Investors’ Risky Bet on the Ghost of Freddie Past

The post-bailout world abounds with financial incongruities. Witness: Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, or “Freddie Mac,” the government-sponsored agency that by its own admission “makes home possible for one in four home buyers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing.” Since the beginning of 2009, it has provided nearly $ 1.6 trillion of funding to the U.S. mortgage market. Albeit under one giant black cloud: Alongside its cousin Fannie Mae, Freddie Mae has been under government “conservatorship (pdf)” since September 2008, after a decade of gorging on risky mortgages that effectively rendered the two insolvent. Washington euphemism aside, taxpayers bailed them out.

Yet Freddie Mac (FMCC) shares—which were thought to be irrelevant since the government formally took over—still trade on the over-the-counter pink sheets, province of penny-stock shops. FMCC is up 40 percent this year. Fannie Mae’s (FNMA) pink-hued stock is up 35 percent.

Exactly what outcome are investors romancing?

For simplicity’s sake, focus on Freddie Mac. At the end of 2006, before housing went to Hades, Freddie sported a market capitalization of $ 45 billion. Today, it’s at $ 955 million. In mid 2010, its old listing (FRE) was moved from the New York Stock Exchange to the OTC bulletin-board, where it was ostensibly left to fall to zero. It proceeded to diminish from $ 1.24 to as low as 19¢ a year ago. Today, it’s back up to 30¢.

“I’m surprised it’s up so much this year,” says analyst Edwin Groshans of Height Analytics. “For the foreseeable future, maybe even up to a decade, Freddie is in limbo, as its profits and dividends have to pass through to the Treasury Department.” (As opposed to making their way to common shareholders). Indeed, through Sept. 30, Freddie Mac has forked over just under $ 22 billion in cash dividends to Treasury, on the company’s senior preferred stock.

With U.S. mortgage finance never so dependent on the government-sponsored agencies, Freddie and Fannie are still touch-and-go stories. Recidivism rates after 12 months for modified subprime mortgages have declined to about 40 percent from almost 80 percent in four years, according to Nomura Securities. As the backstops of last resort, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have largely had no choice but to keep stockpiling these still-shaky modified mortgages, which sent their nonperforming loans to a record last quarter; as of Sept. 30, they owned $ 195 billion of restructured loans.

Yet things are looking up. In its latest quarterly report (pdf), Freddie Mac revealed that it was decently profitable—even after paying its dividend to Uncle Sam—and did not need to draw on Treasury funds. This year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have almost doubled what they charge to guarantee bonds. Of course, it helps greatly that the Federal Reserve, sailing the good ship QE3, is now buying at least $ 40 billion a month of Freddie’s agency debt.

According to Bloomberg data, issuance of U.S. government-backed mortgage securities soared 45 percent last month, to the highest since at least 2009. Lenders raced to move up this issuance (which Freddie and Fannie guarantee) before the pair hiked their fees on Dec. 1.

This comes as U.S. home prices rose 4.4 percent for the 12 months ending September.

Maybe the penny stock crowd is hoping residential real estate goes back up so wildly that enough upside will accrue to Freddie Mac’s otherwise-forgotten share price.

But that’s quite a treacherous wager. As blogger and former broker Jon Ogg noted when Freddie was evicted from the Big Board in 2010: “Once these go to the [pink sheets] … the implied upside for any price above zero comes with the notion that the economy could return or even that inflation comes back in a hurry. Ten percent inflation per year would be one short-term cure for housing. It would be like treating a case of the flu with syphilis.”

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Gunmen assassinate peasant leader in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Gunmen murdered one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo‘s presidency last June.

Vidal Vega, 48, was hit four times early Saturday by bullets from a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver fired by two unidentified men who sped away on a motorcycle, according to an official report prepared at the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Curuguaty.

A friend, Mario Espinola, told The Associated Press that Vega was shot down when he stepped outside to feed his farm animals.

Vega was among the public faces of a commission of landless peasants from the settlement of Yby Pyta, which means Red Dirt in their native Guarani language.

He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.

By last May, the peasants finally lost patience and moved onto the land. A firefight during their eviction on June 15 killed 11 peasants and six police officers, prompting the Colorado Party and other leading parties to vote Lugo out of office for allegedly mismanaging the dispute.

Twelve suspects, nearly all of them peasants from Yby Pyta, have been jailed without formal charges since then on suspicion of murdering the officers, seizing property and resisting authority. The prosecutor had six months to develop the case and will present his findings Dec. 16.

