Convention bookings
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores has booked six of its conventions between 2007 and 2011 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, the $800 million South Boston facility that opened in April. The group will hold its Marketplace Conference and Pharmacy and Technology Conference at the center in 2007, 2009 and 2011. A total of 25,000 attendees are expected to generate $14.3 million for the local economy from the conventions, according to the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. The authority has been criticized for slow bookings at the new center, but bookings have come at a faster clip since the spring. Seventy-nine shows have contracts to use the center between now and 2010, with 129 booked with either contracts pending or as tentatives. (Keith Reed)
Hospital to open center
Massachusetts General Hospital plans to open its new $200 million Yawkey Center Tuesday, the hospital's largest expansion project in a decade. The building, which will house outpatient services including orthopedics, rheumatology, obstetrics and gynecology, radiology, women's health, cardiology, pediatrics, and oncology, will house 800 employees and accommodate 600,000 to 700,000 patients a year. The Yawkey Foundation, flush with cash from the sale of the Boston Red Sox, in 2002 donated $25 million to the project, bestowing the largest gift in its history. The hospital raised roughly another $75 million through donations and borrowed the remaining approximately $100 million. The building, which sits next to the former Charles Street Jail, is 10 stories above ground with six underground parking levels. (Liz Kowalczyk)
EU may seek more data
Biogen Idec Inc., the third-biggest US biotechnology company, said European regulators may ask for data comparing their multiple sclerosis drug Antegren to another available treatment in a so-called head-to-head study. "In Europe, there's often a requirement for an active comparator," Biogen's Al Sandrock, vice president of medical research, said. Discussions with the regulators "have just started, they're looking at the data, and it's at a very early stage," Biogen spokeswoman Amy Brockelman said. European officials accepted the Cambridge company's filing without such data and have not requested such data at this time, she said. (Bloomberg)
Reebok, NBA team agree
Reebok International Ltd. reached an agreement with the Houston Rockets that gives the second-biggest US athletic-shoe maker Chinese signs in the team's arena and advertising during TV broadcasts of games to China, said John Lynch, the company's vice president of sports marketing. Chinese center Yao Ming, Houston's All-Star center, is an endorser for Canton-based Reebok. Yao is the most popular athlete in China, according to a May poll conducted by a German research firm. Each Rockets TV broadcast in China will include a feature on Reebok or the 24-year-old Yao, Lynch said. (Bloomberg)
THE NATION
Show host bows out
Veteran financial journalist Louis Rukeyser, who has been off television for a year due to cancer, has asked CNBC to pull the plug on his long-running Friday night business news show. CNBC said that "Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street," which has been airing with Consuelo Mack as substitute host, will cease production by year-end. Rukeyser, 71, said this year that he had cancer in his lower back and said Friday that complications had developed. "I can no longer predict when I will be ready to rejoin you here," Rukeyser said. Rukeyser lasted 32 years on the show, which started long before business news became popular. Most of that time it was on PBS, before the network fired him in 2002 in an attempt to update its format. (AP)
