By Brian E. Clark
RISING
Madison biotech
Seven officials from the drug giant Pfizer Inc. will be wined and dined
by Gov. Jim Doyle, hear pitches from nearly two dozen start-up
companies and get to know a few of Wisconsin’s brightest researchers as
part of a two-day visit this week arranged by Commerce Department
officials.
The trip is the result of a lobbying effort by Doyle with Pfizer
officials, including CEO Jeffrey Kindler, to get the company to come to
Wisconsin and see what is happening in the Badger State biotech field,
a Doyle spokesman says.
While there are no guarantees the visit will produce anything
substantive, Pfizer recently opened a satellite office in La Jolla,
Ca., another hotbed of research and the home of the University of
California at San Diego.
Commerce officials said Pfizer is looking for new technologies in areas
ranging from innovative cancer treatments to pain control.
MIXED
Dane County businesses
Madison-area businesses are both cautious and optimistic heading into
2008, according to a survey released by the UW-Madison School of
Business. The report, sponsored by First Business Bank and the business
school, said the majority of companies in the county were profitable
this year, in spite of concern over the stock slide on Wall Street,
rising gas prices and a troubled housing market.
For 2008, 80 percent of the businesses participating in the survey said
they expect to do better. But in a contradictory finding, fewer firms
said they expect to do as well as they did in 2007. In addition, the
report said the county manufacturing sector declined this year and will
shrink again in next year.
On the brighter side, the survey showed that after three years of
decreased capital expenditures, more businesses are predicting they’ll
reverse that trend in 2008. Fewer are forecasting they’ll decrease
spending next year.
FALLING
Xcel Energy
Score it dairy farmers 2, Xcel Energy 0. In recent cases before the
state Supreme Court, attorneys for the utility failed to convince
enough justices that stray voltage from company lines hadn’t harmed the
farmers’ cows.
In a Marathon County decision, the high court ruling means farmer James
Gumz and his family will soon collect $750,000 in damages and interest
from Xcel, said attorney Scott Lawrence.
In a second ruling, the court sent the case of farmers Ralph and
Karline Schmidt back to circuit court in Clark County after ruling that
Xcel was responsible for damage to their cows, attorney Andrea Niesen
said.
Niesen called the cases precedent-setting and argued that they will be
important in future stray voltage cases. A spokesman for Xcel declined
to comment.
