Generic Drug Makers Facing Squeeze on Revenue

They call it the patent cliff.

Brand-name drug makers have feared it for years. And now the makers of generic drugs fear it, too.

This year, more than 40 brand-name drugs — valued at $35 billion in annual sales — lost their patent protection, meaning that generic companies were permitted to make their own lower-priced versions of well-known drugs like Plavix, Lexapro and Seroquel — and share in the profits that had exclusively belonged to the brands.

Next year, the value of drugs scheduled to lose their patents and be sold as generics is expected to decline by more than half, to about $17 billion, according to an analysis by Crédit Agricole Securities.“The patent cliff is over,” said Kim Vukhac, an analyst for Crédit Agricole. “That’s great for large pharma, but that also means the opportunities theoretically have dried up for generics.”

In response, many generic drug makers are scrambling to redefine themselves, whether by specializing in hard-to-make drugs, selling branded products or making large acquisitions. The large generics company Watson acquired a European competitor, Actavis, in October, vaulting it from the fifth- to the third-largest generic drug maker worldwide.

“They are certainly saying either I need to get bigger, or I need to get ‘specialer,’ ” said Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a health industry research group. “They all want to be special.”

As one consequence of the approaching cliff, executives for generic drug companies say, they will no longer be able to rely as much on the lucrative six-month exclusivity periods that follow the patent expirations of many drugs. During those periods, companies that are the first to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration, successfully challenge a patent and show they can make the drug win the right to sell their version exclusively or with limited competition.

The exclusivity windows can give a quick jolt to companies. During the first nine months of 2012, sales of generic drugs increased by 19 percent over the same period in 2011, to $39.1 billion from $32.8 billion, according to Michael Faerm, an analyst for Credit Suisse. Sales of branded drugs, by contrast, fell 4 percent during the same period, to $174.2 billion from $181.3 billion.

But those exclusive periods also make generic drug makers vulnerable to the fickle cycle of patent expiration. “The only issue is it’s a bubble, too,” said Mr. Kleinrock. He said next year, the generic industry would enter a drought that was expected to last about two years.  Of the drugs that are becoming generic, fewer have exclusivity periods dedicated to a single drug maker.

In 2013, for example, the antidepressant Cymbalta, sold by Eli Lilly, is scheduled to be available in generic form. But more than five companies are expected to share in sales during the first six months, according to a report by Ms. Vukhac.

Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, the second-largest generics company in the United States, said Wall Street analysts were obsessed with the issue. “I can’t go anywhere without being asked about the patent cliff, the patent cliff, the patent cliff,” she said. “The patent cliff is one aspect of a complex, multilayered landscape, and I think each company is going to face it differently.”

Jeremy M. Levin, the chief executive of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest global maker of generic drugs, agreed. “The concept of exclusivity — where only one generic player could actually make money out of the unique moment — has diminished,” he said. “In the absence of that, many companies have had to really ask the question, ‘How do I really play in the generics world?’ ”

For Teva, Mr. Levin said, he believes the answer will be both its reach  — it sells 1,400 products, and one in six generic prescriptions in the United States is filled with a Teva product  — and what he says is a reputation for making quality products. That focus will be increasingly important, he said, given recent statements by the F.D.A. that it intends to take a closer look at the quality of generic drugs. Mr. Levin also said he planned to cut costs, announcing last week that he intended to trim from $1.5 to $2 billion in expenses over the next five years.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 5, 2012

An article on Tuesday about business strategies of generic drug makers in the face of fewer drug patent expirations misidentified the country in which the pharmaceutical company Endo is based. It is in the United States, not Japan.

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South Loop residents oppose DePaul arena

The prospect of a DePaul University men's basketball arena being constructed on land just north of McCormick Place is drawing strong opposition from the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance, a South Loop residents' organization, according to a letter released Tuesday.
 
A survey of 700 neighbors of the site, conducted by the community group, found more than 70 percent oppose construction of a Blue Demons arena there, Tina Feldstein, president of the organization, stated in the letter.
 
An arena would not fit within the residential and historic character of the area and could put two landmark structures, the Harriet F. Rees House and the American Book Co. building, at risk, the letter stated. It would also add to traffic congestion and potential rowdiness in an area already overburdened when conventions are in progress at McCormick Place or major events, including Chicago Bears games, are taking place at Soldier Field, Feldstein said in an interview.
 
