MEDICAL
Nurses strike averted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Brigham and Women’s Hospital returned to its regular routine on Monday, a day of relief tinged with lingering bitterness, after a threatened nurses strike was averted over the weekend. The Boston hospital admitted patients, ramped up surgeries, and rescheduled canceled appointments after a tentative new contract with the Massachusetts Nurses Association was hammered out. The hospital, one of the busiest in the state, had been bracing for a walkout on Monday morning by 3,300 nurses. Instead, nurses walked into the hospital en masse for the morning shift, hugging and smiling. At a press conference, hospital officials lauded the contract deal and declared that Brigham operations would be back to normal by Friday. Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, Brigham’s chief executive, thanked negotiators from the union for bargaining in good faith, striking a markedly different tone from just a few days before, when she said she doubted whether the union truly wanted to reach a deal and avoid a job action. A walkout by nurses would have been the first ever at Brigham and the first in Boston in 30 years. The contract resolves previous disagreements on wages, health benefits, staffing, and the use of new patient-monitoring devices.
— PRIYANKA DAYAL MCCLUSKEY
JOBS
Pay equity bill gains support and momentum
With House Speaker Robert DeLeo (left)working to pass the pay equity bill, the legislation is gaining momentum with less than five weeks before the formal session ends. The bill, intended to close pay disparities between men and women, passed the Senate unanimously in January and is in the House Committee on Ways and Means. After meeting with Senate President Stanley Rosenberg and Governor Charlie Baker on Monday, DeLeo said he was in talks with a number of groups and aimed to have it passed by the end of July. The bill would define “comparable work” to ensure that similar jobs have similar pay and prohibit employers from asking a job candidate’s salary history. Because women’s wages are historically lower than men’s, disclosing them can put women at a disadvantage by allowing employers to offer female candidates lower salaries than they might otherwise, proponents of the bill say. The bill would increase fines for pay equity violations from $100 to $1,000 and protect workers who discuss their salaries openly. Women working full time in Massachusetts make 82 cents for every $1 men make, earning $11,152 less than men every year on average, according to a study by the National Partnership for Women & Families. Differences in career choices and interruptions during child-rearing years account for some of the gap, but the rest is widely attributed to gender bias. — KATIE JOHNSTON
IMMUNOTHERAPY
Moderna Therapeutics gets expanded licensing deal with Merck
Moderna Therapeutics Inc., which is pioneering a cancer-fighting technology that harnesses the immune system, Wednesday said it will receive $200 million in cash as part of an expanded licensing deal with drug giant Merck & Co. The money will help Cambridge-based Moderna move a portfolio of experimental drugs from early research and development to clinical trials, starting next year. It will also provide some of the financing for a Moderna manufacturing site in the Boston suburbs. Moderna has not yet settled on a location or said how many workers it would have there, but it plans to announce details later this year. The emerging field seeks to stimulate patients’ immune systems to fight cancers. Merck has become a leader among Big Pharma companies in developing immunotherapies, while Moderna is experimenting with personalized cancer vaccines that could work by themselves or in combination with other medicines.
— ROBERT WEISMAN
BIOTECH
Infinity Pharmaceuticals to cut 100 jobs
Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Tuesday it will cut 100 jobs and give retention bonuses to remaining employees — including a total of almost $1 million to four top executives — in a bid to continue developing its experimental treatment for blood cancers. The Cambridge company made the moves after drug maker AbbVie Inc. terminated a partnership that was helping fund development of Infinity’s drug candidate, called duvelisib. Infinity last month laid off 46 researchers, or 21 percent of its workforce, after releasing disappointing findings in a mid-stage clinical study of duvelisib. The new cutback, affecting 58 percent of its remaining staff, will leave Infinity with 65 workers at its 780 Memorial Drive offices. Infinity said it plans to press forward with duvelisib and would look for other ways to bankroll development. In the mid-stage trial, duvelisib met its primary goal, called an endpoint, by showing an overall response in patients with a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients. But its performance fell short of expectations, and it remained unclear if its benefits represented the kind of improvement over two approved blood cancer drugs, Zydelig and Rituxan, that would justify Infinity filing for Food and Drug Administration approval. — ROBERT WEISMAN
CAREGIVING
Care.com gets a boost from Google Capital
One of the technology world’s biggest names has given a boost to shares of Care.com Inc., an online marketplace for nannies and other caregivers led by Sheila Marcelo (right). Google Capital, an investment arm of tech giant Alphabet Inc., paid $46.4 million to become the largest shareholder in Waltham-based Care.com, the companies announced Wednesday. The investment is Google Capital’s first in a publicly traded company. It also owns stakes in private tech companies such as job-rating website Glassdoor Inc. and fantasy sports company FanDuel Inc. The news drove Care.com stock to nearly $12 per share in after-hours trading, more than 40 percent above the stock’s closing price. Care.com shares hadn’t risen above $9.49 in the past year, after reaching $28.71 per share shortly after its initial public offering in 2014. Care.com also said it used some of the Google investment to repurchase 3.7 million shares from Matrix Partners, a Cambridge-based venture capital firm, for $30.5 million. The company raised $91 million in its IPO in January 2014. In addition to childcare, it also allows users to search for and hire home health care nurses, dog walkers, and other care providers. — CURT WOODWARD
HEALTH CARE
Hallmark Health System merges with parent company of Tufts Medical Center
The parent company of Tufts Medical Center plans to expand its hospital network with the addition of Hallmark Health System, a merger that will help both sides compete in a market dominated by bigger institutions. Hallmark’s board voted Thursday to exclusively negotiate a combination with Wellforce, the parent company of Tufts and Lowell General Hospital. Hallmark would be the first health system to join Wellforce since Tufts and Lowell General came together to create the company in 2014. Hallmark, which owns Melrose-Wakefield Hospital in Melrose and Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford, had spent three years planning a tie-up with Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest health care system. But the acquisition fell apart in December, in the face of opposition from the attorney general, state health officials, and a judge, who felt Partners’ further expansion would raise health spending and increase Partners’ market power. Alan Macdonald, Hallmark’s chief executive, said joining forces with Wellforce will allow Hallmark to upgrade its facilities and expand medical services, which would help retain patients. Hallmark, with 368 hospital beds, pulls patients from an important area just north of Boston, but it has struggled, losing $9.1 million on operations in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2015. It is on track to lose money again this year. — PRIYANKA DAYAL MCCLUSKEY