Vega was expected to be a witness at the criminal trial, since he was among the few leaders who weren’t killed in the clash or jailed afterward.

He wasn’t charged because he was away getting supplies when the violence erupted at the settlement erected by the peasants inside Riquelme’s ranch, the Naranjaty Commission’s secretary, Martina Paredes, told the AP.

“We think he was assassinated by hit men who were sent, we don’t know by whom, perhaps to frighten us and frustrate our fight to recover the state lands that were illegally taken by Riquelme,” she said.

Riquelme, who died of natural causes about a month after the battle in June, occupied the land during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, whose government gave away land for free to anyone willing to put it to productive use.

A local court in Curuguaty upheld Riquelme’s claim to the land years later. Lugo’s government later sought to overturn the decision, but the case remains tied up in court.

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Holiday fitness gifts trend from high-tech to basic

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Looking for the perfect holiday present for a fitness fan? Gift offerings this year range from apps that can store a run in the country to be viewed later to gadgets so sophisticated they measure quality of sleep as well as calories burned.

There is also the revival of the humble foam roller, which experts say, like old-time push-ups, squats and planks, has never been more popular.

Anita Golden, fitness manager at a Crunch gym in New York City, said she’ll be giving clients a foam roller called the GRID.

“We’ve always had foam rollers in the club but now more people are using them as a way to ease post-workout muscles, prevent injuries and exercise the core,” Golden said.

When it comes to big-ticket items, Colleen Logan of Icon Health and Fitness, which manufactures a number of fitness brands, said the treadmill remains the most popular gift.

“Treadmills continue to lead the industry in terms of home fitness purchases,” said Logan.

They account for about 57 percent of fitness purchases, while elliptical trainers and stationary bicycles are a distant second and third place at about 8 percent each.

The average home treadmill costs about $ 700, said Logan, but the technology revolution has transformed even this stalwart at the high end.

The ultimate splurge, at $ 4,000, she said, is the Boston Marathon Treadmill, which allows users to adjust speed in 1/10 of a mile per hour increments without touching the console. It also lets users run a virtual Boston Marathon.

For people on a smaller budget, there is the iFit app that lets the iPhone capture a favorite vacation run or bike ride in Hawaii, store it in data centers all over the world which collectively are referred to as the “cloud,” and download it to an iFit-enabled treadmill at home.

“You’ll view the exact route and experience the same terrain again,” Logan explained.

Devices, gadgets and apps proliferate as tech-savvy fitness becomes more accessible, according to Jessica Matthews of the American Council on Exercise (ACE).

“There’s a lot of interest in on-body monitoring devices as ways to motivate and track progress,” she said. “They run the gamut from basic devices to track hours, steps, and caloric expenditure to full-body tracking.”

Nike+ Sportsband has a series of small lights on the wrist band that change from red to green as the runner nears his goal, while the BodyMedia FIT Armband tracks everything from the number of calories burned to the quality and quantity of sleep.

ACE also studied fitness DVDs released for the holidays.

“We evaluated them for quality of instruction, safety, effectiveness and design of workout,” Matthews said.

Among the best were “Amy Dixon’s Breathless Body Vol.2: The Edge.” Matthews called it a challenging cardio workout best suited to those on your list with “an established base of fitness.”

“Jessica Smith’s 10 Pounds Down Better Body Blast” also got a thumbs up for its well-rounded routine and clarity of instruction.

For people seeking a mind-body approach, Matthews praised “STOTT Pilates Intense Body Blast: Pilates Interval Training: Level I,” which she said is accessible for someone new to fitness.

“They do a great job queuing movements and creating flow,” she said.

Richard Cotton of the American College of Sports Medicine suggests giving the fitness novice the gift of a personal trainer.

“The best is human assistance,” he said. “Another way is a beginner group exercise class.”

He also suggests a gift certificate for shoes at a running store equipped with a treadmill.

“You need shoes that fit your gait,” he said. “People should always get their gait analyzed.”

Golden likes to cite the law of reciprocity to the personal trainers she manages.

“I always tell them to get their clients something,” she said.

And what does the personal trainer want for Christmas?

“I like the roller, or a new jump rope,” she said. “Fitness people aren’t hard to please. Get me a new yoga mat and I’m happy.”

