CLAYTON -- Biopharmaceutical company Talecris Biotherapeutics is expanding its manufacturing facilities near Clayton, creating 259 new jobs over the next seven years and investing $268.7 million.
The company, which is headquartered in Durham's Research Triangle Park, develops treatments in immunology, neurology, pulmonology and hemostasis and recently raised more than $900 million in its initial stock offering.
Talecris currently employs more than 1,800 full-time workers currently employed in Johnston County and is one of the top employers at RTP. The 259 new jobs will have an average annual salary of $51,066.
The announcement was made possible in part by state Job Development Investment Grant and One North Carolina Fund awards and is contingent upon approval of local incentives.
Obama points to reduce deficit
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, mindful of public anxiety over the government's mushrooming debt, is shifting emphasis from big-spending policies to deficit reduction. Domestic agencies have been told to brace for a spending freeze or cuts of up to 5 percent as part of a midterm election-year push to rein in record budget shortfalls.
Yet with the economy still in distress and unemployment pushing past 10 percent, prospects for making a dent in a trillion-dollar-plus annual deficit seem slight. And since the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs would likely be shielded from such cuts, overtures toward trimming the deficit may hold more symbolic value than substance.
President Barack Obama is expected to make post-recession spending restraint a key theme of his State of the Union address in January and an important element of the budget he submits to Congress a few weeks later. He is under increasing pressure, including from moderate and conservative members of his own party, to show he is serious about tackling a deficit that has become both an economic and political liability.
FDA backs off Gulf oyster ban
WASHINGTON -- Facing fierce resistance, the Obama administration on Friday backed off a plan to ban sales of raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico during warm-weather months.
The Food and Drug Administration said it would put the proposal on hold while it studies ways to make the popular shellfish safer.
The abrupt turnaround came as oyster-lovers and industry officials -- as well as Democrats and Republicans across the Gulf -- blasted the plan as unnecessary government meddling. Industry officials said it could have killed a $500 million economy and thousands of jobs.
About 15 people die each year in the United States from raw oysters infected with Vibrio vulnificus, which typically is found in warm coastal waters between April and October. Most of the deaths occur in people with weak immune systems caused by health problems like liver or kidney disease, cancer, diabetes, or AIDS.
-- From staff, wire reports
