Cancer drug developer Arvinas and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer on Thursday announced a $2.4 billion deal that seeks to advance a breast cancer treatment already in Arvinas’ product pipeline.

Arvinas is retaining full ownership of the drug, but the two companies will evenly split sales revenue from the drug if it is approved for market.

The joint venture effort to develop Arvinas’ drug candidate ARV-471 has two components.

One calls for Pfizer to acquire a 7 percent ownership stake in Arvinas, a biotech based in New Haven’s Science Park, for $350 million. The other involves Arvinas receiving an upfront payment of $650 million along with $400 million as ARV-471 advances through the drug regulatory approval process, and up to $1 billion for certain commercial milestones the drug might achieve were it to make it to market.Read More

It seems like not a month goes by without new apartments being proposed in the city.

New Haven’s apartment development is hotter than a sunny mid-July day. Even in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, the city’s apartment development spree continued unabated.

Through the first five months of 2020, city officials issued housing permits for 688 units. By comparison, the same period in 2021 has produced 163 housing permits.

But Steve Fontana, the city’s deputy director of economic development, said currently there are 791 units of market-rate multifamily housing under construction in the city. Multifamily housing includes, but it not limited to, traditional apartment complexes. Read More

Connecticut could lag behind most states in regaining hotel jobs lost during the coronavirus pandemic, according to projections by a national trade group.

The Washington, D.C.-based American Hotel and Lodging Association predicts the state will have regained a little less than 72% of its roughly 26,000 direct hotel industry jobs by year’s end. The projected 7,400 unfilled jobs is a more dire forecast than the group made in May, when it predicted a gap of about 5,900 jobs.

“We are still facing incredible challenges,” Ginny Kozlowski, executive director of the Connecticut Hotel and Lodging Association, told the Hartford Courant, adding that the industry “is in serious trouble.” Read More

AVANGRID, Inc. [NYSE: AGR], a leading sustainable energy company, today announced the ongoing formation of new Customer Listening Councils for its electric and gas utility companies in Maine, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The formation of these councils is consistent with the company’s strong Environmental, Social, Governance and Financial (ESG+F) framework, and will enable a representative group of customers and stakeholders to voice their interests directly to company leaders. In addition, the companies will share operational updates and planned activities to build increased understanding of the companies’ operating and strategic goals. Read More

Debt that community college students in the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system took on or could not repay because of the pandemic will be forgiven, according to Connecticut State Colleges and Universities President Terrence Cheng.

Around $17 million will be forgiven, according to CSCU. This will impact 18,161 current and former students. Read More