"We're not against vibrant development, which hotel and retail would bring," Feldstein said. And the group would support an arena at an alternate site on the Near South Side, she said.
 
The letter was written in support of an alternate plan for the so-called "Olde Prairie" blocks, which is being put forward in bankruptcy court by developers Pam Gleichman, Karl Norberg and Gunnar Falk. Their plan calls for hotel and retail development on property directly north of the McCormick Place administrative offices and West Building on Cermak Road.
 
If they lose control of the property, it is expected to go up for auction, making it possible for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, or other parties to make a run at it.
 
DePaul is weighing several sites, including property near McCormick Place and the United Center on the Near West Side. As well, the Allstate Arena in Rosemont is fighting to retain the team.
 
The neighborhood's opposition adds to resistance by Ald. Robert Fioretti, whose 2nd Ward includes McCormick Place.
 "That is not a place to put an arena -- far away from the school," he said. "I think there are traffic issues related, and it would be a bad deal for taxpayers in these economic times."

Fioretti noted such a project likely would require public subsidy.
 
The Olde Prairie blocks have not been officially designated as a potential site for a DePaul arena, but Fioretti said it is his understanding that they are being seriously considered.
 
Jim Reilly, chief executive officer of the exposition authority, known as McPier, has publicly acknowledged that there have been talks with DePaul. A spokeswoman on Tuesday said it would be premature to comment further at this point.

A DePaul spokesperson could not be reached for immediate comment.
 
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said he would like DePaul to bring men's basketball back to the city. A spokesman declined comment beyond that.
 kbergen@tribune.com | Twitter @kathy_bergen

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NIU fans pumped for Orange Bowl

As trash-talkers grumbled Monday about Northern Illinois University being selected to play in the Orange Bowl, alumni and fans in the Chicago area had one thing to say:

Go Huskies.

"Everybody's entitled to their opinion," said Joseph Matty, executive director and CEO of the Northern Illinois University Alumni Association. "Our football team did what we needed to do. We played by the rules and we won games."

Less than 24 hours after the historic news that NIU would become the first team from the Mid-American Conference to earn a berth in one of college football's most prestigious bowl games, Huskie Pride was on full display.

By midday, a steady line had formed at NIU's Convocation Center, where students could sign up for free Orange Bowl tickets issued by the college.

The Northern Star, the campus newspaper, devoted its entire front page to the story with the exuberant headline: "How Do You Like Them Oranges?"

On Facebook, NIU graduates congratulated the team and each other. Several alumni association travel packages — from $769 to $2,049 — are being offered to Miami on New Year's Day, where the Huskies will face the Florida State Seminoles.

"It's really exciting my senior year seeing all this happen, to see this frenzy is awesome," said Jason Conklin, a senior marketing major from Round Lake Beach. "Hopefully this exposure will get more people to our games and get more national attention."

With 165,000 alumni in the Chicago area and another 60,000 living elsewhere in the country, NIU has demonstrated impressive school spirit at five smaller bowl games since 2005, and officials are expecting even bigger crowds Jan. 1, Matty said.

The alumni group expects to sell 1,000 tickets to a pregame reception in Miami and will dispatch staff to eight other cities across the U.S. for additional game "watch parties."

Matty added that the athletic success has been a boon for more than just sports fans at NIU. Five bowl appearances in the past seven years have led to an influx of support that allowed for the construction of two new facilities: the Yordon Center and the Chessick Practice Center.

"What it does is it reaffirms everybody's belief that they received a quality education," Matty said. "This is just an opportunity to show the excellence at NIU."

NIU's invitation to the Orange Bowl came as a surprise to some critics, who questioned how the BCS Bowl selection process allowed a lesser-known school to beat out more prestigious teams.

ESPN commentators blasted the selection minutes after it was announced Sunday evening, and sports radio continued the debate Monday.

The naysayers only made Glen Brin, of Long Grove, feel even prouder as he drove to work with an NIU flag hanging out his car window. Passing drivers honked their horns in support, he said.

Brin, who met his wife, Darlene, at NIU before graduating in 1979, follows NIU football religiously on TV, radio and, at least once a year, in person. He and his wife have a framed photograph of a historic building on campus hanging in the family room. They carry NIU credit cards in their wallets.

