Business news in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Everything is pointing to an improving labor market, which the [Federal Reserve] obviously wants to see.”

Jennifer Lee, BMO Capital Markets senior economist Article, 1D

Drugmakers hit with $9 billion penalty

TOKYO - A U.S. jury ordered Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and its U.S. counterpart, Eli Lilly and Co., to pay a total of $9 billion in punitive damages over a diabetes medicine linked to cancer. The drug companies said Tuesday that they will “vigorously challenge” the decision.

U.S District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ordered a $6 billion penalty for Takeda and $3 billion for its business partner and co-defendant Eli Lilly.

It also ordered $1.5 million in compensatory damages in favor of the plaintiff.

The legal fight turned on whether Actos, which is a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes, caused a patient’s bladder cancer and by implication was responsible for other cases of the cancer.

Takeda and Eli Lilly are facing numerous other lawsuits over the drug, which allege failure to warn about side effects and concealment of its health risks.

Kenneth Greisman, a general counsel at Takeda, said in a statement that the evidence does not support a link between Actos and bladder cancer.

Lilly spokesman Candace Johnson said the drugmaker intends to “vigorously challenge this outcome through all available legal means,” including an appeal.

Shares of Lilly fell 27 cents to $58.35 in morning trading Tuesday. Shares of Osaka-based Takeda dropped 5.2 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Comcast touts pros of Time Warner deal

WASHINGTON - Comcast is presenting its case for its $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable, saying the deal benefits consumers and doesn’t limit competition.

It filed hundreds of pages of documents Tuesday with the Federal Communications Commission after filing a notice Monday with the U.S. Justice Department.

Comcast Corp. Executive Vice President David Cohen will testify today before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Comcast said the $45 billion takeover will allow it to increase Internet speeds for Time Warner Cable Inc.

customers, provide better video-on-demand service and broaden its commitment to “Net neutrality” - the idea that Internet providers should not discriminate against Web traffic.

Comcast said online alternatives have created competition in video, while there is at least one broadband competitor in almost all of its markets.

• The Associated Press

Senator: Housing overhaul won’t pass

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. housing finance system won’t become law this year and called for simpler changes to Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.

Brown, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said a bipartisan bill to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is too complicated and doesn’t do enough to address too-big-to-fail concerns or provide assistance for affordable housing. The panel will consider the measure April 29.

“It’s not going to pass this year,” Brown said Tuesday at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington.

“If anything, it can get out of committee, I think it probably will.”

Brown said he didn’t know whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, would schedule the measure for full Senate consideration as the legislators deal with other business this year. There is also no serious effort to act on housing finance in the House, he said.

Borrowing costs decline in Greek issue

ATHENS, Greece - Greece’s Finance Ministry said the lower cost and stronger investor appetite for the country’s latest short-term debt issue bodes well for a long-anticipated return to bond markets in the near future.

The yield investors demanded to buy Tuesday’s regular issue of six-month Treasury bills fell to 3.01 percent, from 3.6 percent in March. The issue was three times oversubscribed and raised $1.8 billion.

Greece has been unable to sell long-dated debt since it nearly went bankrupt four years ago, but has maintained a market presence through regular Treasury-bill issues.

It has survived on international bailouts conditional on stringent austerity measures and wide-ranging economic overhauls.

Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said Tuesday’s auction shows Greece is on “a return trajectory” to global markets.

Without specifying when exactly, the government has said it will issue about $2.8 billion worth of three- or five-year bonds by July, earlier than initially hoped as its borrowing costs have fallen in bond markets amid an improvement in public finances and progress in its talks with bailout creditors.

• The Associated Press

Puerto Rico revenue ahead by $86 million

Puerto Rico’s preliminary revenue tally for the first nine months of fiscal 2014 beat budgeted projections by $86 million, the U.S. commonwealth said Tuesday.

The Caribbean Sea island of 3.6 million people sold a record $3.5 billion junk deal last month, giving it time to revive a struggling economy.

The territory collected $6.08 billion of general-fund revenue from July through March, according to Treasury Secretary Melba Acosta.

Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said Monday that he is “days away” from releasing a budget plan for the 2015 fiscal year, beginning July 1. He spoke at the International Economic Forum of the Americas conference in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Garcia Padilla has said the proposal won’t include borrowing to balance the budget, a practice used since at least 2000.

“We are also implementing strict measures for controlling expenses, which will set the foundation for the economic progress of the island,” Acosta said in a statement.

• Bloomberg News