(Reporting by Dorene Internicola; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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Letterman, Hoffman, Zeppelin honored by Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — David Letterman‘s “stupid human tricks” and Top 10 lists vaulted into the ranks of cultural acclaim Sunday night as the late-night comedian received this year’s Kennedy Center Honors with rock band Led Zeppelin, an actor, a ballerina and a bluesman.

Stars from New York, Hollywood and the music world joined President Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday night to salute the honorees, whose ranks also include actor Dustin Hoffman, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy and ballerina Natalia Makarova.

The honors are the nation’s highest award for those who influenced American culture through the arts. The recipients were later saluted by fellow performers at the Kennedy Center Opera House in a show to be broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS.

Obama drew laughs from his guests when he described the honorees as “some extraordinary people who have no business being on the same stage together.”

Noting that Guy made his first guitar strings using the wire from a window screen, he quipped, “That worked until his parents started wondering how all the mosquitoes were getting in.”

The president thanked the members of Led Zeppelin for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of “hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around.”

Obama noted Letterman’s humble beginnings as an Indianapolis weatherman who once reported the city was being pelted by hail ‘the size of canned hams.’”

“It’s one of the highlights of his career,” he said.

All kidding aside, Obama described all of the honorees as artists who “inspired us to see things in a new way, to hear things differently, to discover something within us or to appreciate how much beauty there is in the world.”

“It’s that unique power that makes the arts so important,” he added.

Later on the red carpet, Letterman said he was thrilled by the recognition and to visit Obama at the White House.

“It supersedes everything, honestly,” he said. “I haven’t won that many awards.”

During the show, comedian Tina Fey said she grew up watching her mom laugh at Letterman as he brought on “an endless parade of weirdos.”

“Who was this Dave Letterman guy?” Fey said. “Was he a brilliant, subtle passive-aggressive parody of a talk show host? Or just some Midwestern goon who was a little bit off? Time has proven that there’s just really no way of knowing.”

Alec Baldwin offered a Top 10 reasons Letterman was winning the award, including the fact that he didn’t leave late night for a six-month stint in primetime — a not-so-subtle dig at rival Jay Leno.

Jimmy Kimmel, who will soon compete head-to-head with Letterman on ABC, said he fell in love with Letterman early in life and even had a “Late Night” cake on his 16th birthday.

“To me it wasn’t just a TV show,” Kimmel said. “It was the reason I would fail to make love to a live woman for many, many years.”

For Buddy Guy, singers Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Chapman and others got most of the crowd on its feet singing Guy’s signature “Sweet Home Chicago.”

Morgan Freeman hailed Guy as a pioneer who helped bridge soul and rock and roll.

“When you hear the blues, you really don’t think of it as black or white or yellow or purple or blue,” Freeman said. “Buddy Guy, your blue brought us together.”

Robert De Niro saluted Hoffman, saying he had changed acting, never took any shortcuts and was brave enough to be a perfectionist.

“Before Dustin burst on the scene, it was pretty much OK for movie stars to show up, read their lines and, if the director insisted, act a little,” De Niro said. “But then Dustin came along — and he just had to get everything right.”

By the end of the night, the Foo Fighters, Kid Rock and Lenny Kravitz got the crowd moving to some of Zeppelin’s hits at the Kennedy Center.

Jack Black declared Zeppelin the “greatest rock and roll band of all time.”

“That’s right. Better than the Beatles. Better than the Stones. Even better than Tenacious D,” he said. “And that’s not opinion — that’s fact.”

For the finale, Heart’s Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson sang “Stairway to Heaven,” accompanied by a full choir and Jason Bonham, son of the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.

Zeppelin front man Robert Plant and his bandmates John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page seemed moved by the show.

Meryl Streep first introduced the honorees Saturday as they received the award medallions during a formal dinner at the U.S. State Department hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton said ballerina Makarova “risked everything to have the freedom to dance the way she wanted to dance” when she defected from the Soviet Union in 1970.

Makarova made her debut with the American Ballet Theatre and later was the first exiled artist to return to the Soviet Union before its fall to dance with the Kirov Ballet.

Clinton also took special note of Letterman, saying he must be wondering what he’s doing in a crowd of talented artists and musicians.

“Dave and I have a history,” she said. “I have been a guest on his show several times, and if you include references to my pant suits, I’m on at least once a week.”

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Global firms’ tax pay ‘an insult’

3 December 2012 Last updated at 05:44 ET

Global firms in the UK that pay little or no tax are an “insult” to British businesses, a committee of MPs says.

Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge said HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) needed to be “more aggressive and assertive in confronting corporate tax avoidance”.

Multinationals such as Starbucks and Amazon have come under fire for paying little or no tax.

They generate UK sales of hundreds of millions of pounds.

Starbucks, for example, sold nearly £400m worth of goods in the UK last year, but paid no corporation tax at all, because much of the money it earns in this country is transferred to a sister company in the Netherlands in the form of royalty payments.

HMRC said it already ensured that international companies paid the tax due “in accordance with UK tax law”.

UK-based companies pay corporation tax on their taxable profits wherever they are made. Companies based outside the UK must pay tax on profits made in this country.

Continue reading the main story

Multinationals in the tax spotlight

Starbucks’ UK sales last year were £400m but much of its earnings are paid as royalties to another part of the company.

Amazon generated sales of more than £3.3bn in the UK last year but paid no corporation tax on any of the profits, and is under investigation by the UK tax authorities, according to the Guardian newspaper.

Apple paid less than 2% corporation tax on its profits outside the US, paying $ 713m (£445m) on foreign pre-tax profits of $ 36.8bn.

Google’s UK unit paid £6m to the Treasury in 2011 on UK turnover of £395m, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

Source: Various

The influential committee’s report comes after it took evidence in November from executives from Starbucks, Google and Amazon about the amount of corporation tax the companies have paid in the UK.

‘Evasive evidence’

Margaret Hodge told the BBC that there was a danger corporation tax was becoming “voluntary” and that this had to change.

“These global companies are making money in the UK. All we are saying is that if you have economic activities in the UK you are making profits and tax is payable on that,” she said.

It emerged on Sunday that coffee shop chain Starbucks is in talks with HMRC about the amount of tax it pays.

Meanwhile, Chancellor George Osborne will unveil later details of £154m of funding to help tackle tax avoidance and evasion, amid public concern over the tax affairs of major international companies and wealthy individuals.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Although they employ many thousands of people in Britain, it is unclear whether collectively they are net creators or destroyers of employment”

End Quote

The money will be used to take on extra staff to investigate high earners who aggressively avoid or evade paying tax and global firms that use legal loopholes to move profits out of the UK.

The funding is expected to help bring in about £2bn a year for HMRC.

In the report, Mrs Hodge said the level of tax taken from multinational firms with large UK operations was, “outrageous and an insult to British businesses and individuals who pay their fair share”.

Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge: “It is time for HMRC to get a grip”.

“The inescapable conclusion is that multinationals are using structures and exploiting current tax legislation to move offshore profits that are clearly generated from economic activity in the UK.

“HMRC should be challenging this, but its response so far to these big businesses and their aggressive tax planning has lacked determination and looks way too lenient. Policing the tax system must be at the heart of what HMRC does.

An HMRC spokesman said: “We relentlessly challenge those that persist in avoiding tax and have recovered £29bn additional revenues from large businesses in the last six years, including £4.1bn in the last four years from transfer pricing enquiries alone.”

‘Breathtaking hypocrisy’

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

Jonty Bloom Business correspondent, BBC News

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It is worth remembering that corporation tax is not the only tax that companies pay. Corporation tax does raise £50bn in the UK, but other taxes that cannot be avoided so easily include VAT; then there is the business rate, which raises some £25bn a year. The Institute for Economic Affairs says that is enough to pay for the secondary education system and the police and the fire service.

Also, companies pay National Insurance contributions for every worker they hire and fuel duty and vehicle excise duty which are one of the biggest revenue earners for the government.

That doesn’t mean that foreign companies aren’t doing their best to avoid paying corporation tax on the profits they make here, but then UK companies operating in France, China or the US are probably doing much the same there.

Laws on corporate taxation are extremely complex and often part of internationally negotiated treaties, one reason they are difficult to change and why companies have become very good at exploiting every legitimate and legal loophole that they can.

In a statement to coincide with the committee’s report, Amazon said it paid all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operated in: “We have a single European headquarters in Luxembourg with hundreds of employees to manage this complex operation.”

Starbucks said in a statement: “We have listened to feedback from our customers and employees, and understand that to maintain and further build public trust we need to do more.

“As part of this we are looking at our tax approach in the UK. The company has been in discussions with HMRC for some time and is also in talks with the Treasury.”

‘Small fry’

The War on Want charity, which is campaigning for more to be done to tackle tax avoidance, accused the government of “breathtaking hypocrisy”.

