PHARMACEUTICALS
Cambridge company joins effort to develop Zika vaccine
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is joining the campaign to develop a Zika vaccine with nearly $20 million in US funding for a Cambridge-based research program. The company, which last year said it will move its global vaccines business to Cambridge from Deerfield, Ill., disclosed Thursday that it was tapped by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to produce a vaccine to treat the virus in the United States and abroad. The initial contract of $19.8 million will fund the program into early-stage clinical trials. If it moves through late-stage trials, funding could grow up to $312 million. Takeda Vaccine currently has 10 to 15 people working on the program in Cambridge, Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda Vaccine, said, but most of the early research is being done in Deerfield, outside Chicago, and in Madison, Wis., Fort Collins, Colo., and Hikari, Japan. Next year, Takeda plans to consolidate its vaccine operations in Cambridge with about 120 people hired or relocated. The current vaccines staff, operating out of temporary quarters at 64 Sidney St., will move into larger space on three floors of a biopharma building at 75 Sidney St., near the large Cambridge research center of affiliated Takeda Oncology. In addition to Zika, the vaccines division will be working locally on vaccines to treat Norovirus, Dengue, and pandemic influenza. — ROBERT WEISMAN
ENERGY
GE teams up with MIT
General Electric Co. is joining an energy research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of tapping new thinking on cutting carbon emissions and replacing fossil fuels, showcasing the kind of partnerships the industrial behemoth is seeking as it relocates its headquarters to Boston. The company will become a member of the MIT Energy Initiative and is donating $7.5 million for its research efforts, particularly in the areas of solar power, energy storage, advanced power grids, and carbon sequestration, officials said. The donation also comes as GE undertakes a massive shift in its corporate identity, trying to establish what chief executive Jeffrey Immelt has called a “digital industrial’’ company. Its move to Boston is part of that shift, putting the company closer to leading researchers and innovative entrepreneurs whose insights on technology could help GE develop more sophisticated machinery. At the same time, GE plans to spend more than $10 billion annually on R&D and capital expenditures. GE also plans to pay for a special energy research fellowship at MIT and expects to have an employee from GE Power, which is based in Schenectady, N.Y., on the campus often to act as a liaison between the MIT program and the company. — CURT WOODWARD
REAL ESTATE
Pricey condos at Millennium Tower a big draw for foreigners, especially Chinese investors
For proof that Boston has become a luxury housing mecca for wealthy people from around the world, look no farther than Downtown Crossing. At the high-end Millennium Tower, buyers have come from Greece, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, scooping up condos two or three apiece. There’s a real estate executive in San Francisco who markets luxury US properties in Asia, and claims on her website that she’s sold 7 percent of the tower — roughly 30 units. And then there’s the recent immigrant from China, Bingyi Chen, who lives in a modest townhouse in Concord and has bought at least 16 condos on behalf of investors in his native country, according to property records and his real estate agent. He paid $15.6 million in total. All cash. Most of those 16 units are directly above each other in a narrow strip running up to the 30th floor of the 60-story building. They are listed for rent, starting at $4,100 a month, with the proceeds heading back to investors in China. — TIM LOGAN
BIOTECH
Moderna seeking $600m in new equity for pioneering messenger RNA technology
Moderna Therapeutics Inc., the Cambridge biotech that has stockpiled more than $1 billion to develop a new class of therapies, is back in fund-raising mode. The five-year-old company disclosed in a recent regulatory filing that it is seeking $600 million in fresh equity and has so far sold shares valued at $451.4 million to unspecified investors. Moderna, launched by the local venture capital firm Flagship Ventures, has attracted widespread interest in the biopharma world by pioneering a technology called messenger RNA that can carry protein replacement drugs inside cell membranes, where they can help fight cancers and other genetic disorders. The company is also developing an approach that could enable it to rapidly deliver dozens of new treatments for a broad range of diseases. Unlike biotech startups that have tapped the public markets through initial public offerings of stock, Moderna has remained a private company. It has amassed its cash from blue-chip venture capital and private equity firms and a series of research partnerships with established drug makers that have purchased equity in the company. — ROBERT WEISMAN
DEVELOPMENT
Road to nowhere will now go somewhere
A half-mile stretch of road could be the key that unlocks one of the biggest development sites in Greater Boston. That’s what builders and state and local officials say about a half-mile extension of the road inside the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, now the site of a 1,400-acre, $2 billion, mixed-use development. The project — known as Southfield until it was recently rechristened Union Point — has been stalled for years, despite the white-hot real estate market around Greater Boston. It has been delayed in part because there’s no way to get from one side of the development to the other. There is an access road from Route 3 on one side, and another from Route 18, but nothing connecting the two in the middle. Now, with $6.7 million in state money, that’s set to change. On Thursday, officials including Governor Charlie Baker went to Weymouth to break ground for the road. The state spent nearly $45 million in 2011 building a 1.8-mile parkway from the eastern side of the vast former air base, which straddles parts of Weymouth, Rockland, and Abington. But the road abruptly ends at a mostly abandoned section of the old base so desolate that it’s now used for movie sets. — TIM LOGAN
FANTASY SPORTS
DraftKings raises $150 million in venture capital
Fantasy sports operator DraftKings Inc. said Thursday it has raised $150 million in venture investment, giving the company a fresh infusion of cash as it recovers from taxing legal battles and prepares for another critical NFL season. DraftKings said several new investors participated in the round, including Revolution Growth, a venture firm cofounded by former AOL chief executive Steve Case. The new funding is a potential high note for DraftKings, signaling renewed investor optimism after months of heated and costly debates about the legality of cash-prize daily fantasy sports, in which players compete to amass the best-performing fictional roster of real-life athletes. The company did not disclose the valuation the investment placed on DraftKings, but a person with knowledge of the financing said DraftKings was valued at around $1 billion. That’s down considerably from a year ago, when a previous investment round gave DraftKings a valuation of $2 billion. Other investors had already reduced the value of their stakes in DraftKings following months of legal troubles for the Boston-based company and its chief competitor, New York’s FanDuel Inc. The most prominent was 21st Century Fox Inc., which said earlier this year that its $160 million investment in DraftKings had fallen by about 60 percent. — CURT WOODWARD
