Business

Gaithersburg biotech Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) said Wednesday it has reached an agreement to sell its travel health business to Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic in a deal that could reach as much as $380 million with milestone payments. The sale agreement comes a little more than a month after Emergent initiated an “organizational restructuring plan” to focus on its drugs and vaccines that protect against public health threats, along with its contract development and manufacturing services.

A struggling subsidiary of Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group that owns regional sports networks has opted to miss a debt payment due Wednesday, setting up a potential bankruptcy reorganization. Diamond Sports Group, the nation’s largest owner of cable TV sports channels that showcase more than half of all MLB, NHL and NBA teams, said Wednesday that it plans to “maximize its financial flexibility” and will not pay the $140 million cash interest payments on its debt.

Southwest Airlines, by far the dominant airline at BWI Marshall Airport in Maryland, will top its pre-pandemic summer flight schedule this year, and it’s bringing back a transcontinental flight from the airport that it suspended in December 2020. According to the airline, for the 2023 peak summer travel season, Southwest will offer about 220 daily departures from BWI Marshall, topping its scheduled service in summer 2019. As part of its schedule extension, now set through October, Southwest will restore nonstop service from BWI to Oakland, California. The daily service to Oakland will return Sept. 5.

Edmondson Village will be sold for $17 million — weeks after a mass shooting there left one teenage student dead and four others injured. But the deal, set to close in April to a Chicago-based investment group, comes with a unique caveat. For as little as $1,000, new owner Chicago TREND is selling stakes in the 76-year-old retail strip to encourage the community to buy into its vision to pump $40 million into the center and reset its image. An online crowdfunding drive recently opened at the real estate crowdfunding site SmallChange.co with a goal of raising up to $1 million for Edmondson Village’s fresh start. Investors will be able to share in equity and investment in the center. As of Tuesday, $18,500 had been raised toward the effort, the website showed.

Given the tumultuous state of the economy, employers have plenty to be concerned about in early 2023. Recession fears are swirling. The job market remains extremely tight. Inflation is still a concern. But experts say businesses shouldn’t let those obvious challenges distract them from several under-the-radar obstacles that could trip them up in 2023. One of the big ones? The intersection of remote work and pay transparency. We’ve already touched on the increase in pay transparency laws, but attorneys say the combination of those laws and the ubiquity of remote work is causing headaches for employers.

A Baltimore company behind a service billed as the “Hotels.com for boaters” raised $5 million late last month to add new dimensions to its multipronged business. CEO Jennifer LeRoux said the company plans to use the funding to develop a new marina management software that will help business owners track reservations and other parts of their business. The new software would add to the two other products under the Marinalife umbrella: Snag-A-Slip, a Hotels.com-style site that lets boaters book time at docks, and the Marinalife magazine. LeRoux emphasized that much of the boating industry has failed to keep up with modern technology, giving the startup a strong niche in the market.

Gaithersburg biotech Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) has reached an agreement to sell 1.5 million more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the U.S. government. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the federal government will partially fund the company’s future work on Covid vaccines, including the development of smaller dose vials and strain selection in line with Food and Drug Administration recommendations, Novavax said in its announcement.