It said: “Osborne and Cameron are happy to talk tough on tax. But, in reality, their plans will only go after the small fry on the fringes, while giving a green light to multinationals like Amazon, Google and Starbucks to continue avoiding billions in tax.”

Heather Self, a tax expert, told the BBC assessing tax for major companies was not simple.

“If you buy a book from Amazon you are actually buying from a Luxembourg company,” she said. “It decides how many books to buy and at what price they sell them for. All you have in the UK is a warehouse, a very big warehouse that employs a lot of people but that is all it does. The risk is taken in Luxembourg.

“Profits paid here are for the activities it undertakes here and that is not highly profitable. It is not as simple a situation as the Public Accounts Committee likes to make out sometimes.”

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Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier

ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.

Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has campaigned on an Obama-style “Let’s change Italy now” mantra.

Nearly all polls show Bersani winning the primary, after he won the first round of balloting Nov. 25 with 44.9 percent of the vote. Since he didn’t get an absolute majority, he was forced into a runoff with Renzi, who garnered 35.5 percent.

After battling all week to get more voters to the polling stations for round two, Renzi seemed almost resigned to a Bersani win by Sunday, saying he hoped that by Monday “we can all work together.”

Bersani, a former transport and industry minister, seemed confident of victory as well, joking about Berlusconi’s flip-flopping political ambitions by asking “What time did he say it?” when told that the media mogul had purportedly decided against running.

Next year’s general election will largely decide how and whether Italy continues on the path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis.

The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Berlusconi’s ability to reign in Italy’s public debt and push through sorely needed structural reforms.

Berlusconi has largely stayed out of the public spotlight for the past year, but he returned with force in recent weeks, announcing he was thinking about running again, then changing his mind, then threatening to bring down Monti’s government, and most recently staying silent about his political plans.

His waffling has thrown his People of Freedom party into disarray and disrupted its own plans for a primary — all of which has only seemed to bolster the impression of order, stability and organization within the center-left camp.

A poll published Friday gave the Democratic Party 30 percent of the vote if the election were held now, compared with some 19.5 percent for the upstart populist movement of comic Beppe Grillo, and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in third with 14.3 percent. The poll, by the SWG firm for state-run RAI 3, surveyed 5,000 voting-age adults by telephone between Nov. 26 and 28. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.36 percentage points.

It’s quite a turnabout for Berlusconi’s once-dominant movement, and a similarly remarkable shift in fortunes for the Democratic Party, which had been in shambles for years, unable to capitalize on Berlusconi’s professional and personal failings while he was premier.

But Berlusconi’s 2011 downfall and a series of recent political party funding scandals that have targeted mostly center-right politicians have contributed to the party’s rise as Italy struggles through a grinding recession and near-record high unemployment.

Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s hand-picked political heir, seemed again exasperated Sunday after a long meeting with his patron over Berlusconi’s plans. News reports have suggested Berlusconi might split the party in two and re-launch the Forza Italia party that brought him to political power for the first time in 1994.

“We have to work to reconstruct the center-right, and reconstructing it means having a big center-right party,” not a divided one, Alfano said.

He added that Berlusconi didn’t say one way or another if he would run himself. “It’s his choice,” he said. “If there are any decisions in this regard, he’ll be the one to say so.”

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iPad mini shortages may soon be resolved

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Analysis: Drugmakers step up search for hearing loss medicines

ZURICH/LONDON (Reuters) – When Swiss biotech firm Auris Medical wanted to recruit patients to test its experimental hearing loss drug, it decided to enlist partygoers deafened by firecrackers on New Year’s Eve.

In the weeks leading up to December 31, 2005 it advertised in the subway and on radio stations in Munich and Berlin, urging victims of sudden firecracker-induced hearing loss to turn up at designated clinics for treatment on January 1.

“We had just one single day of enrolment, we didn’t know how many people would show up,” Thomas Meyer, managing director of Auris, told Reuters.

Luckily, his gamble paid off and the small private company is now one of the leaders in what has been an empty space for the pharmaceutical industry.

Auris managed to recruit enough people to show that its compound AM-111 posed no safety risk and has since successfully completed a mid-stage trial in acute sensorineural hearing loss, or sudden deafness, involving 210 patients.

While there is no guarantee that its drug, which is injected through the eardrum, will pass muster in final-stage tests, the progress by Auris and a clutch of rival biotech firms is making large pharmaceutical companies sit up and take notice.

