2013 Life Time Tri Pro Series Schedule Announced

Life Time (NYSE: LTM), the Healthy Way of Life Company and producer of more than 100 athletic events annually, today unveiled the 2013 Life Time Tri pro series schedule. The newly created series, which is made up of some of the most prominent triathlons in the United States, will include:

The overall 2013 Life Time Tri pro series cash purse includes $250,000 in individual race awards. The Life Time Tri Series champions will be crowned at the series finale, Life Time Tri Oceanside, where an additional $200,000 cash purse will be awarded. To qualify for the cash purse, pros must start at least three events, including Life Time Tri Oceanside, with the top five events counting towards their overall standings. The official finishing times at Life Time Tri Oceanside will serve as a tiebreaker.

Along with professional athletes from around the world, Life Time Tri events attract thousands of elite and age group athletes each season. The professional and elite triathletes will compete in international-distance and relay team competitions on courses featuring a 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike, and 10-kilometer run, along with a short course option and, in select events, a sprint distance for kids.

As the 2013 Life Time Tri Pro Series progresses, participant results and current point standings will be available at lifetimetri.com, the series’ official website. Updates also will be provided on Twitter by following @LifeTimeTri and by liking the Life Time Tri Facebook page.

Life Technologies Establishes International Influenza Network

Life Technologies Corporation (LIFE) today announced the establishment of the Global Influenza Network, a partnership including scientists at a number of the world's leading government public health organizations, veterinary agencies and research institutes in a collaborative effort to increase the speed and efficiency of influenza monitoring and vaccine development. Members of the network are sharing tools, experience and data using the Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM™) semiconductor sequencing platform.

"Life Technologies exhibited leadership in infectious disease tracking when our scientists worked alongside federal officials to identify the cause of H1N1 outbreak in 2008," said Gregory T. Lucier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Life Technologies. "We are very proud to now bring together a group of such distinguished organizations to tackle the continued threat of influenza worldwide."

Participating scientists include: Steve Glavas, head of the NGS Platform, and Mia Brytting, Ph.D., head of the microbial typing unit at the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control (SMI); Gabriele Vaccari, Ph.D., researcher at the Istituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome; Mary Lea Killian, microbiologist at the U.S. National Veterinary Service Laboratories in Ames, Iowa; and David Wentworth at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md.

Partnership Develops Faster, More Reliable Flu Subtyping Methods
Annual seasonal influenza epidemics cause approximately 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness and 250,000 to 500,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Pandemics caused by novel influenza strains can result in staggering death tolls; the "Spanish flu" of 1918 is believed to have killed 40 million people, or 3 percent of the global population, according to the WHO.

Each year, public health agencies around the world collect samples from infected individuals and share data about flu subtypes circulating in their regions. The pooled data are used by the WHO to determine the strains used to design a vaccine that will be effective against that year's epidemic. Costs of sequencing, however, have limited data set to about 20 percent of the patient samples collected.

"Using next generation sequencing technology makes whole influenza genome sequencing much easier, and much less expensive than older sequencing techniques, when used appropriately," said Glavas.

Scientists in the Global Influenza Network also believe that by sequencing all patient samples collected ahead of the flu season, they will be able to detect emerging strains earlier and focus resources on areas of the world where these strains are most prevalent in order to better contain new threats.

An additional benefit of semiconductor sequencing is the technologies' superior speed over conventional methods. Therefore, sequencing data can be collected in a smaller time window prior to vaccine production, which can also guide the production of vaccines so they more effectively target the strains most prevalent in the coming flu season.

"Now we can easily fully characterize influenza causing severe outbreaks," said Brytting.

Network Scientists Confirm Protocol's Accuracy and Economic
The current collaboration is a pilot program to evaluate the efficacy of influenza virus typing by semiconductor sequencing on Life Technologies' Ion Torrent platform, the Ion PGM™ sequencer. After implementing Life Technologies' protocol for whole genome sequencing of Influenza A virus, the network partners determined it to be: (1) accurate; (2) highly sensitive and (3) economical (less than $100 per isolate) because it enables scientists to multiplex at least 10 samples in a single run on the Ion PGM™ sequencer.

Global Influenza Network partners have agreed to share their data and experiences in order to refine the initial protocol, if needed. The results of the collaborative study will be submitted to a peer-reviewed research journal for publication.

The Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM™) is Research Use Only and not intended for use in diagnostic procedures.

