Today in Globe Business

Problems at plant stall drug

Genzyme Corp. yesterday said US regulators are delaying approval of Lumizyme, its drug to treat the rare genetic disorder Pompe disease in adults, until the Cambridge biotechnology company solves persistent problems at its cell culture manufacturing plant in Allston.

Genzyme officials said they are moving aggressively to correct deficiencies that were spelled out by the Food and Drug Administration during a meeting with company officials late Friday. The session came as the FDA wrapped up a five-week inspection at the Allston Landing plant, where Genzyme detected a virus last June.

The company, which decontaminated the plant during a shutdown over the summer, is tightening internal controls and temporarily closing a “fill finishing’’ area of the plant - where its enzyme replacement drugs are put in vials for shipment to patients - to update machinery and parts.

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BOSTON CAPITAL: Private equity, public pain

Every politician knows one can’t-miss campaign strategy this year: Run against Wall Street and America’s big banks.

The giants of finance are easy targets, and deservedly so. All the Democrats in the state’s US Senate race have taken the opportunity to smack Wall Street and campaign for greater financial regulation. But none has done it so aggressively or in such detail as Steve Pagliuca, a partner at the Boston private-equity giant Bain Capital.

One of Pagliuca’s television commercials reaches out to people who are “fed up with excess on Wall Street’’ and promises action. “What will Main Street get from Pagliuca?’’ it asks. “The toughest regulations to stop Wall Street abuses.’’

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All's fare in travel by bus

Even before he took the bus, Northeastern University student Jimmy Okuszka knew he’d like it better than the train. The last time he made a visit to his family in New Jersey, it was on Amtrak, but when he learned the BoltBus service from Boston had free wireless Internet access, he made the switch.

“I kind of got a little bored last time just watching movies [on my laptop] and not being able to go on the Internet,’’ said Okuszka, 18, as he waited in line to board the bus at South Station, on his way to visit a friend at Rutgers University. Never mind that he had to transfer to a train once he got to New York; for most of the trip, he would be able to e-mail friends and check out his favorite websites. It didn’t hurt that he paid only $30 on Bolt for a round-trip ticket to New York, compared with the $100 price tag for the train.

Long-distance bus ridership in the United States is estimated to be up about 10 percent since last year, according to Joseph Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University, which conducts an annual survey of the bus industry. The number of passengers traveling by air and train, on the other hand, was down about 8 percent for the first eight months of the year, according to numbers from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and Amtrak. Bus tickets are more affordable, and many bus companies also offer something that most trains and planes don’t - free wireless Internet access - which is attracting not only business travelers, but a legion of young riders used to having the Web at their fingertips.

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Boston team will defend bank in D.C.

Three top Bank of America officials from Massachusetts are expected to defend the company’s acquisition of the investment bank Merrill Lynch at a congressional hearing today.

The company is facing separate investigations from the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York’s attorney general, and the US House Committee on Oversight and Government on whether it misled shareholders and taxpayers during the $50 billion purchase of Merrill in late 2008.

Yesterday, the congressional panel released written testimony submitted by the three bank executives, including Brian Moynihan. He runs Bank of America’s consumer banking division and is the bank’s former general counsel.

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Moynihan, in running for Bank of America's top jobs, has experience winning tough fights

Brian T. Moynihan was gifted with speed. At his high school in the Appalachian town of Marietta, Ohio, he was named outstanding male runner his senior year, when his relay team finished 62-1.

But Moynihan also threw himself into three other sports at which he was not a natural, relying on smarts and an unblinking work ethic more than on athletic prowess.

“He was an average athlete, but he was a competitor,’’ said his high school basketball coach, Ed Paxton. “He worked very hard.’’

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