The Digest

Baxter Beefing Up Illinois-based Baxter Healthcare Corp. announced it will add 200 jobs to its Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks facilities over the next two years. The company said it will spend $200 million to add the additional jobs in an effort to triple production of its genetically engineered blood-therapy products. Baxter has applied for FDA approval for a $100 million expansion of its Thousand Oaks location, where it makes a treatment for hemophilia. About 150 jobs will be added to the Thousand Oaks facility by 2001, company officials said. That would bring the number of employees at the 100,000-square-foot facility there to 500. Another 50 employees will be added at the company’s Los Angeles facility. MTA Studies Housing Project The Metropolitan Transit Authority board agreed to start negotiations for a Los Angeles Children’s Museum and a senior housing project on land it owns near the North Hollywood Red Line station on Lankershim Boulevard. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has proposed a six-story apartment building, with half the 160 units reserved for retired musicians, on the corner of Chandler and Lankershim boulevards. While they agreed to start the negotiations, MTA board members expressed concern over whether the housing project would be the best use for the land. The Children’s Museum is also considering other sites in downtown L.A. and at Hansen Dam in Lake View Terrace, and directors have said they will choose whichever landowner signs a deal first. Key Trial for Amgen Preliminary hearings began March 27 in a trial pitting Amgen Inc. against another drug maker in a patent infringement suit in U.S. District Court in Boston. Thousand Oaks-based Amgen filed the lawsuit against Massachusetts-based Transkaryotic Therapies Inc., which is seeking to make a knockoff of the biotech giant’s No. 1 selling product, Epogen. Amgen has grown to its present size largely thanks to Epogen, a drug used to prevent anemia during kidney dialysis. The drug has generated worldwide sales of $4 billion, making it the biotech industry’s best-selling drug. Transkaryotic, in partnership with European drug company Aventis, wants to sell its own version of Epogen. The case could have a far-reaching impact on drug makers beyond Amgen. Legal experts say if the court allows Transkaryotic to use its technology to develop its own version of the drug, other companies could likely do the same, leading to cheaper versions of drugs and decreasing profits for drug makers. Transkaryotic has six other knockoff drugs under development. Investors are watching the case closely because of the potential impact on the industry. The trial will begin sometime in April. Major Development Deal Trammel Crow Co. will develop a $43 million light-industrial business park on 33 acres in Van Nuys at the former site of the Marquedt Co., a defense contractor. The announcement of the development deal came from Mayor Richard Riordan, who said it was part of his Genesis L.A. program, which seeks to bring jobs to troubled areas. The property on Saticoy Street near Hayvenhurst Avenue and adjacent to Van Nuys Airport is one of the last large industrial sites available in the Valley. Marquedt employed up to 5,000 people in its 1970s heyday at the location, where it made bombs and space-shuttle propulsion systems. Trammell Crow is expected to renovate two buildings on the site and have them ready for occupancy by late April. The company will also build five more industrial buildings, which will be completed within a year. Vitesse Buys Chipmaker Camarillo-based Vitesse Semiconductor Inc. bought chipmaker Orologic Inc. for $450 million, a move that will allow Vitesse to increase its line of chips. Orologic makes silicon semiconductors. Vitesse makes semiconductors for telecommunications equipment using gallium arsenide instead of silicon. Company officials said the purchase will allow the company to offer customers a more compete chip package. Vitesse will issue additional stock to complete the purchase. Company officials said that while they expect the sale to have a slight negative impact on 2000 earnings, the move should eventually provide a substantial boost.