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Monday, July 21, 2008

Restructuring at MDS will touch Phila. operations

The rise in outsourcing of drug development work by pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms has provided lots of growth for clinical research organizations.

But one Toronto life-sciences company on Friday announced a restructuring that will affect operations in the Philadelphia area.

MDS Inc. said it would cut about 210 employees at its MDS Pharma Services and MDS Analytical Technologies businesses. About 150 of those jobs will be eliminated at MDS Pharma offices in North America and Europe.

In all, the downsizing will trim about 4 percent of its global workforce of 5,500.

MDS Pharma is based in King of Prussia, where it has a clinical trials management office. MDS Analytical has a lab and manufacturing operation in Downingtown. Combined, the two locations employ about 180.

The company would not say how many people are losing their jobs locally.

The publicly held MDS says the restructuring will generate pre-tax savings of about $20 million.

Philly Ticker

In a week of wild stock market swings, lots of earnings announcements, and more mergers, it figures that the biggest move in a local stock was caused by an analyst downgrade.

Bret Jones, of Leerink Swann, downgraded eResearchTechnology Inc. to underperform from market perform. Sounds innocuous enough, but shares fell nearly 23 percent last week to close at $13.62 on Friday.

The company, which provides cardiac monitoring technology services, also looks like it will be moving, but keeping its offices in Center City.

According to a regulatory filing, eResearchTechnology will lease 59,400 square-feet of office space at 1818 Market St., starting in November. The company currently leases about 40,000 square-feet at 30 S. 17th St.

More on deposits

In response to your questions, there are three points I want to make on the subject of deposit insurance:

First, several readers took issue with my column last week that focused only on the $100,000 limit per depositor at an FDIC-insured bank. You can have more than $100,000 in a bank and it will be federally insured if you have it in certain types of accounts. For example, a joint account is insured for up to $200,000.

Second, accounts at credit unions are insured by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. The insurance is similar to what’s provided by FDIC.

Last, one caller said she’d heard that deposit insurance was limited to $100,000 for all accounts using the same Social Security number. Not true. You could have $900,000 spread evenly in CDs at nine different FDIC-insured banks and be fully protected.

Earnings

Today: Ametek, Hercules, Liberty Property Trust, Merck

Tuesday: CardioNet, DuPont, Lockheed Martin, Radian, Sunoco Logistics, Supervalu, US Airways

Wednesday: Air Products, Airgas, Boeing, Exelon, GlaxoSmithKline, GSI Commerce, Hershey, NutriSystem, SEI, Sovereign Bancorp, Unisys, Wyeth

Thursday: AmerisourceBergen, Bryn Mawr Bank, Ikon Office Solutions, J&J Snack Foods, Penn National Gaming, Rohm & Haas, Technitrol, Triumph Group

Friday: CSS Industries, Omega Flex, Philadelphia Consolidated, Quigley, Univest Corp., WSFS
Posted by Mike Armstrong @ 3:05 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About Mike Armstrong
Mike Armstrong, a business editor and writer for nearly two decades, is the Inquirer's business columnist and PhillyInc blog editor. Contact Mike via e-mail or at 215-854-2980
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