There are currently no approved disease-modifying drugs for hearing loss, which affects nearly a third of people aged 65 to 74 and half of those over 75.

But the science is developing and investor interest is growing, piqued by the huge commercial success of recent new treatments for sight loss, such as Lucentis from Novartis and Roche and Eylea from Regeneron and Bayer.

British charity Action on Hearing Loss conservatively puts the potential Western market for new drugs at $ 4.6 billion a year – a figure that could grow quickly as ageing populations swell the ranks of those with hearing problems.

NEGLECTED FIELD

“It’s one of the few areas that, as yet, hasn’t really been tackled by the drugs industry,” said Kate Bingham, managing partner at SV Life Sciences Advisers, a venture capital firm with investments in new drugs for both eyes and ears.

Bingham sits on the board of Autifony Therapeutics – a hearing loss firm spun out of GlaxoSmithKline in which the British drugmaker retains a stake.

Historically, hearing loss has received little attention from Big Pharma, given the lack of obvious targets for drug intervention, the difficulties of running clinical trials and a widespread belief that most deafness could not be reversed.

Now the big companies are getting involved, although the work is early-stage.

“A drug that is therapeutic and priced right could be quite a blockbuster. That’s why they’ve put their toe in the water,” said Jonathan Kil, chief medical officer at Seattle-based Sound Pharmaceuticals, which is enrolling young iPod users in a trial of an oral drug for noise-induced hearing loss.

U.S. giant Pfizer is arguably the most advanced of the big players, with a drug in initial Phase I clinical testing trial for age-related sensorineural hearing loss that looks to enhance the function of existing hair cells.

Some of its biggest rivals are laying bets, too. Last year French drugmaker Sanofi inked a two-year research deal with privately held Dutch biotech firm Audion Therapeutics to develop small molecule drugs to improve hearing.

In October, Roche joined forces with venture capital firm Versant Ventures and biotech Inception Sciences to find molecules targeting ear hair cell protection and regeneration in the cochlea, the spiral-shaped cavity in the inner ear.

Cross-town competitor Novartis, meanwhile, struck a 2010 deal potentially worth more than $ 213 million with U.S. biotech GenVec to develop gene-based treatments to replace hair cells in the ear that transmit sound.

“We’re looking at restoration as our main line of work and we’re interested in whether there are chemicals that might also play this role instead of having to introduce a gene,” said Novartis research head Mark Fishman.

“This is an area that’s a bit more futuristic and ultimately restoring the hair cells will be the cure.”

EYES AND EARS

Unlike new eye drugs, which work by inhibiting an unwanted process, hearing drugs will need to restore damaged function – a more difficult proposition.

Experts say the first drugs will target niche areas, such as damage caused by loud noise or as a result of chemotherapy.

“Hearing loss is not just one condition. It’s like cancer – there are lots of different types and there is work to be done to segment the market,” said Ralph Holme, head of biomedical research at Action on Hearing Loss.

Heading the field for noise-induced hearing loss is South Illinois University, which has launched a late-stage trial with the U.S. military for an drug to increase protection for people exposed to very noisy environments like soldiers.

Canada’s Adherex also has a late-stage trial to test a drug that may protect against hearing loss caused by platinum-based anti-cancer agents in children.

While protective treatments could become available within the next few years, regenerative approaches – such as injecting stem cells into the ear or chemically intervening to switch on genes that control cell growth – are much further off.

Despite recent promising tests in gerbils, the potential to replicate this in humans is still uncertain, said Pascal Senn, an ear specialist at the University of Berne.

“If something grows inside the ear, you must be sure that it doesn’t grow excessively or form tumors. There are a lot of roadblocks that need to be overcome in this field. It’s highly risky, but I think it’s also the hottest area,” he said.

One intriguing possibility for the future is the convergence of future drugs and devices. Hearing aid manufacturers have certainly not been deaf to the noises from the pharma sector.

Sonova, the world’s largest maker of hearing aids, has invested in two start-up companies – one in the United States for drugs to protect hearing and another Swiss biotech working on a treatment for acute tinnitus.

It bought U.S. cochlear implant manufacturer Advanced Bionics in 2009 in a bid to increase its focus on the inner ear and understand how drug treatments could work with implants.

“It will be interesting whether the innovation will be driven by pharma companies moving in or whether the hearing aid companies will branch out,” said Auris’ Meyer.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Ricky Martin finds new home on small screen

NEW YORK (AP) — Ricky Martin is saying goodbye to Broadway’s “Evita.” But don’t cry for him.

