Business news in brief

Renmatix Inc., a King of Prussia early-stage company that produces industrial sugars from wood and other nonfood plant materials, said it had signed a joint-development agreement with Waste Management Inc., of Houston, to explore the feasibility of applying its process to trash. The materials that will be tested include food scraps, construction and demolition debris, and pulp and paper waste. As part of the deal, Waste Management invested an undisclosed amount of money in Renmatix. Since January, when it announced a $50 million capital raise led by chemical giant BASF, Renmatix has raised an additional $25 million, the company said. Sugars produced by Renmatix - using water in a state that turns it into a solvent - can be used to make chemicals. - Harold Brubaker

Novira Therapeutics Inc., a Radnor drug-discovery firm, raised $23 million in a financing led by 5AM Ventures and Canaan Partners, both based in Menlo Park, Calif. Founded by two former local Merck & Co. Inc. scientists in late 2009, Novira has been developing antiviral drugs designed to disrupt a viral protein called capsid to treat chronic hepatitis B and HIV infections. Osvaldo Flores, Novira's president and chief scientific officer, said the new investment will be used to fund clinical development of its lead program targeting hepatitis B infection, which afflicts more than 350 million people worldwide. - Mike Armstrong

The Center City-based law firm Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin has relocated to new offices at 2000 Market St. after 20 years on Rittenhouse Square. The firm said it has taken over 130,000 square feet on five floors for 350 employees in Philadelphia. The firm has 450 lawyers in 18 offices in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and elsewhere. - Chris Mondics

Pfizer Inc., whose Wyeth unit set aside more than $21 billion in a national settlement of lawsuits over the fen-phen diet drug, Thursday asked a federal judge in Philadelphia to throw out 30 remaining claims that the pills caused primary pulmonary hypertension nine or more years after users stopped taking the appetite suppressant. Wyeth withdrew the diet-drug combination from the market in 1997 after it was linked to heart problems and PPH, an often-fatal lung ailment. More than six million prescriptions were written for Wyeth's Pondimin or Redux or the generic Phentermine. Wyeth once faced more than 175,000 claims. - Bloomberg News

American incomes declined more in the three-year economic expansion that started in June 2009 than during the longest recession since the Great Depression, according an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Sentier Research L.L.C. Median household income fell 4.8 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis since the recession ended in June 2009, more than the 2.6 percent drop during the 18-month contraction, the research firm's Gordon Green and John Coder, former statisticians with the bureau, wrote in the report. Household income is 7.2 percent below the December 2007 level. Though gains in hourly earnings and average hours worked per week may have had "a minor mitigating effect" on income declines, they couldn't offset a jobless rate that hasn't fallen below 8 percent since February 2009 and record duration of unemployment, the firm said.

- Bloomberg News

New economic data bolstered expectations that the eurozone is sliding into recession, adding to pressure on the leaders of France and Germany as they met to discuss the debt crisis. French President Francois Hollande was in Berlin to discuss European topics with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is to visit Merkel Friday before moving on to Paris for a Saturday meeting with Hollande. Surveys of eurozone business sentiment released Thursday reinforced expectations that the eurozone is already in recession, as Germany is less able to prop up the rest of the region. Business people remain gloomy, in part, because new orders have declined, according to a survey of purchasing managers by Markit, a research company. And the Federal Statistical Office confirmed its estimate that Germany grew only 0.3 percent in the second quarter compared with the first.
- New York Times News Service

The FTC has sued Dish Network, claiming it violated the National Do Not Call Registry in its telemarketing operations. The suit, filed in federal court in Springfield, Ill., alleges that the second-largest U.S. satellite-television provider called millions of consumers who asked its telemarketers or its affiliates not to call them again. A Dish spokesman didn't immediately return a call. - Bloomberg News

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Thursday that it had wound down the final remnant of its rescue of American International Group, generating a multibillion-dollar profit in the process. The bank said it had sold the remaining securities held in Maiden Lane III, one of two financial entities created to house the most financially shaky parts of AIG's portfolio. Overall, it generated a $6.6 billion gain from unwinding the portfolio. - New York Times News Service

Four companies marketing the Ab Circle Pro exercise device have agreed to pay up to $25 million in refunds to customers to settle charges of deceptive advertising. The Federal Trade Commission says it was deceptive to promise that people could lose 10 pounds in two weeks by using the abdominal-exercise device for only three minutes a day. - AP

Boeing Co. lost an order for 35 Dreamliners with a list price of $8.5 billion as Qantas Airways Ltd. scrapped a contract after delivery delays and losses on international routes. Qantas's pullback on the 787-9 reduced Boeing's backlog for the larger version of the composite-plastic plane by about 10 percent. It also underscored a travel slowdown that has caused carriers including Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Singapore Airlines Ltd. to cut growth plans. Qantas will get $433 million from Boeing, including more than $300 million compensation for 787 delays and a refund of deposits for the canceled order. - Bloomberg News