Financial life in a big town

More than 2 million new U.S. patients will be eligible to receive a next-generation blood thinner drug called Xarelto, after the Food and Drug Administration approved the medication to treat a common heart problem that can lead to stroke.

Federal health officials approved the drug from Johnson & Johnson and Roche to prevent strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation, a condition that causes the heart’s upper chambers beat chaotically and ineffectively. The irregular heartbeats can cause blood clots which travel to the brain, blocking blood flow and occasionally causing a stroke.

“This approval gives doctors and patients another treatment option for a condition that must be managed carefully,” said Dr. Norman Stockbridge, director of FDA’s cardiovascular and renal products division.

The once-a-day pill was first approved in July to prevent strokes in patients receiving hip and knee replacements. Today’s approval expands the drug’s indication to the much larger group of roughly 2.2 million Americans with atrial fibrillation.

For more than half a century, atrial fibrillation patients have relied on the tough-to-use blood thinner warfarin, sold under the brand name Coumadin. Doctors often have trouble gauging the right dose of the drug for each patient. Too much warfarin can cause dangerous internal bleeding, and too little can result in strokes.

In a setback for the drugs’ developers, the FDA did not approve a manufacturer-requested claim that Xarelto was superior at preventing stroke and blood clots when compared with warfarin. Instead the FDA states that the companies’ 14,000-patient study showed Xarelto and warfarin were about the same in preventing stroke creditreport.

Also, the FDA added a boxed safety warning, the most serious kind, stating that patients should not stop taking Xarelto without notifying their doctors first. Discontinuing the drug can increase the risk of stroke.

Numerous drugmakers have been working to develop an updated alternative to warfarin, one of the most widely-used medications in the U.S. Last year U.S. pharmacies filled 32 million prescriptions for warfarin, according to data tracker IMS Health.

Last October, the FDA approved the first alternative to warfarin for atrial fibrillation _ Pradaxa, known chemically as dabigatran, made by the German company Boehringer Ingelheim. That drug’s label states that the daily pill “significantly reduced” stroke and blood clots in a study of 18,000 patients.

In September a panel of outside advisers to the FDA voted 9-2 to recommend approval for use in atrial fibrillation. The panel’s recommendation came despite questions from FDA scientists about the reliability of some data submitted on Xarelto.

Xarelto is the first in a new class of blood thinning drugs that work by blocking a clotting protein called factor Xa. Older blood thinners, including warfarin, work by preventing blood platelets from sticking together.

Known chemically as rivaroxaban, Xa was discovered by German drugmaker Bayer and co-developed with New Brunswick, N.J.-based J&J. J&J holds U.S. marketing rights to the drug while Bayer markets the drug in the rest of the world.

Qantas Airways planes returned to the skies Monday after an Australian court ruled on a bitter labor dispute that had prompted the world’s 10th-largest airline to ground its entire fleet.

A flight from Sydney to Jakarta, Indonesia, took off shortly after Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority gave the “Flying Kangaroo,” as the Australian flag carrier is known, the all-clear to resume flying.

Qantas said in a statement it still expected some delays as it worked to clear the backlog of customers affected by the nearly 48-hour grounding. The airline is adding extra flights and expects its schedule to return to normal within one or two days.

The grounding disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of people across the world, and Qantas passengers were gathering at airports in Australia, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the hopes of finally getting to their destinations.

The airline’s resumption of flights comes around 12 hours after an emergency ruling by an arbitration court ended weeks of strikes and canceled a staff lockout.

The court ruling was a major victory in the airline’s battle with unions representing pilots, aircraft mechanics, baggage handlers and caterers, whose rolling strikes have forced the cancellation of 600 flights in recent months, disrupted travel for 70,000 passengers and cost Qantas 70 million Australian dollars ($75 million).

But some aviation experts said the surprise grounding of all 108 planes on Saturday, at a cost of $20 million a day, has hurt the Australian flagship carrier’s reputation around the world. Moody’s Investors Service said it could downgrade the airline’s credit ratings as the weekend’s events could hurt bookings, profits and the value of the Qantas brand.

Still, the stock market welcomed the weekend developments as allowing the airline to focus on its long-term strategy. Qantas shares on Monday jumped 4.3 percent to AU$1.61 on the stock exchange in Sydney.

Henry Harteveldt, an airline industry analyst in San Francisco, predicts the shutdown will do long-term damage to the Qantas name by hurting its reputation for reliability.

“A lot of travelers won’t take a chance and will book away to Virgin Australia, Air New Zealand and other airlines,” Harteveldt said. “Brand loyalty in the airline business is very low, and there is so much competition.”

Before the court ruling, Virgin Australia said it was scheduling extra flights and offering 20 percent fare discounts to help stranded Qantas passengers through Thursday.

