Ex-Putnam CEO settles SEC charges for $75,000

Lasser

Former Putnam LLC chief executive Lawrence Lasser will pay a $75,000 penalty to settle allegations that he failed to disclose that the Boston-based mutual fund company used fund assets to pay brokerage companies for preferred marketing agreements, regulators said. Lasser is the first individual to be charged with fraud for authorizing undisclosed payments to brokers for preferential distribution of mutual funds, according to Daniel Hawke, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Philadelphia office. Lasser settled without admitting to or denying the claims. Hawke said the settlement resolves the commission's investigation into Putnam's payments. (Dow Jones/AP)

Biogen Idec Inc. has begun a new round of testing of a multiple sclerosis drug, in the final stage of research normally required to gain US approval of an experimental medicine. The drug, known as B-12, will be tested on more than 2,000 patients in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, the Cambridge company said. The studies have started outside the country and will begin in the United States this year, the company said. The trials, expected to last two years, will compare B-12 to a placebo and to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' Copaxone, an approved MS treatment. (Bloomberg)

Cambridge drug maker Genzyme Corp. reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue growth, and said its 2006 revenue rose 16 percent, to $3.2 billion from $2.7 billion last year. Preliminary sales were $852 million, up 17 percent from $729 million a year earlier. Genzyme said it expects 2007 revenue of between $3.6 billion and $3.8 billion, and profit of $3.10 to $3.20 per share, excluding the recent $584 million acquisition of Anormed. (AP)

The market for drug-coated stents will eventually get back to where it was before the emergence last year of safety concerns, said Boston Scientific Corp.'s chief financial officer, Larry Best. He estimated that drug-eluting stents make up less than 75 percent of the overall market, down from a peak of 88 percent. Bare-metal versions make up the remainder. "My conviction is we are going to get back up north of 80 percent," Best said at the JP Morgan healthcare conference in San Francisco. He declined to comment on Boston Scientific's 2007 outlook for sales of stents. (Reuters)

Wachovia Corp.'s Boston-based asset management unit, Evergreen Investments, agreed to buy a majority stake in European Credit Management Ltd., a privately held, fixed-income investment management firm in London. Financial terms were not disclosed. European Credit has about $26 billion in assets under management, which would boost Evergreen's international total to more than $280 billion. Wachovia said the deal strengthens Evergreen's presence in the London market, where the firm has an international fixed-income team responsible for $17 billion in client assets, and a recently established business development and sales division. (AP)

Women's apparel retailer Talbots Inc. said it expects to break even in the fourth quarter rather than post a profit because of recent slow sales at its Talbots stores and the J. Jill brand it acquired last year for $517 million. Talbots said it has resorted to greater-than-expected price markdowns to sell off year-end inventory accumulated after rising spring and summer sales led the company to ramp up its buying. But the sales gains failed to extend into the year's final months, leaving too much inventory. (AP)

Canada has lodged a complaint against the United States over what it claims are illegal government handouts to American corn growers and is challenging whether the billions of dollars in overall farm subsidies paid out by the US government comply with international commerce rules, officials said yesterday. The request for consultations, filed Monday with the World Trade Organization, could open a new trade dispute between the North American neighbors, which only recently resolved a long confrontation over softwood lumber. (AP)