Business news in brief

Discovery Laboratories Inc., Warrington, officially named W. Thomas Amick its chief executive officer Friday. Amick has been serving as Discovery's interim CEO since August 2009 and has been chairman of the board since March 2007. Discovery is a biotechnology company that develops treatments for respiratory diseases. - Christopher K. Hepp

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the Israeli manufacturer of generic drugs, said it hired Gary Buehler, the industry's former top federal regulator. Buehler will be vice president of regulatory strategic operations at Teva's U.S. unit and work in the company's North Wales, Montgomery County, office, Denise Bradley, a spokeswoman for Teva, said. Buehler,

who is deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Pharmaceutical Science, is scheduled to begin Nov. 1 at Teva, Bradley said. A 40-year federal employee in public health, Buehler was the head of the FDA's Office of Generic Drugs until March. He is retiring Oct. 23 to take advantage of "an opportunity with the generic drug industry," said Sandy Walsh, an FDA spokeswoman, in an e-mail. - Bloomberg News

Citing a "genuine recovery in demand," furniture-maker Knoll Inc. said its net income rose 10.5 percent in the third quarter on a sales increase of 11.5 percent. The company, based in East Greenville, Montgomery County, posted

a profit of $6.3 million in the quarter

that ended Sept. 30. Sales for the

period were $202.1 million. Knoll, which makes office and residential furniture, said new products helped boost its results above the growth rate of the industry. - Paul Schweizer

A St. Landry Parish, La., jury says health-products maker Johnson & Johnson owes the state nearly $258 million for misleading Louisiana doctors about the possible side effects of one of its medications, the schizophrenia drug Risperdal. The ruling was handed down Thursday in Opelousas. The New Brunswick, N.J., company, with operations in the Philadelphia area, said it would appeal the verdict. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's office had argued the company, through its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc., had violated a state law against misrepresentation and fraud. - AP

Dover Downs and Dover Motorsports have called off their proposed merger. In a statement Wednesday, Henry Tippie, chairman of the board of both companies, said it was clear the proposed deal would not get approval it needed from minority shareholders. Dover Downs operates a casino, hotel, and horse-racing operation. Dover Motorsports has NASCAR racing. The companies had been one before they split eight years ago. - AP

Countrywide Financial Corp. cofounder Angelo Mozilo and two other former executives have agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to avoid a trial on civil fraud and insider-trading charges, a federal judge said in court Friday. Mozilo and the others were to face trial on the Securities and Exchange Commission's charges next week. Mozilo agreed to repay $45 million in ill-gotten profits and $22.5 million in civil penalties. Former Countrywide president David Sambol will repay $5 million in profits and pay $520,000 in civil penalties, and former chief financial officer Eric P. Sieracki will pay $130,000 in civil penalties. Sambol attorney Walter Brown said in a statement after the hearing that Bank of America Corp., which bought Countrywide in July 2008, would pay his client's $5 million in ill-gotten profits. Under the settlement, the three men did not admit wrongdoing. The company was a major player in the market for high-risk subprime mortgages and became the biggest U.S. mortgage lender overall before it spiraled into disaster when the mortgage meltdown hit. - AP

Two banks in Missouri and a bank in Kansas were closed late Friday, bringing to 132 the number of U.S. banks that regulators have shut this year in the weak economy. Regulators closed Premier Bank, Jefferson City, Mo., and named the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. receiver. Premier Bank had $1.18 billion in assets and $1.03 billion in deposits. The FDIC also was named receiver for the shuttered WestBridge Bank & Trust Co., Chesterfield, Mo., which had $91.5 million in assets and $72.5 million in deposits. Security Savings Bank, Olathe, Kan., also was closed and the FDIC was named receiver. Security Savings had $508.4 million in assets and $397 million in deposits. - Rhonda Dickey

General Electric Co. said its third-quarter income fell 18 percent because a Japanese finance division required additional cash reserves. Lower equipment sales, reflecting a slowdown in the U.S. manufacturing sector, also dampened results. The industrial and financial giant reported net income of $2.06 billion, or 18 cents per share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compares with earnings of $2.49 billion, or 23 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding $1.1 billion in reserves GE had to add to its Japan consumer-finance business, GE earned 29 cents per share, 2 cents above Wall Street estimates, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters. But revenue slipped 5 percent to $35.9 billion. That fell short of Wall Street estimates by about $1.7 billion. Investors reacted by sending shares down 5 percent. GE had double-digit profit declines at NBC Universal, of which Philadelphia's Comcast Corp. is acquiring the controlling stake, and its technology infrastructure businesses. - AP

Delta Air Lines Inc. is adding about 700 flight-attendant jobs as demand for travel improves, chief executive officer Richard Anderson said. Delta first offered the jobs to flight attendants who were on furlough, and 425 accepted, which "still leaves a few hundred positions to fill," Anderson said in his weekly recorded message to employees. Delta expects to interview about 90 candidates a day through the end of the year as it goes through the 60,000 applications it received, he said. Delta has about 20,000 flight attendants, and the new positions would be a 3.5 percent increase for that work group. - Bloomberg News

The Obama administration launched an investigation into Chinese trade practices that a major U.S. union says keep American workers from landing high-paying green jobs. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the government would look into the allegations by the United Steelworkers union. The union filed a petition last month saying that Chinese businesses were able to sell wind and solar equipment more cheaply on the international market because they got subsidies from the Chinese government. - AP