"There's no way I'm missing this," Brin said of the Orange Bowl. "To be in the stands in one of the five major bowls, with the first MAC team in the history of the conference, is just tremendous."

An official pep rally is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Convocation Center.

Bruce Jones, a former NIU swimmer, remembered attending football games in the late 1980s, when the Huskies had losing records and the stadium was half-empty. Back then, he would cringe when the Huskies competed against bigger schools such as the University of Wisconsin or University of Iowa and suffered crushing defeats.

"It was just demoralizing. Administrators said it's part of the way of attracting more attention … and we were like, this is never going to work, we're just getting crushed," Jones said.

So although Jones was vacationing in Hawaii when NIU's Orange Bowl invitation was announced, it didn't stop him from sending gloating Facebook messages and making plans for another getaway in a few weeks, this time to Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens.

"It's kind of like vindication," Jones said.

Even NIU mascot Victor E. Huskie appeared proud as he accompanied Larry Gautier, a member of the Miami-based Orange Bowl Football Committee, around campus Monday.

"(NIU's appearance) is great, and at the end of the day Northern Illinois did what they had to do and they earned it," Gautier said.

Wearing an Orange Bowl blazer, Gautier was there to drum up interest in the game. But he didn't have to walk far before exchanging high-fives with Morgan Stockdale, a junior physical education major from Chicago who said she was Orange Bowl-bound.

Stockdale wore a hat and sweatshirt she acquired at Friday's Mid-American Conference championship game in Detroit.

"It's a big boost," she said. "It's going to get us (NIU) out there, and more people will want to come out for everything."

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LeBron James wins Sports Illustrated annual award

(Reuters) – LeBron James of the Miami Heat was named as Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year for 2012, the U.S. magazine announced on Monday.

In an outstanding year, the 27-year-old James won his first NBA championship, his third league Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, was named MVP of the NBA finals and a won gold medal with the United States at the London Olympics.

He became just the sixth basketballer to win the award, which began in 1954. The most recent was his team-mate Dwyane Wade in 2006.

Two years ago, James became a hate figure for many American sports fans after he announced his decision to sign for Miami live on television after his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers had expired.

He was booed at courts across the NBA and received intense criticism for his performance as Miami lost the 2011 NBA finals to the Dallas Mavericks.

“Did I think an award like this was possible two years ago? ‘No, I did not,” James said in an interview with the magazine.

“I thought I would be helping a lot of kids and raise $ 3 million by going on TV and saying, ‘Hey, I want to play for the Miami Heat.’ But it affected far more people than I imagined.

“I know it wasn’t on the level of an injury or an addiction, but it was something I had to recover from. I had to become a better person, a better player, a better father, a better friend, a better mentor and a better leader. I’ve changed, and I think people have started to understand who I really am.”

Previous winners of the award include swimmer Michael Phelps (2008), cyclist Lance Armstrong (2002) and golfer Tiger Woods (2000) while the first award was given to British athlete Roger Bannister in 1954 after he became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes.

(Reporting By Simon Evans; Editing by Julian Linden)

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Global Update: GlaxoSmithKline Tops Access to Medicines Index

Sang Tan/Associated Press

GlaxoSmithKline hung on to its perennial top spot in the new Access to Medicines Index released last week, but its competitors are closing in.

Every two years, the index ranks the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies based on how readily they get medicines they hold patents on to the world’s poor, how much research they do on tropical diseases, how ethically they conduct clinical trials in poor countries, and similar issues.

Johnson & Johnson shot up to second place, while AstraZeneca fell to 16th from 7th. AstraZeneca has had major management shake-ups. It did not do less, but the industry is improving so rapidly that others outscored it, the report said.

The index was greeted with skepticism by some drugmakers when it was introduced in 2008. But now 19 of the 20 companies have a board member or subcommittee tracking how well they do at what the index measures, said David Sampson, the chief author.

The one exception was a Japanese company. As before, Japanese drugmakers ranked at or near the index’s bottom, and European companies clustered near the top. Generic companies — most of them Indian — that export to poor countries are ranked separately.

Johnson & Johnson moved up because it created an access team, disclosed more and bought Crucell, a vaccine company.

The foundation that creates the index now has enough money to continue for five more years, said its founder, Wim Leereveld, a former pharmaceutical executive.

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Heat is on Groupon's Andrew Mason

In June 2011, Groupon Inc. Chief Executive Andrew Mason took the stage at a conference hosted by influential technology blog AllThingsD.

