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Boston Business Journal
Boston restaurant owner wants to help you 'get out of Boston'
Chris Jamison didn’t come to form one of Boston's largest restaurant groups, COJE Management Group, after toiling away for years in a kitchen or behind a bar.<\p> Instead, the Topsfield native came to entrepreneurship from a different angle: one of aesthetics. In particular, he credits the effect that one New York City restaurant — a little Mexican restaurant below a diner — had on him.<\p>
He built Lolita by hand to start a new Boston restaurant group
Chris Jamison didn’t come to form one of Boston's largest restaurant groups, COJE Management Group, after toiling away for years in a kitchen or behind a bar. Instead, the Topsfield native came to entrepreneurship from a different angle: one of aesthetics. In particular, he credits the effect that one New York City restaurant — a little Mexican restaurant below a diner — had on him.
Jamaica Plain apartments sell for over $100M
A subsidiary of the financial services giant TIAA has acquired a 250-unit Jamaica Plain apartment complex from the project’s developer for $102.5 million.<\p> Velo, located on Washington Street next to the Forest Hills MBTA Orange Line station, is now owned by a limited liability company linked to the TIAA affiliate Nuveen. The purchase price comes to $410,000 per unit.<\p>
Editorial: Don't wait till November to set climate strategy
The November election could have a profound effect on how we in Massachusetts reach our climate goals in coming years. <\p> Job growth in the state’s clean energy sector slowed significantly during Donald Trump’s presidency from 2017 to 2020 compared to directly before and after, as our cover story this week reports. It’s a safe bet that if Trump takes the White House again next year, the pace of clean energy projects will slow, and so will demand for workers.<\p>
The silver lining of a tragedy brought Btone's founder to fitness
It was a terrible turn of events in Jody Merrill's life that led to a fortuitous turn in her career.<\p> Merrill lost her mom to cancer when Merrill was 23, an event she saw says — more than two decades later — could have sent her life in vastly different directions. Soon after, a friend ran a marathon in her mom’s memory to benefit fighting leukemia, and that spurred Merrill to get involved in similar benefit efforts herself, including triathlons.<\p>
DraftKings settles disclosure charges by SEC
DraftKings Inc. has agreed to pay a $200,000 civil penalty to settle disclosure charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. <\p> The SEC said Thursday it charged the Boston-based sports betting company (Nasdaq: DKNG) with disclosing material, nonpublic information to investors who followed the CEO’s social media accounts. That's a violation of Regulation Fair Disclosure, or FD, which prevents selective disclosure, according to the SEC. <\p>
Schizophrenia drug developed by Boston biotech wins FDA approval
A new type of schizophrenia drug developed by Boston-based Karuna Therapeutics Inc. won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday.<\p> The FDA approved KarXT, which will be marketed as Cobenfy and taken in pill form, for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults. The agency called Cobenfy “the first antipsychotic drug approved to treat schizophrenia that targets cholinergic receptors as opposed to dopamine receptors,” which was the longtime standard of care. Trials of the drug have so far shown it may not lead to weight gains, a common side effect of existing schizophrenia drugs.<\p>
Mass. deposits fall at BofA, Chase
Deposits held by banks in Massachusetts fell for the second consecutive year, with Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. among those to see a drop, according to new Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.<\p> Lenders have been on a roller coaster since 2020. In the early pandemic, deposit levels surged as customers banked their government stimulus checks. Consumers watched their savings grow as they sat on their couches, stuck at home. But in the past few years, they have spent down those stockpiles as they grappled with inflation. <\p>
Biogen walks away from Sage collab
Biogen Inc. has officially walked away from its collaboration with Sage Therapeutics Inc. on an experiential essential tremor treatment. <\p> Sage (Nasdaq: SAGE) announced Thursday that Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB) terminated its rights under the collaboration and license agreement for SAGE-324, which was being evaluated for the chronic treatment of essential tremor. <\p>
Local Asian business owners face worsening conditions, says report
Tracy Nguyen, owner of the Vietnamese restaurant Pho Boston in Florence, started her business in 2019. A year later, the pandemic hit, bringing business to a near standstill.<\p> Four years later, Nguyen says her business is certainly doing better than during the pandemic. But that doesn't mean it's thriving.<\p>
Former Drizly CEO brings expansion focus to Bevi
The former chief executive of Drizly has landed her next gig at another beverage company based in Boston, bringing with her the same ambition she had for the now-defunct online liquor store: accelerating growth. <\p> Cathy Lewenberg, who until earlier this year was CEO of booze delivery company Drizly, is the new chief executive of Bevi, the maker of smart water coolers that are a common office feature across local technology companies. Lewenberg served as the COO for Drizly through its 2021 $1.1 billion acquisition by Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER). At the time, she saw the deal as an opportunity to turbocharge Drizly's customer base. <\p>