If Qantas loses customers, that could also hurt partners in its alliance of global airlines, including American Airlines. A rival alliance that includes Air New Zealand and is led by United Continental Holdings Inc. could benefit, as could a third group of airlines that includes several major Asian carriers and is led by Delta Air Lines Inc. and Air France-KLM.

CEO Alan Joyce praised the court ruling, which prevents unions from taking any further strike action over their demands for pay hikes and job security clauses under news contracts being negotiated. The strikes have been blamed for a sharp decline in the airline’s future bookings.

“The important thing is that all industrial action is now over and we have certainty,” Joyce told reporters in Sydney.

“We will be returning to business as usual over the next 24 hours,” he said.

Other industry veterans said the lockout was a daring move that will pay off for Qantas, which wants to expand the low-cost, low-fare model that it uses at its Jetstar Airways subsidiary business cards design.

Jetstar has extensive routes to Southeast Asia and Japan, and lower costs than Qantas. But Qantas unions fear that expansion of low-cost airlines will result in Australian jobs being sent overseas. Joyce hopes to bend the unions closer to the company’s vision for growth by tapping into Asian markets.

“It was a very shrewd move by their CEO to force the issue and stop the potential deterioration of the brand,” said Mo Garfinkle, an airline consultant who has worked for Qantas rival Virgin Australia. “In the end, it will benefit Qantas financially.”

Garfinkle said the short duration of the fleet grounding will help Qantas get back up to full speed quickly, cutting its losses.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Monday described the grounding as “extreme,” while Transport Minister Tony Albanese has sharply criticized Joyce for giving the government only three hours notice of his plans.

The Australian government, angered by a lack of warning of the grounding, had called an emergency court hearing on Saturday night to end the work bans for the sake of the national economy.

The three judges heard more than 14 hours of testimony from the airline, the government and unions. Workers have held rolling strikes and refused overtime work for weeks out of worry that some of Qantas’ 32,500 jobs would be moved overseas in a restructuring plan.

The unions wanted the court to temporarily suspend the employee lockout so that strike action could resume if negotiations in the labor dispute failed to progress. But the airline said the strikes had devastated the airline’s reputation for reliability and that the threat needed to be removed permanently before customers would return.

Tribunal President Geoffrey Giudice said the panel decided that a temporary suspension would still risk Qantas’ grounding its fleet in the future and would not protect the tourism and aviation industries from damage.

Qantas is the largest of Australia’s four national domestic airlines, and the grounding affected 108 planes in 22 countries.

About 70,000 passengers fly Qantas daily, and would-be fliers this weekend were stuck at home, hotels or airports, or even had to suddenly deplane when Qantas suspended operations. More than 60 flights were in the air at the time but continued to their destinations, and Qantas was paying for passengers to book other flights.

Qantas infuriated unions in August when it said it would improve its loss-making overseas business by creating an Asia-based airline with its own name and brand. The five-year restructure plan will cost 1,000 jobs.

The airline also said in August that it had more than doubled annual profit to AU$250 million but warned that the business environment was too challenging to forecast earnings for the current fiscal year.

Qantas is the 10th-largest airline in the world by passenger miles flown, according to the International Air Transport Association, an airline trade group.

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Associated Press writers David Koenig from Dallas, Texas, and Andrew Dalton from Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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OSHAWA

The economy worsened in about half the country earlier this summer because of weak home sales and signs of a slowdown in manufacturing.

A Federal Reserve survey said Wednesday that seven of the Fed’s 12 bank regions reported slower growth in June and early July compared with the spring. That’s a worse showing than in the previous survey.

Of the remaining five districts, four reported modest growth. A fifth, the Minneapolis district, said its economy was disrupted by bad weather and the shutdown of Minnesota’s state government.

The job market remained weak in most districts, the report said. Employers added few jobs in June, the government said earlier this month.

Droughts and severe flooding badly hampered seven districts with large agricultural sectors, the report said.

Manufacturing output rose overall. But many districts reported only “steady or slowing” growth, the Fed’s report said. Only two districts reported rising manufacturing activity. Companies in three districts _ Philadelphia, Richmond and Atlanta _ reported slower growth.

The overall weak picture of the national economy echoes recent data on hiring and manufacturing. Economists expect growth for the April-June quarter, which will be reported Friday, to fall below 2 percent, the second straight quarter of anemic expansion.

The report, known as the “Beige Book,” is based on anecdotal information gathered by officials at the 12 Fed regional banks. It is released eight times a year and provides an on-the-ground snapshot of the economy. Wednesday’s report covered the roughly seven weeks between May 27 and July 15.