When co-executive editor Kara Swisher asked him whether an initial public offering was coming soon, he shot her what she later dubbed his "death stare."

The audience laughed and broke into applause.

The tone was decidedly more subdued last week, when Mason found himself at another tech industry confab, fielding questions from Business Insider's Henry Blodget, this time about whether Groupon's directors were going to fire him at their meeting the next day. AllThingsD had reported a day earlier, citing anonymous sources, that Groupon's board of directors was considering replacing Mason with a more experienced CEO to lead the Chicago-based daily deal company's turnaround.

The contrast between those two appearances underscores the swift and dramatic tumble of Mason's standing in tech and business circles within a few years. The young founder and CEO graced the cover of Forbes in 2010 and was named Ernst & Young's National Entrepreneur of the Year in the "emerging" category a year later.

Those accolades are a far cry from the cloud hanging over Mason, 32, and the company he launched four years ago. The leak to AllThingsD appeared to be deliberately timed to embarrass the executive, forcing him to field questions about his own competence at a scheduled appearance. This public hint of internal strife has fueled speculation around Mason's fate even as other public tech companies, such as Facebook and social game-maker Zynga, have also seen their stock prices drop since their IPOs.

Groupon's board met Thursday and took no action on the CEO's job, with company spokesman Paul Taaffe saying the board and management were "working together with their heads down to achieve Groupon's objectives."

Markets, however, seemed unconvinced. Groupon's beleaguered stock closed slightly higher Thursday but dropped 8.7 percent to $4.14 Friday. Shares debuted at $20 in November 2011.

Investors "want experience in leadership," said Raman Chadha, a clinical professor at DePaul University and co-founder of the Junto Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, a training program for startup founders. "And as a result, where Andrew's background was cool and sexy — and maybe even bordering on amusing — when Groupon was a pure startup, that's in the mindset of those of us who are observers and supporters … and fellow entrepreneurs. I think in the minds of the investor community and Wall Street, (it's different) because now the company has a lot more to lose. And if it's going to fall, it's going to fall really hard and really far."

For Chadha, Mason's unconventional pedigree as a music major-turned-startup-founder was part of the appealing, media-friendly story of Groupon's origin. The company was launched as recession-weary consumers were eager for deals, and it achieved rapid growth while earning a reputation for antics like decorating a conference room in the style of a fictional, possibly deranged tenant of Groupon's headquarters who had lived there before the startup moved into the offices.

The scrutiny of Groupon was tremendous given the "high-flying" nature of the company, said David Larcker, a corporate governance expert at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

"You have a founder as CEO," he said. "He's the public face of the company. He has set the culture. All of that stuff."

That culture, driven in large part by Mason, turned from a lovable quirk to a major liability as the company ran into controversy over its poorly received Super Bowl ads in February 2011 and a series of missteps in the run-up to its IPO. Then, within months of its public debut, it disclosed an accounting flaw that forced it to restate financial results.

The larger question surrounding Groupon is the long-term viability of its basic business model. The company has been expanding offerings beyond its core daily deals, which have seen growth rates tail off. It's also dealing with a recession in the key European market as well as continued competition in the U.S.

But the biggest challenge facing Mason now is probably his own performance, or rather the perception that he isn't up to the task of running the global, publicly traded business worth billions that he founded but that now needs a turnaround. The stock is down 80 percent from its IPO price.

"It's an oft-told, oft-expected story that the genius entrepreneur steps aside when he or she succeeds at building a company big enough to need an experienced CEO," said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan.

The example Gordon and others cite is Google, which flourished after its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made way for a more seasoned executive in Eric Schmidt.

"The Google guys did it, and the results were spectacular," Gordon said.

Chadha said many startups tend to become more corporate in outlook, and less quirky, as they grow, because they bring in experienced executives from large companies that may have difficulty adapting to an entrepreneurial culture or reject it outright as not professional enough.

"I think that's where Google is very different," Chadha said. "(The company) sought out entrepreneurial, startup types — people that became part of their management team." That free-form element of Google's culture comes out in such things as the Google doodles — the offbeat tributes to notable anniversaries or famous people that pop up on the main search page.

Mason has acknowledged areas where Groupon needs to improve and has hired senior executives with experience at more mature tech companies. That hasn't always worked either. Margo Georgiadis, who came from Google as chief operating officer, returned to that company after five months.

