REAL ESTATE
Procter & Gamble sells land to GE
General Electric Co. said Thursday it reached a deal with Procter & Gamble to buy an approximately 2.5-acre piece of Gillette’s South Boston campus along Fort Point Channel, near the Summer Street Bridge and a short walk from South Station. The site will serve as GE’s new headquarters starting in 2018. The company plans to rehab two empty brick warehouses — relics of the industrial waterfront — and construct a new building on a portion of an adjacent parking lot.
FANTASY SPORTS
DraftKings to suspend wagering in N.Y.
DraftKings Inc. on Monday announced it would temporarily stop doing business in New York, a tactical move that shifts its long-running court battle to the state capital, where legislators are considering a bill that would expressly legalize daily fantasy sports. The Boston-based company and its main competitor, FanDuel Inc., struck the cease-fire agreement with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who in return agreed to suspend his efforts to shut down the companies for running cash contests that he says amount to illegal gambling. The agreement means the companies will, for the next few months, sacrifice revenue from the second-largest market for daily fantasy sports in the United States.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple’s help may no longer be needed
The Justice Department said Monday that it might no longer need Apple’s assistance to help open an iPhone used by a gunman in last year’s San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting, leading to a postponement of a key hearing over the issue and potentially sidestepping what has become a bitter clash with the world’s most valuable company. The dramatic turn of events came after the Justice Department said in a new court filing that an outside party had demonstrated a way for the FBI to possibly unlock the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino attackers. Apple has loudly opposed opening up the iPhone, citing privacy concerns and igniting a heated debate with the government. “Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone,’’ the Justice Department wrote in the filing.
BIOTECH
British say Vertex drug too pricey
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. suffered a setback Wednesday when a British regulatory agency recommended that Orkambi, the company’s new cystic fibrosis treatment and potential top-selling product, was too expensive for coverage by government insurance. The decision was made by the National Institute for Health Care Excellence, which does cost-benefit analyses for England’s National Health Service. Britain is one of the world’s largest prescription drug markets. The so-called approval consultation document from the agency, known as NICE, is just the first step in the reimbursement process. NICE officials will now hear feedback from Vertex and other parties in the coming weeks before making a final decision. Vertex executives said they will continue their dialogue with NICE but complained the agency used a different process to evaluate Orkambi, a two-drug combination, than it used to review an earlier cystic fibrosis drug.
TECHNOLOGY
Bristol-Myers pays $600m for Padlock
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. will pay as much as $600 million for Padlock Therapeutics Inc., a Cambridge biotech company that was founded less than two years ago. Padlock’s rapid move from startup to sale is remarkable even in an era when big pharmaceutical companies are desperate for new drugs and technology to treat diseases. It also underscores the lucrative payouts available to biotechs and their venture capital backers if their work catches the eye of Big Pharma. Padlock, which has about 10 employees in Cambridge and San Diego, has been working on about a half dozen early-stage drug candidates to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis.
TECHNOLOGY
HubSpot probe yields no prosecutions
The now-closed investigation into an ethics scandal at HubSpot Inc. was sparked by allegations that federal authorities received of “multiple failed attempts to manipulate and extort people’’ that were aimed at stopping publication of a book about the company, documents show. Records released by the FBI in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Globe include memos explaining the agency’s reason for opening an investigation. They also include notes of an interview with Dan Lyons (left), a Winchester author and former HubSpot employee whose book about his experiences at the startup triggered the events leading to the investigation. However, they do not include any records indicating why federal authorities declined to prosecute anyone. The documents are redacted in many places and do not identify anyone involved in what is described as an alleged plot to “railroad’’ Lyons’s book, “Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble.’’ The US attorney’s office in Boston declined to comment. “We turned our findings over to the authorities,’’ said HubSpot’s general counsel, John Kelleher.
TECHNOLOGY
blimp cited in Raytheon funding denial
A runaway military surveillance blimp that knocked out power for thousands when it dragged its severed tether across Maryland and Pennsylvania last year is still causing problems months later for its manufacturer, Waltham-based defense contractor Raytheon. Citing the embarassing episode and other problems, lawmakers dealt Raytheon a blow this month by denying the latest funding request for the $3 billion program — leaving the system of unmanned blimps floating in limbo. Raytheon serves as prime contractor for the program, and some of the radar equipment on the aerostats is manufactured in Massachusetts. A spokeswoman for Raytheon said the corporation believes the program should continue.
PRIVATE EQUITY
Advent raises $13b for new fund
Advent International, a Boston-based private equity firm, said it has raised $13 billion for its new fund, its largest ever. The firm’s fund VIII will invest in buyouts, growth equity deals, and restructurings in North America and Europe, as well as “selectively’’ in other regions, such as Asia and Latin America, Advent said Tuesday. The firm’s last fund, launched in late 2012, had $10.8 billion in investments from pensions, endowments, and other large clients. Advent’s new offering would probably put it in the top 15 funds in the market, according to Prequin, a New York-based company that tracks alternative assets. Founded in 1984 by famed Boston private equity investor Peter Brooke, Advent participates in mid-sized and large deals alongside the likes of Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. The firm has done $30 billion in deals in 40 countries.