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Rank Company Revenue

1 Express Scripts* $45 billion

2 Emerson* $21 billion

3 Monsanto* $10.5 billion

4 Reinsurance Group of America* $8.3 billion

5 Ameren* $7.6 billion

6 Charter Communications* $7.1 billion

7 Peabody Energy* $6.9 billion

8 Centene* $4 pay day loan lenders.4 billion

9 Energizer Holdings $4.2 billion

10 Ralcorp Holdings $4.0 billion

* Fortune 500 member

Based on fiscal year 2010 data

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Pfizer to focus on new drugs

The Food and Drug Administration is conducting an independent review of research on the public health impact of menthol cigarettes.

The federal agency on Monday gave an update on its review of an advisory panel report on the minty smokes, one of the few growth sectors of the shrinking cigarette business.

That report said that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit public health because the flavoring has led to an increase in smokers and makes quitting harder free 3-in-1 credit report. It also said the FDA should consider other factors, including that a ban could increase counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes.

The report submitted in March was mandated under the 2009 law giving the agency authority to regulate tobacco. The FDA can’t ban nicotine or tobacco, but can limit what goes into products.

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Stepping directly into stalled debt talks, President Barack Obama is inviting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell to separate meetings Monday, shifting the negotiations to the highest levels.

The White House meetings, announced Friday by press secretary Jay Carney, would seek to pick up where negotiations headed by Vice President Joe Biden left off. Republican negotiators abandoned those talks Thursday over Democrats’ insistence on including tax increases in any deficit-reduction plan.

McConnell has been demanding that Obama become personally involved in the budget discussions.

Congressional Republicans want to reach a deal on about $2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years before agreeing to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, currently capped at $14.3 trillion. The Treasury Department has said it has until Aug. 2 before its ability to pay U.S. debt runs out.

Obama has repeatedly called for a “balanced framework” for long-term deficit reduction, saying cuts in spending are necessary but that additional tax revenue should also be part of the equation. Democrats insist that additional revenues be found by closing tax breaks, alongside the trillions of dollars in spending cuts.

House Speaker John Boehner on Friday ruled out any tax increase as part of a final budget deal.

In a statement following the White House invitation, McConnell said Obama needs to decide between tax hikes or a bipartisan agreement. “He can’t have both,” McConnell said.

“Sadly, the Democrats’ response has been a mystifying call for more stimulus spending and huge tax hikes on American job creators. That’s not serious, and it is my hope that the president will take those off the table on Monday so that we can have a serious discussion about our country’s economic future,” McConnell said.

The decision by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to quit deficit-reduction talks as a critical deadline approaches set the stage for Obama to step in.

It had long been assumed that the Biden group would clear the way for more decisive talks personally involving Obama and Boehner. As a result, Cantor’s move was interpreted as trying to jump-start the talks rather than blow them up _ a view shared by Cantor himself.

“The purpose here is to alter the dynamic,” Cantor said.

In fact, Cantor’s withdrawal came after Boehner had already made a trek to the White House _ in a secret meeting Wednesday night that followed up on a golf outing with Obama over the weekend. For his part, Cantor didn’t inform Boehner of his decision to leave the talks until Thursday, shortly before the news broke.

The White House sought to put a positive spin on developments.

“As all of us at the table said at the outset, the goal of these talks was to report our findings back to our respective leaders,” Biden said in a statement. “The next phase is in the hands of those leaders, who need to determine the scope of an agreement that can tackle the problem and attract bipartisan support.”

For his part, Cantor said the secretive Biden-led talks had “established a blueprint” for agreement on significant cuts in spending.

One of the byproducts of Cantor’s departure was to provide an opportunity for partisans on all sides to make statements at odds with the positions they may have to take to achieve a deal. Democrats insist that at least some new revenues are needed _ both to soften spending cuts and to line up the Democratic votes needed to pass the measure.

“It will take Democratic votes to pass any debt-ceiling agreement,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “As a result, certain things are going to have to be true. We cannot make cuts to Medicare benefits. We have to allow for revenues like wasteful subsidies for ethanol and oil companies. And we have to do something on jobs.”

Cantor said that plenty of progress has been made in identifying trillions of dollars in potential spending cuts to accompany legislation to raise the $14.3 trillion cap on the government’s ability to borrow money.

The Obama administration says passage of the legislation by Aug. 2 is necessary to meet the government’s obligations to holders of U.S. Treasurys. The alternative is a market-shaking, first-ever default on U.S. obligations.

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Ontario

The average U.S. price of a gallon of gasoline has dropped about 9 cents over the past two weeks.

The Lundberg Survey of fuel prices puts the average price for a gallon of regular at $3.91.

Analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday that the national average for a gallon of mid-grade is $4.05. For premium it’s $4.16 a gallon.

Lundberg says diesel prices fell about 8 cents a gallon over the past two weeks, to $4 payday loans in 1 hour.14.

Jackson, Miss., had the nation’s lowest average price for gas at $3.60. Chicago had the highest at $4.38.

In California, the lowest average price was $4.03 in Fresno, while San Franciscans paid the highest price at $4.17.

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