned media outlets Sunday against using the mountains of corporate data revealed by hackers who attacked the studio’s computer systems. In a sharply worded letter sent to news organizations, David Boies, a lawyer for Sony, characterized the documents posted online as “stolen information” and demanded that they be avoided, and destroyed if they had already been downloaded or otherwise acquired. The pushback came after a flood of damaging reports about salaries, business negotiations, employee health records, and e-mail conversations about movie stars and filmmakers. One of the most volatile and embarrassing e-mail exchanges featured racially insensitive banter about President Obama’s supposed preference for black-themed movies and prompted public apologies by Amy Pascal, the Sony Pictures cochairwoman, and by Scott Rudin, a prominent producer. Over the weekend, the hackers, who have pressed Sony to withdraw its comic film “The Interview,” were reported to be planning further data dumps by Christmas Day, when the film is scheduled for release. Until now, the data has provided a feast for traffic-hungry websites like Defamer, owned by Gawker Media, and mainstream news organizations like Bloomberg News, which last week posted a story — without citing names — revealing details of employee medical records that were made public by the hackers.
4. Decision to take out federal loans haunts some Sandy victims
Some victims of Hurricane Sandy who took out federal loans in the storm’s aftermath are having a case of buyer’s remorse. Federal rules say loans like those handed out by the Small Business Administration count as aid when homeowners apply for relief grants. But some who took loans say they didn’t fully understand the financial repercussions. Federal officials say the program worked like it should. HUD funds, known as Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery allocations, can be the only lifeline for some disaster victims. Those who are deemed financially capable of repaying the loans don’t eat up relief money that would otherwise go to those with bigger needs. Federal rules were actually loosened last year so that only the amount a homeowner takes in a loan — not what they were approved for — is counted as aid in grant requests.
5. Truckers looking to cash in on fuel savings with higher shipping rates
As shippers of everything from toys to tools enjoy as much as $24 billion in savings from lower diesel surcharges next year, trucking companies see an opening to raise freight rates at a pace not seen in about a decade. The American Trucking Associations calculates that each 1-cent drop spurs industrywide annual fuel savings of $350 million. Diesel last week averaged $2.15 a gallon, down from $2.85 in the last 12 months. About 85 percent of the savings goes to shippers through lower fuel surcharges. That may soften shippers’ resistance to higher rates that trucking companies say they need to cover rising expenses for salaries, health care, and new regulations that limit driving hours. Unlike previous times when fuel prices fell, stronger economic growth is increasing demand for cargo space while drivers are scarce, which spurs higher rates. Large truckers boosted freight prices on average between 3 and 4 percent this year, and they may rise 5 to 6 percent in 2015, Jason Seidl, an analyst with Cowen & Co., estimated in an interview. ‘‘In this environment, the economy is decent and fuel is falling, which is the perfect combination for a truckload guy,’’ he said.