Schering-Plough faces possible federal charges

Drug maker Schering-Plough Corp. said Friday it was the target of a federal grand jury investigation into its marketing practices, whether it overcharged the government for medicines and possible obstruction of justice.

Schering-Plough received a letter Wednesday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts informing it of the investigation, which focuses on the subsidiary running U.S. operations, Schering Corp., said spokeswoman Denise Foy.

The company said it believed the letter showed that the government planned to pursue a criminal indictment and that the company was continuing to cooperate.

Energy: Halliburton settles suits

Halliburton Co. said Friday it has agreed to pay $6 million to settle 20 shareholder lawsuits that accused it of using deceptive accounting practices while Vice President Dick Cheney led the company.

The lawsuits challenged the way that the oilfield-services company counted revenue from cost overruns and change orders on long-term fixed-price construction projects.

Halliburton began booking some of the unapproved amounts as revenue in 1998 and later disclosed the change in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is investigating the accounting change and the way it was disclosed.

Economy: Consumers cut spending

Consumers worried about jobs put a tight grip on their cash and trimmed spending by 0.1 percent in April, the biggest cutback since the beginning of the year.

The dip in spending represented a big pullback by consumers from March, when they ratcheted up spending by 0.8 percent, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

April’s spending figure was weaker than economists were expecting. They were forecasting a tiny rise of 0.1 percent.

Kansas University: Overland Park company signs deal with Taisho

Overland Park-based CyDex Inc. has signed an agreement with a major Japanese pharmaceutical company to use CyDex’s technology in the development a new drug to treat strokes.

Terms of the deal with Taisho Pharmaceutical Co. were not disclosed, but CyDex officials said clinical trials of the new drug were expected to begin later this year.

The deal is the latest in a series of announcements by the company, which was founded on technology discovered at Kansas University’s Higuchi Biosciences Center.