Whether there's still room for Mason on the top management team remains to be seen. He was direct in his interview last week with Blodget, offering a minimum of jokes as he focused on discussing the job he and others at Groupon must accomplish.

"I care far more about the success of the business than I care about my role as CEO," he said.

A year ago, when he spoke to author Frank Sennett for his book "Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever," Mason was unapologetic about his management style.

"You only live once, and all I'm doing is being myself," he told Sennett. "I think a normal CEO is trying to appear in some way that's not actually them. That's probably not what they're like."

In the same book, former President and Chief Operating Officer Rob Solomon offered this blunt assessment of his ex-boss: "Andrew at thirty-five and forty is going to hate Andrew at twenty-nine and thirty; I guarantee it."

Melissa Harris and Bloomberg News contributed.

wawong@tribune.com

Twitter @VelocityWong

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Seahawks stun Bears 23-17 in OT

You can question the decision by Lovie Smith to go for it on fourth-and-1 in the second quarter and pass on a field goal, something the coach did himself.

But following the collapse Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field in a 23-17 overtime loss to the Seahawks, it's worth wondering if the aging defense is beginning to show signs it is unraveling as the schedule turns to the final quarter of the season.

The Bears couldn't stop a rookie quarterback, who came in with a 1-5 record on the road, when it mattered. Russell Wilson drove the Seahawks 97 yards for a go-ahead touchdown in the final minutes of regulation and then marched his offense 80 yards for a game-winning score on the opening possession of overtime.

It sent the Bears (8-4) to their third loss in four games and dropped them into a first-place tie in the NFC North with the Packers, who hold the tiebreaker and come to Soldier Field on Dec. 16 in the Bears' only remaining home game.

The Bears made sure Wilson, for a week anyway, will get the publicity fellow rookie quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III have been enjoying. He passed for 293 yards and two touchdowns, completing 23 of 37 passes, and rushed for 71 yards on nine carries with 67 coming after halftime, most on read options.

Forget Smith's early aggressive play call that relied on a patchwork offensive line. His defense got picked apart in losing at home to the Seahawks for the third straight season.

Wilson did the bulk of his damage on the edges. His scramble led to a 27-yard completion to Sidney Rice with 32 seconds remaining in regulation. He threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Golden Tate on the next play.

"When you don't contain a quarterback, you get to see exactly how fast he can be," linebacker Lance Briggs said. "This game falls on the defense. Our offense gave us an opportunity to win the game. They bailed us out at the end of the game with that deep pass, gave us another chance. We didn't hold up our end of the bargain."

Trailing 17-14 after Tate's touchdown, the Bears had only 20 seconds when they started on their own 14-yard line. Jay Cutler managed to hit Brandon Marshall for a 56-yard gain when he was inexplicably open. That set up Robbie Gould's 46-yard field goal to force overtime.

But the Bears defense, which denied it was gassed, couldn't get off the field after Seattle won the coin toss to begin overtime. Wilson ran to move the chains on two third downs and called a read option on the game-winning play before changing it to a pass to Rice.

"As the game went on, I continued to tell the coaches and they saw it too," Wilson said. "Especially in the end of the game, the read option is wide open."

The Seahawks also got 87 yards rushing and one touchdown from Marshawn Lynch, but it was Wilson upstaging Cutler that was the story. It marked the first time in 26 career games with a passer rating above 100 (119.6) that Cutler had lost. He completed 17 of 23 passes for 233 yards with touchdown passes to Earl Bennett and Matt Forte. Bennett, who left with a concussion, dropped what would have been a 62-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter. The drive netted zero points.

The only sack came when Cutler fumbled on a dropback. Marshall made 10 receptions for 165 yards and Forte and Michael Bush combined for 105 yards rushing, but the offense never got a chance in overtime.

The Bears could have gone up 10-0 at the start of the second quarter, but Smith elected to have Bush run on fourth down rather than try a 33-yard field goal by Gould.

"I should have taken the field goal," said Smith, who later reversed course. "Every time a decision doesn't work out I look at it and think would I do it again? Probably so."

Now, he has to hope the performance by his defense against Seattle, which previously had beaten only the lowly Panthers on the road, is an aberration and not a sign of things to come. Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher left in overtime with a hamstring issue and cornerback Tim Jennings was knocked out with a shoulder injury.