2seventy halts blood cancer trial, and other life science news
While initial public offerings and layoffs have been dominating the biotech news headlines this month, those aren’t the only things happening in the life sciences scene in September. <\p> The Healey-Driscoll administration has announced nearly $20 million in life sciences funding, and a Flagship spinout has brought in a new chief scientific officer from Johnson & Johnson. Meanwhile, 2seventy bio Inc. and Bristol Myers Squibb have also decided to shut down an ongoing Phase 3 trial. Read the latest from across the state’s life sciences, biotech and medical device industries.<\p>
Meet the state's point-person on clean energy job training
Jennifer Applebaum is the point-person for all things workforce development at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, the quasi-public agency built to support an industry where the workers range from insulation specialists just out of high school to software engineers with advanced degrees. Applebaum recently spoke with the Business Journal about which jobs in the field are hottest and what employers are looking for in trainees.<\p> I would say HVAC is the one that’s the biggest standout, where consistently there's just really high demand, and we've seen across our training programs that folks generally do not struggle to place those students. In fact, in some of the longer programs, sometimes completion can actually be an issue, because students may get a job offer before they even complete the program.<\p>
Startup gets $50M to solve gene-based drugs' delivery problem
A new startup unveiled by Flagship Pioneering on Thursday has aspirations of becoming the go-to partner for biotech companies wanting to develop genetic medicines. <\p> Mirai Bio has launched after about two years in development, and with an initial commitment of $50 million from Flagship. The Cambridge biotech says its platform can solve some of the current constraints for drugs made up of RNA and DNA. Those constraints include delivery, design, and manufacturing.<\p>
Weatherization jobs targeted by local workforce organizations
Luismani Francisco graduated from high school in Holbrook earlier this year. He wants a career in heating and ventilation, but knows it is difficult to land an apprenticeship in a labor union. <\p> In the meantime, he’s found another path that he says could get him to $30 an hour after six months, all with just a few weeks of training: weatherization. The job entails installing insulation and sealing air leaks in homes and other buildings, in order to cut down property owners’ energy bills and slash their carbon emissions.<\p>
Five things you need to know, and King Gillette’s shaving kit
Good morning, Boston. Joro spiders have arrived in Boston, and I’m officially terrified. Here are five things you need to know in local business news to start your busy workday.<\p> Lucy Maffei reports that Markforged will soon be owned by the same company that bought its local rival, Desktop Metal, after the two companies fought over patents then went public via SPACs.<\p>
Mass. green jobs hinge on White House
The clean energy sector stands to be a robust source of white- and blue-collar jobs in Massachusetts in the coming decade. But the pace of that job growth could depend a lot on what happens on a single day in November.<\p> The 2024 election offers a stark choice on clean energy. Former President Donald Trump wants to block offshore wind projects on his first day in office and roll back parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, the 2022 law meant to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in investment for clean energy. Vice President Kamala Harris is seeking to continue the Biden administration’s push to decarbonize the economy. The senators and congresspeople in their respective parties generally back those stances, though not uniformly.<\p>
The death of middle management? Why the roles are under fire.
Tech giant Amazon.com Inc. is aiming to become faster and cut out busywork — and it’s targeting the middle manager to do so.<\p> CEO Andy Jassy said in a blog post that, as the company has grown substantially, it has added a lot of managers and layers. <\p>
The National Observer: Retail bankruptcies spark CRE fallout
Welcome to The National Observer, a roundup of top business news and actionable insights from across The Business Journals. We'll examine Gen Z's new pay problem, a banking titan's planned 165-branch expansion, and a deal that has a large motel chain being acquired. First, we're looking at what a recent wave of retail bankruptcies means for the commercial real estate sector.<\p> Get more stories like these every day in your inbox by subscribing to The National Observer newsletter.<\p>
Wu: Boston workers returning faster than in other cities
The number of workers returning to Boston offices in person increased 10 percentage points this year, nearly double the national average, Mayor Michelle Wu announced at a business breakfast Wednesday morning.<\p> The return to the office -- and the use of unused office space in the wake of a pandemic that accelerated a culture of working from home -- was a consistent theme in Wu's speech, as her tenure as mayor has been marked by recovery from the pandemic.<\p>
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