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Business news in brief

In the Region

Power flows across Water Gap

Two utilities sent power flowing Monday for the first time on the $775 million, 146-mile Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line connecting Pennsylvania and New Jersey. PPL Electric Utilities, Allentown, and Public Service Electric & Gas Co. of New Jersey built the transmission line to deliver 500 kilovolts of power from the Susquehanna station in Berwick, Pa., to PSE&G's Hopatcong switching station. The line's construction was debated and delayed, in part because it crosses the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area along an existing four-mile transmission corridor. The Obama administration had made the project a priority to reinforce regional energy infrastructure. - Andrew Maykuth

Drexel in FAA drone program

Fifteen universities, including Drexel University, have been selected to work with the Federal Aviation Administration on research, education, and training in unmanned aircraft systems, or drones. The focus will include low-altitude operations safety, training, and certification of drone pilots and control and communications, the FAA said. Researchers at Drexel's School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems and its College of Computing and Informatics will examine challenges faced by air traffic controllers, pilots, and operators of unmanned aircraft systems - categorized as "human factors," Drexel said in a statement. FAA regulations limit drones' altitude to 400 feet. Larger unmanned vehicles, which could be used to monitor agriculture or environmental issues, would fly higher and in commercial air space. Air traffic controllers and pilots would need to track many more vehicles in the sky, the FAA said. - Linda Loyd

Amazon to open in Carteret

Amazon.com plans to open a new one-million-square-foot distribution center in Carteret, N.J., the company said in a statement. With an existing facility in Robbinsville, near Trenton, Amazon's total footprint in the state will be 2.5 million square feet, the company said. The Carteret facility will create "hundreds" of full-time jobs when it opens, according to the company. Amazon spokesman Aaron Toso said in an e-mail that he could not give a more specific number of jobs or estimates of when the center would open. - Jacob Adelman

Endo acquires existing drugs

Endo International P.L.C., which is incorporated in Ireland but operates from Malvern, said Monday it paid $130 million for branded and generic injectable and other drugs from Aspen Holdings, which is based in South Africa. Endo said the group of drugs generated about $28 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2014. - David Sell

Pfizer deals for AM-Pharma

Pfizer Inc., which is based in New York and has a facility in Collegeville, Montgomery County, said it bought a stake in privately held AM-Pharma B.V., which is based in the Netherlands. AM-Pharma is developing a drug to treat acute kidney injury (AKI) related to sepsis. Pfizer said it paid $87.5 million for a minority equity stake and an exclusive option to buy the rest of the company for up to $512.5 million. The option terms include clinical results for the drug and the possible launch of any product. - David Sell

Elsewhere

Shell can drill off Alaska

Royal Dutch Shell's Arctic drilling program has cleared a major hurdle to begin drilling for oil and gas off Alaska's northwestern coast this summer. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Monday approved the multiyear exploration plan in the Chukchi Sea for Shell after reviewing thousands of comments from the public, Alaska Native organizations, and state and federal agencies. The approval came just days before a planned protest of the drilling program in Seattle. - Associated Press

Boola boola, a big gift for Yale

Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire cofounder of Blackstone Group L.P., who grew up in Abington Township, is giving $150 million to Yale University for a student center that will include performance, exhibition, and meeting space, dining, and more. The complex, dubbed the Schwarzman Center, is scheduled to open in 2020, Yale said. Totaling 88,300 square feet, it will include a restoration of a building known as the Commons and three floors of an adjacent structure called Memorial Hall, which were built in 1901, the university said. "The education I received at Yale changed the course of my life," Schwarzman said in a statement. - Bloomberg News

Google car in minor accidents

Google Inc. said its self-driving vehicles have been involved in 11 minor accidents in the six years they have been in testing, and the automobiles were never to blame. All of the accidents during 1.7 million miles of manual and autonomous driving included light damage and no injuries, said Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car program, in a post on technology news website Backchannel on blog platform Medium. - Bloomberg News