Briefs

In the biggest overseas takeover by a Chinese company, state-controlled oil producer CNOOC agreed to pay $15.1 billion to buy Canada’s Nexen. The deal gives CNOOC access to oil and gas fields in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and Nigeria, as well as oil-sands reserves in Alberta. Canada has become fertile ground for Chinese companies looking to satisfy the huge energy demand back home. With the CNOOC deal, Chinese energy companies have spent $53.4 billion in Canada over the past decade. Their U.S. counterparts have spent just $30.8 billion. The new deal will make Canada even less dependent on the U.S. as a primary customer for its oil and gas.

An experimental Alzheimer’s treatment failed to improve patients’ cognition or their ability to perform daily activities in the first of four pivotal studies needed for FDA approval. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Elan joined forces to develop Bapineuzumab, a drug designed to target brain plaques that are a hallmark of the degenerative disease. Bapineuzumab is in a race with a similar product from Eli Lilly to become the first therapy to target a cause for Alzheimer’s, rather than just its symptoms—a $20 billion market, Deutsche Bank estimates.