PVI Sun Life Receives Licence for Life Insurance Operations

Ministry of Finance grants PVI Sun Life Licence for Establishment and Operation # 68 GP/KDBH with charter capital of VND1,000 billion

PVI Sun Life Insurance Company Limited (PVI Sun Life), the joint-venture life insurance company formed by PVI Holdings (HNX:PVI) and Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (Sun Life), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sun Life Financial Inc. (TSX/NYSE: SLF), has received regulatory approval from the authorities in both Vietnam and Canada. The Ministry of Finance of Vietnam issued the Licence # 68 GP/KDBH for Life Insurance Operations on January 24, 2013. PVI Sun Life will have a charter capital of VND 1,000 billion (approx. C$48 million). PVI owns 51 per cent of the company, and Sun Life the remaining 49 per cent.

PVI Sun Life is focused on delivering the best products and services to its customers to allow them to achieve a brighter financial future. PVI Sun Life completes PVI's insurance business network, and delivers on PVI's long term strategy. The joint venture further demonstrates Sun Life's deep commitment to growing its business in Asia.

"The formation of PVI Sun Life further expands Sun Life Financial's footprint in Asia and is aligned with our growth strategy for Sun Life overall. PVI Sun Life will deliver a suite of innovative life insurance products to customers in Vietnam through multiple sales channels, and it aims to become a market leader in the sector," said Kevin Strain, President, SLF Asia.

"The creation of PVI Sun Life is a perfect complement to our already strong, general insurance business in Vietnam," said Bui Van Thuan, CEO of PVI. "We are confident that this new joint venture business will become a real leader in the life insurance industry in Vietnam," he added.

PVI Sun Life will benefit from the excellent reputation and brand of PVI in Vietnam, as well as its strong customer base, extensive infrastructure and quality people. Sun Life brings with it 150 years of experience in the life insurance space, including experience in the Asian market that dates back to 1892. Sun Life will contribute its global life insurance expertise, particularly in the areas of actuarial, risk management and distribution management to the joint venture.

"Receiving regulatory approval in only eight months is a significant milestone for PVI Sun Life and we are looking forward to offering people across Vietnam top-tier insurance products and services in the very near future," said Bui Van Thuan, CEO, PVI.

Vietnam's life insurance market is poised for growth, providing an excellent opportunity for PVI Sun Life. While the country has been one of the fastest growing economies in Asia in recent years, only five per cent of the population currently has life insurance coverage.

The app-driven life: How smartphone apps are changing our lives

"There's an app for that" is more than just Apple's marketing mantra. Apps have become an American lifestyle.

"I'm using my phone when I'm sleeping," says Amanda Soloway. Every night, Ms. Soloway turns on an iPhone application called Sleep Cycle and tucks her smart phone into bed with her. The app monitors her sleep patterns and wakes her at the optimal moment – within a 30-minute time frame she has selected.

Before she's out from under the covers, she's checking the weather (another rainy day in Seattle) and connecting with her world via Facebook (photos from a dinner last night) and e-mail (some fellow University of Washington students want to push back today's meeting).

RECOMMENDED: 20 best iPhone apps for starters

Once she's out the door, she plugs in her headphones and hunts for good walking music in SoundCloud. The jukebox app pulls up a few tracks from the DJ duo Poolside and streams them over her phone's cellular Internet connection.

As she dashes between classes for her master's in business administration program, Soloway's iPhone calendar app vibrates 10 minutes before important appointments.

She has more than 100 apps on her phone, each serving a different purpose. She deposits checks through the Bank of America app, finds bus schedules through OneBusAway, passes time playing Bejeweled, compiles grocery lists through ZipList, texts with her best friend through WhatsApp, and edits her photos with any of 18 different photography apps.

Soloway actually prefers regular computers. Websites never look quite right shining through a screen the size of a baseball card. Typing e-mails never quite feels right when she taps on the phone's smooth glass surface. But life extends well beyond the reach of her desktop.

"I remember when I got my iPhone," she says. "So many people told me, 'It will change your life.' But I was really hesitant. Now, I don't know if I could go back. My phone is just a lot more convenient."

Millions of Americans now rely on pocket-sized computers to shop, play, read, date, learn, work out, take photos, and find directions. These apps – shorthand for software applications – are the heart and soul of smart phones.

The app-driven life has kick-started a new computer revolution – one that has spread faster and become more intimate than any before.

The world has adopted smart phones and tablets 10 times faster than it embraced personal computers in the 1980s, twice as fast as it logged into the Internet boom of the '90s, and three times faster than it joined social networks in the new millennium, according to the app-tracking firm Flurry.