The Latin superstar has a slew of new projects in the works, including two television series and a children’s book.

“It’s about growing,” said Martin in an interview Friday. “It’s a moment in my life where I just need to absorb and be surrounded by amazing actors and musicians and grow as an entertainer. I think this is going to be an amazing year for that.”

Martin takes his final bow in the Andrew Lloyd Webber revival on Jan. 26. Then he heads down under to join the second season of the Australian edition of “The Voice.” But the Grammy winner says not to expect any biting, Simon Cowellesque critiques.

“I don’t believe in tough love. I believe in love, and I believe in being nurturing to new talented men and women,” he said at an M.A.C. Viva Glam event for Saturday’s World AIDS Day. Martin partnered with the cosmetics brand to raise awareness and funding for HIV/AIDS programs worldwide.

The “Livin’ la Vida Loca” singer is developing a new series for NBC, expected in 2013. He’s producing, writing and will star in the currently untitled dramedy, where he hopes to tackle social issues with humor.

He’s also writing his second book and admitted he didn’t have to look far for inspiration.

“I think it’s time to write about things that I’ve been through with my kids that I’m sure many daddys out there will understand,” said the father of 4-year-old twins Matteo and Valentino.

The family-friendly story about self-esteem is slated for release next summer.

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AP writer Sigal Ratner-Arias contributed to this story.

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Deficit cut ‘could take longer’

2 December 2012 Last updated at 06:13 ET

Chancellor George Osborne says the rich will pay more, but welfare spending must also come down.

Chancellor George Osborne has admitted that curbing the UK’s financial deficit is “taking longer” than planned.

But he told the BBC the government was “making progress” and that to “turn back now would be a complete disaster”.

Mr Osborne, who delivers his Autumn Statement on Wednesday, said well-off people would “pay their fair share”.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said Mr Osborne’s judgement had been “woefully lacking” and more investment was needed to promote economic growth.

The coalition has set a target of reducing debt as a share of national income by the next general election, due in 2015.

UK public sector net borrowing, excluding financial interventions, hit £8.6bn in October, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), marking a rise from the £5.9bn borrowed in October 2011.

But last week the ONS confirmed that the UK’s economy had grown by 1% during the third quarter of this year, following a recession lasting nine months.

‘Pay our way’

Mr Osborne refused to divulge any details of the economic forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, which will be unveiled during Wednesday’s statement.

But he told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “We had two targets. One was to get debt share falling as a share of national income by 2015/16 and also to balance the current budget.

Ed Balls: “Unless you have a long-term jobs and growth plan you don’t get the welfare bill down.”

“It is clearly taking longer to deal with Britain’s debts. It is clearly taking longer to recover from the financial crisis than one would have hoped, but we have made real progress.

“The deficit is down by a quarter. There are a million more jobs in the private sector and to turn back now, to go back to the borrowing and the debt and the spending that Ed Balls represents would be a complete disaster for our country.”

He added that some people were calling for more borrowing and others for more spending cuts, but the government had “got the right plan and we should stick to that plan”.

The deficit had been cut by a quarter, he added.

Mr Osborne said of an economic recovery that “underpinning it will be the confidence of this country to pay its way in the world”.

However, Labour’s Mr Balls told the Andrew Marr Show that the chancellor’s “judgement has been proved to be woefully lacking”.

He added: “The growth plan is a shambles. There’s nothing there… We are in a hole with no growth and borrowing rising.”

‘Fair share’

According to the Sunday Times, the chancellor is poised to cut the £50,000 annual tax relief cap on pension contributions to as little as £30,000 in his Autumn Statement.

The change, affecting the wealthiest pension pots, would reportedly bring in up to £1.8bn a year.

Mr Balls said such a course would be “deeply unfair” and attacked the government for previously cutting the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45%.

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said the Autumn Statement was a Budget by any other name and some tax rises for the wealthy and cuts in welfare were widely expected.

Mr Osborne said: “The richest have paid more in all of my Budgets.”

He added: “The richest will have to bear their fair share… more than they pay at the moment.”

But Mr Balls said: “There’s a millionaires’ tax cut worth £3bn… Why should pensioners pay more?”

Former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott told BBC One’s Sunday Politics: “What matters in the Autumn Statement is to get the economy going.”

He said his party “must fight much harder to ensure we get policies [in government] to get it going”.

BBC News – Business

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