CyDex strikes drug deal

Overland Park-based CyDex Inc. announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal with Merck & Co. Inc. that will allow the pharmaceutical giant to use CyDex’s main product in the development of several drugs.

The product, Captisol, allows certain types of drugs to be more easily absorbed by the body. The Captisol technology was developed and patented by researchers at Kansas University’s Higuchi Biosciences Center.

Besides Merck, CyDex now has agreements with Allergan, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer and six other major pharmaceutical companies.

Wichita

Council OKs fare subsidy for Frontier Airlines

Calling low-cost air fares essential to keeping and attracting jobs, the Wichita City Council agreed to increase its subsidy for the city’s second discount carrier by $400,000.

Under Tuesday’s deal, Denver-based Frontier Airlines Inc. will take over from Mesa Airlines three flights a day to Denver.

Mesa Airlines, which operated the service under the name Frontier JetExpress since September, told city officials it no longer wanted to manage the service. It is projected to have used nearly $400,000 of its $500,000 subsidy before ending its contract Friday.

The city will use $900,000 from its $20.3 million cash reserves to guarantee revenues for Frontier under the new contract.

Money

U.S. Treasury officials provide John Hancocks

With cameras whirring and clicking, a smiling Treasury Secretary John Snow signed his name with flair, relishing one of the perks of the job: signing his name on the nation’s greenbacks.

Snow and U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin provided their signatures to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at a ceremony Wednesday. Those signatures, after being transferred by engravers to steel plates, will be printed on all new U.S. currency. Roughly 8 billion notes are made each year.

The new notes carrying Snow’s John Hancock are expected to begin rolling off the presses this summer, starting with $1 bills, said Tom Ferguson, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Snow’s signature will replace that of Paul O’Neill, who was fired by President Bush in December. The signature of Marin, who has been treasurer since the summer of 2001, already is on the bills and is just being updated.

Retail

Staples’ earnings rise

Staples Inc. reported Wednesday sharply higher fourth-quarter earnings and total sales that edged it past Office Depot as the nation’s largest office supply chain.

Staples, crediting a focus on profitable small-business customers and smaller stores that sell fewer items, reported fourth-quarter net income of $165 million, or 35 cents per share, beating expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call by 2 cents per share.