Svelte, intuitive hardware helps propel the movement, but this new era in consumer electronics really started a year after the debut of the original iPhone. In early 2008, Apple opened the digital doors to its App Store, an online marketplace for programmers around the world to sell their own mobile apps.

While Apple guarded the gates – demanding that each app be submitted for review – it kept a wide berth. Programmers for the iPhone and Google's competing Android line could take advantage of tools unavailable on most personal computers: touch screens, cameras, tilt sensors, compasses, location tracking, cellular Internet connections, and the fact that people carry these devices with them at all times.

Soon, apps emerged for practically every need in a person's day.

Productivity goosed by zombies?

Matthew Ablon uses his Android phone to keep fit. This freshman at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., never liked running in high school. It seemed monotonous. Boring. A single app changed his mind.

This past semester, Mr. Ablon downloaded Zombies, Run! – a workout app that motivates people to run by appealing to their Darwinian desire not to get eaten by zombies. As Ablon runs, this run tracker mixes in elements of an audio adventure game. The app interrupts his normal music playlist with mission instructions – such as news that he's found (virtual) supplies that he can distribute to survivors living in a nearby (fictional) compound. But before he can return home with the provisions, he needs to pick up the pace and outrun the zombie horde.

This $8 app – quite a bit more expensive than the traditional 99-cent threshold for phone apps – is "worth every penny," says Ablon. He now runs two to three miles twice a week with imaginary zombies on his heels.

Is this a peculiar way to encourage good habits? Definitely. But is it effective? The British government thinks so. As the workout app rang up a quarter-million downloads, Britain's National Health Service commissioned the team behind Zombies to design a self-improvement app for the broader public (i.e., without the undead theme). The group plans to reveal this new project in the spring.

As apps worm their way into our daily lives, plenty of smart-phone owners now find the word "phone" becoming an increasingly anachronistic term for these devices. In a TIPP poll commissioned by The Christian Science Monitor, close to half of respondents (46 percent) reported using their smart phones more than 10 times a day for actions other than making a phone call.

"Apps bring out the human part of technology," says Scott Steinberg, a consultant and professional speaker on innovation in St. Louis. Desk-bound PCs were designed for business, he says. They're tools of productivity occasionally co-opted for entertainment. Yet while iPhone and Android owe a lot to BlackBerry (the pinstriped, business-minded older brother of the smart-phone family), apps were predominantly designed for life outside the office.

Life Technologies to Present at Leerink Swann Global Healthcare Conference

Life Technologies Corporation (LIFE) today announced it will present at Leerink Swann Global Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Ron A. Andrews, Life Technologies' President of Medical Sciences, will present on behalf of the company. The company will webcast the presentation, which will be available for three weeks following the conference, on the Life Technologies' investor relations website at ir.lifetechnologies.com/events.cfm.

Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE) is a global biotechnology company with customers in more than 160 countries using its innovative solutions to solve some of today's most difficult scientific challenges. Quality and innovation are accessible to every lab with its reliable and easy-to-use solutions spanning the biological spectrum, with more than 50,000 products for agricultural biotechnology, translational research, molecular medicine and diagnostics, stem cell-based therapies, forensics, food safety and animal health. Its systems, reagents and consumables represent some of the most cited brands in scientific research including: Ion Torrent™, Applied Biosystems®, Invitrogen™, Gibco®, Ambion®, Molecular Probes® and Novex®. Life Technologies employs approximately 10,400 people and upholds its ongoing commitment to innovation with more than 4,000 patents and exclusive licenses.

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. Launches Two New Animal Health Products in Canada

Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. (BNC.TO) (BNC.AX), a research-based, technology-driven Canadian biopharmaceutical company, today announced that its Immunocidin™ canine oncology therapy and its Sin Susto™ canine calming agent are both being launched in Canada at the annual Ontario Veterinary Medical Association Conference this week. The conference takes place from January 23-26 in Toronto , Ontario.

Immunocidin™is based on the Company's proprietary mycobacterial cell wall technology, the same platform from which its Phase III product for human bladder cancer (Urocidin™) was derived. Immunocidin™is indicated as an immunotherapy for the intratumoral treatment of mixed mammary tumor and mammary adenocarcinoma in dogs. The product was launched in the U.S. in October, 2012.

Sin Susto™ - "without fear" - is an herbal calming product for dogs in chewable tablet form that was developed in collaboration with the University of Ottawa . The product is made from natural botanical ingredients and acts as an agonist at the Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)A receptor site. GABA is the primary inhibitory chemical messenger in the brain. Sin Susto™ has been proven safe and effective, is highly palatable, is non-habit-forming and non-psychotic, and does not act as a tranquilizer.

