Issue of Oct. 19
Triveni Digital gets training grant
West Windsor-based Triveni Digital, a provider of infrastructure solutions for the digital television market, received a $46,400 grant from the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development on Thursday.
Triveni is making a matching contribution of $82,474 to train their employees at Mercer County Community College in areas such as project management, business writing, team building and customer service.
Customized training grants are matching grants awarded to New Jersey businesses to provide training to the company’s workforce in skills specifically needed to increase productivity and marketability. The grants are funded through the Workforce Development Partnership Program.
Auto store opens in East Windsor
Advance Auto Parts opened a store at 30 Princeton-Hightstown Rd. in East Windsor Oct. 7.
Company officials cited market conditions, strong growth potential and a large presence of do-it-yourself mechanics as factors influencing the company’s decision to move into the 7,000-square-foot store.
The new store employs 12 people and offers a wide array of services, including free electrical system testing and battery and wiper blade installation. The store is a community recycling center as well, accepting used oil and vehicle batteries at no charge. The store offers free parts delivery to commercial customers and carries thousands of parts in its in-store inventory.
Advance Auto Parts Inc., based in Roanoke, Va., is the second largest auto parts chain in the United States. For more information, visit www.advanceautoparts.com or call the East Windsor store at (609) 731-5633.
VaxInnate Corp. moving to Cranbury
New Haven, Conn.-based VaxInnate Corp. has signed a lease for a new 20,000-square-foot facility at Three Cedar Brook Drive in Cranbury.
VaxInnate officials said the new location allows the company to operate a more aggressive research and development program.
The private biotechnology company was founded in 2001 and expects to complete moving operations into the new space sometime before the end of the year.
About 15,000 square feet are expected to be used for laboratory space, quality control and research and development, while the rest will be used for administrative offices.
Office market activity up
Activity in the central New Jersey office market increased during the third quarter of 2004, as overall vacancy rates remained steady at 21.5 percent, according to a recent report from Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey.
A decline in sublet space and active investment in the region, including The Rouse Company’s purchase of the 653-acre Wyeth property in West Windsor, bode well for the area, the report said. Sublet space makes up about 24 percent of total available product.
On the industrial side, available space has decreased by 800,000 square feet in central New Jersey, as leasing activity keeps pace and developers continue to add new product to satisfy demand for modern warehouse facilities.
About 4.9 million square feet of leasing deals transpired in northern and central New Jersey during the third quarter, with highlights including 526,400 square feet taken by The Children’s Place Retail Stores at Turnpike Crossing I in South Brunswick.
Five new construction projects totaling 925,696 square feet were completed as well, including a 300,000-square-foot warehouse facility for the Ford Motor Company in Cranbury, the report said.
ETS signs $1 billion contract
Lawrence-based Educational Testing Service has inked a $1 billion renewal contract with online testing company Thomson Prometric, ETS announced Oct. 5.
The new 12-year contract with Thomson, which has 4,000 online testing centers worldwide, expands ETS’s electronic testing capabilities and is substantially larger than the previous contract, which was set to expire next year and was worth about $500 million.
ETS currently uses 1,000 of Thomson’s online testing centers and plans to use an additional 3,500 centers for both computer-based and Internet-based testing. The first test to go online is the Test of English as a Foreign Language, used to measure students’ language proficiency for studying in American schools.
"As the world changes, we’ve got to have greater access," said ETS president and CEO Kurt Landgraf. It would be too expensive to create the capability for computer and online testing in-house, he said.
Baltimore-based Thomson Prometric is a subsidiary of publicly traded Thomson Corp. of Stamford, Conn. Thomson Prometric bought Capstar, an ETS subsidiary, in August.
Pharmacopeia gets cash payment
Pharmacopeia Drug Discovery, in South Brunswick, said Oct. 5 it received a cash payment from Kenilworth’s Schering-Plough after the two companies met a drug-discovery goal in the area of oncology therapeutics.
Pharmacopeia said the milestone was triggered by Schering-Plough’s decision to initiate preclinical development of one of Pharmacopeia’s cancer drug candidates. The compound is at an early stage of development and has only been tested in animals, the company said.
The amount of the cash payment was not released.
FDA approves Bristol-Myers drug
Bristol-Myers Squibb, in Lawrence, announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Abilify as a treatment for acute bipolar mania, including manic and mixed episodes associated with bipolar disorder.
The approval is based on results of three-week trials of patients with bipolar I disorder, the pharmaceutical company said Oct. 1.
Bipolar I disorder affects more than 2 million Americans, Bristol-Myers said. Side effects of Abilify include restlessness, constipation and accidental injury. The drug was approved by the FDA for the treatment of schizophrenia in 2002.
In other news, Bristol-Myers says it plans to reduce its sales force by nearly 500 jobs as part of a strategy to move away from primary-care drugs and focus instead on developing and marketing medicines in specialty areas.
The job cuts will affect sales representatives nationwide and include the loss of at least four positions at the company’s Plainsboro offices, Bristol-Myers said.
Medarex put on the fast track
Princeton Township’s Medarex, Inc. announced Oct. 5 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted fast track designation for a potential combination therapy to help skin cancer.
The designation was given for MDX-010 in combination with MDX-1379, a melanoma vaccine, for the treatment of previously treated, unresectable metastic melanoma. Medarex is currently conducting Phase III clinical trials for the combination therapy.
Fast track designation means the FDA has determined the drug or biologic is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition that demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for such a condition, and that the FDA will facilitate and expedite the development and review of the application for the approval of the product.
In addition, Medarex said it has received two grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to support the company’s research and development of a fully human antibody for use against human anthrax infection.
If all performance milestones are met, the grants could total $7.2 million over the next three years.
In still other news, Medarex has received FDA orphan drug designation for its Hodgkin’s disease treatment.
Orphan drug designation is granted to products that treat rare diseases or conditions that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. The designation provides eligibility for a special seven-year period of market exclusivity after marketing approval, potential tax credits for research, grant funding for research and development, possibly reduced filing fees for marketing applications and assistance with the review of clinical trial protocols.