With little in the way of challengers for the final playoff spots in the NFC, the postseason looks like a good bet. But combining defensive issues with offensive line issues would be crippling.

"Terrible job I did getting our football team ready," Smith said. "I thought we were ready to go. Some decisions I made really hurt us early on."

The defense's performance provided the most pain.

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

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Nintendo president apologizes for bulky day-one Wii U firmware update

As we noted in our first impressions, Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii U is charting new ground with its wireless GamePad and touchscreen controls that engage gamers in the living room like never before. But before you can even set up the Wii U, a mandatory firmware update is required upon power up. Gamers everywhere were frustrated to learn that the firmware update, which is pegged anywhere between 1GB and 5GB, takes hours to download and could even ”brick” new consoles if the power was cut off. In an email conversation with IGN, Nintendo’s global president and CEO Satoru Iwata said was “very sorry” that Wii U owners were experiencing network issues and that other services such as Nintendo TVii weren’t available at launch. Iwata said he believes “users should be able to use all the functions of a console video game machine as soon as they open the box.” 

Gone are the days when electronics are sold as finished products with set features out of the box. It has become normal for today’s connected electronics to require frequent firmware updates and patches to fix compatibility with other gadgets and to add new features. At what point should consumers stop tolerating devices that don’t work immediately after unboxing? The way we see it, the answer might be “never,” as it’s hard to argue against the fact that new software updates breathe new life into aging consoles.

Iwata also explained that the Wii U’s “Miiverse” online service isn’t meant to replicate existing services such as Xbox LIVE.

“We have not thought that offering the same features that already exist within other online communities would be the best proposal for very experienced game players,” Iwata told IGN.

Nintendo fans can read more Nintendo nuggets over at IGN’s feature that includes mention of a new 3D Super Mario and Zelda game.

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Senators urge Obama to release more water into Mississippi River

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sixteen U.S. senators have appealed to President Barack Obama to divert more water to the Mississippi River to prevent barge traffic from shutting down due to low water on the country’s inland waterway, a crucial route for goods bound for export.

Low water is a looming disaster, said the senators in a letter to Obama that was released on Friday.

The senators, from states along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, asked for emergency action to release more water from Missouri River reservoirs to feed the drought-sapped Mississippi River.

Water levels are forecast to reach near-historic lows by mid-December, and shippers say low water will make it impossible to move cargo. Grain exporters have already slashed by up to 50 percent the weight of cargo shipped by barges on the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.

“Substantial curtailment of navigation will effectively sever the country’s inland waterway superhighway, imperil the shipment of critical cargo for domestic consumption and for export, threaten manufacturing industries and power generation, and risk thousands of related jobs in the Midwest,” wrote the senators.

Signing the letter were senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin of Iowa; Roy Blunt and Claire McCaskill of Missouri; Mark Pryor and John Boozman of Arkansas; Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Mary Landrieu and David Vitter of Louisiana; Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi; Mark Kirk of Illinois; Lamar Alexander of Tennessee; Joe Manchin of West Virginia; and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been battling extreme low-water conditions on the Mississippi for months following the country’s worst drought in half a century.

(Reporting By Charles Abbott; editing by Jim Marshall)

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Unboxed: Stand-Up Desks Gaining Favor in the Workplace

THE health studies that conclude that people should sit less, and get up and move around more, have always struck me as fitting into the “well, duh” category.

But a closer look at the accumulating research on sitting reveals something more intriguing, and disturbing: the health hazards of sitting for long stretches are significant even for people who are quite active when they’re not sitting down. That point was reiterated recently in two studies, published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine and in Diabetologia, a journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Suppose you stick to a five-times-a-week gym regimen, as I do, and have put in a lifetime of hard cardio exercise, and have a resting heart rate that’s a significant fraction below the norm. That doesn’t inoculate you, apparently, from the perils of sitting.

The research comes more from observing the health results of people’s behavior than from discovering the biological and genetic triggers that may be associated with extended sitting. Still, scientists have determined that after an hour or more of sitting, the production of enzymes that burn fat in the body declines by as much as 90 percent. Extended sitting, they add, slows the body’s metabolism of glucose and lowers the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol in the blood. Those are risk factors toward developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

“The science is still evolving, but we believe that sitting is harmful in itself,” says Dr. Toni Yancey, a professor of health services at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Yet many of us still spend long hours each day sitting in front of a computer.

The good news is that when creative capitalism is working as it should, problems open the door to opportunity. New knowledge spreads, attitudes shift, consumer demand emerges and companies and entrepreneurs develop new products. That process is under way, addressing what might be called the sitting crisis. The results have been workstations that allow modern information workers to stand, even walk, while toiling at a keyboard.

Dr. Yancey goes further. She has a treadmill desk in the office and works on her recumbent bike at home.

If there is a movement toward ergonomic diversity and upright work in the information age, it will also be a return to the past. Today, the diligent worker tends to be defined as a person who puts in long hours crouched in front of a screen. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, office workers, like clerks, accountants and managers, mostly stood. Sitting was slacking. And if you stand at work today, you join a distinguished lineage — Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov and, according to a recent profile in The New York Times, Philip Roth.

DR. JAMES A. LEVINE of the Mayo Clinic is a leading researcher in the field of inactivity studies. When he began his research 15 years ago, he says, it was seen as a novelty.

“But it’s totally mainstream now,” he says. “There’s been an explosion of research in this area, because the health care cost implications are so enormous.”

Steelcase, the big maker of office furniture, has seen a similar trend in the emerging marketplace for adjustable workstations, which allow workers to sit or stand during the day, and for workstations with a treadmill underneath for walking. (Its treadmill model was inspired by Dr. Levine, who built his own and shared his research with Steelcase.)

The company offered its first models of height-adjustable desks in 2004. In the last five years, sales of its lines of adjustable desks and the treadmill desk have surged fivefold, to more than $40 million. Its models for stand-up work range from about $1,600 to more than $4,000 for a desk that includes an actual treadmill. Corporate customers include Chevron, Intel, Allstate, Boeing, Apple and Google.

“It started out very small, but it’s not a niche market anymore,” says Allan Smith, vice president for product marketing at Steelcase.

The Steelcase offerings are the Mercedes-Benzes and Cadillacs of upright workstations, but there are plenty of Chevys as well, especially from small, entrepreneurial companies.

In 2009, Daniel Sharkey was laid off as a plant manager of a tool-and-die factory, after nearly 30 years with the company. A garage tinkerer, Mr. Sharkey had designed his own adjustable desk for standing. On a whim, he called it the kangaroo desk, because “it holds things, and goes up and down.” He says that when he lost his job, his wife, Kathy, told him, “People think that kangaroo thing is pretty neat.”

Today, Mr. Sharkey’s company, Ergo Desktop, employs 16 people at its 8,000-square-foot assembly factory in Celina, Ohio. Sales of its several models, priced from $260 to $600, have quadrupled in the last year, and it now ships tens of thousands of workstations a year.

Steve Bordley of Scottsdale, Ariz., also designed a solution for himself that became a full-time business. After a leg injury left him unable to run, he gained weight. So he fixed up a desktop that could be mounted on a treadmill he already owned. He walked slowly on the treadmill while making phone calls and working on a computer. In six weeks, Mr. Bordley says, he lost 25 pounds and his nagging back pain vanished.

He quit the commercial real estate business and founded TrekDesk in 2007. He began shipping his desk the next year. (The treadmill must be supplied by the user.) Sales have grown tenfold from 2008, with several thousand of the desks, priced at $479, now sold annually.

“It’s gone from being treated as a laughingstock to a product that many people find genuinely interesting,” Mr. Bordley says.

There is also a growing collection of do-it-yourself solutions for stand-up work. Many are posted on Web sites like howtogeek.com, and freely shared like recipes. For example, Colin Nederkoorn, chief executive of an e-mail marketing start-up, Customer.io, has posted one such design on his blog. Such setups can cost as little as $30 or even less, if cobbled together with available materials.

UPRIGHT workstations were hailed recently by no less a trend spotter of modern work habits and gadgetry than Wired magazine. In its October issue, it chose “Get a Standing Desk” as one of its “18 Data-Driven Ways to Be Happier, Healthier and Even a Little Smarter.”

The magazine has kept tabs on the evolving standing-desk research and marketplace, and several staff members have become converts themselves in the last few months.

“And we’re all universally happy about it,” Thomas Goetz, Wired’s executive editor, wrote in an e-mail — sent from his new standing desk.

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