"We believe that both of these products represent important additions to our growing companion animal product line," said Mr. Andrew Grant , President, Bioniche Animal Health (global). "Immunocidin™ does not require special handling and can be used by veterinarians in their own clinics, either alone or in combination with other therapies. Sin Susto™ offers a safe, effective, non-habit-forming alternative to traditional pharmaceuticals that are known to have significant side effects."
About Canine Cancer

2 Reasons Why Some Life Insurance Agents Sell You The Wrong Policy

If you want to protect your family against your unexpected death, you are usually better off with term life insurance rather than whole life. Term usually provides the most protection for your family at the most reasonable cost.

Whole life agents often take issue with this and I can understand. On my site, I have compared the two types of policies several times to demonstrate that the returns don't usually justify the costs of whole life. But despite all the evidence to the contrary, many whole life agents claim that whole life is still better than term. Why?

Most of these agents are good people. They aren't all slick sales people just trying to empty your pockets into their own. Many of them believe what they are doing is noble.
Well...noble or not, their arguments are misguided in my opinion.

I thought I'd take a moment to share their arguments with you now. This way you will be better equipped to ward off ill-advised sales pitches. At the end of the day, the pitch for whole life is based on one of two arguments in my experience.

1."Clients benefit by having guaranteed investment returns. This beats the stock market because there is no risk with whole life."

There is some truth to this argument....but not enough to warrant you to take action. It's true that a portion of the money you plop down for a whole life policy grows in an investment account. And that money grows for you over the years. At some point, you'll be able to access some of that cash tax-free. But how much does it grow?

Every whole life policy spells out a guaranteed return and an expected return. Since these policies extrapolate values out over many decades, I always play it safe and consider the guaranteed returns rather than anything else. If you want the guarantees of life insurance let's look at what they guarantee.
Depending on when you buy a policy, that guaranteed rate might be higher or lower. I looked at a policy recently and discovered that the guaranteed rate of return was 2 percent over the next 30 or 40 years.

In fairness, if you look at the last 10 or 12 years, 2 percent wasn't so bad. But would you sign up for an investment that guarantees 2 percent for the next 30 or 40 years? Probably not. That 2 percent is guaranteed of course and alternative investments like the stock market are not guaranteed. But if you are thinking long-term, it's reasonable to assume that the non-guaranteed alternatives like the market are going to work out far better than life insurance.

2."Clients need whole life insurance so they can spend most of their assets down and still leave something to the kids."

This argument would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. Let's take this apart so we can really understand the weak foundation that whole life is built on.

If you buy whole life and make all your payments you will indeed have life insurance in place when you die. That means your heirs or anyone you choose will inherit the life insurance benefits when you are gone. So if the only thing stopping you from spending all your assets now is that you want to be certain that your heirs will have money when you die, this argument holds water.

But chances are you aren't spending down your assets for other reasons. Namely, you don't want to run out of money while you are alive.

Some people buy life insurance to replace assets.... but not many. Most people buy life insurance in order to protect their family. Life insurance is usually meant to replace income-not assets. And $100 buys a heck of a lot more term life insurance than whole life. In many cases, you can buy 10 times as much.

If you are young when you buy life insurance you want the most protection you can get for the least amount of premium because protection is upper most in your mind. But if you buy a whole life policy, the premiums are so expensive that you probably won't be able to get all the coverage you need. You might have a few bucks to throw your kids way if you live a very long time. But if you die prematurely you won't have the coverage you need and your family will be left out in the cold. Which is more important?

Again, (as far as I know) nobody knows when they are going to pass away. It's not smart to spend down all your money. You already know that. And nobody knows how much it's going to cost to live in their advanced years. As a result people tend to keep as much cushion as possible.

People who sell whole life insurance sometimes use poor arguments when they try to sell you these policies. The best way to make sure you don't get duped into buying the wrong insurance policy is to be crystal clear about what your objectives are before you do anything. If you are trying to protect your family, term insurance is the way to go. Don't let someone else tell you what should be important. You are smart enough to figure that out for yourself.

Whole life does serve a purpose but only a handful of people really benefit by owning it. Everyone else who buys it sooner or later figures out what a lousy investment this really is. Where do you stand on the issue of whole life insurance?

Neal Frankle recently wrote an in depth review of social lending company Prosper which is very much worth reading.

Symetra Names Meg Skinner SVP, Individual Life Distribution

Symetra Life Insurance Company today announced the appointment of Meg Skinner as senior vice president, Individual Life Distribution. She reports to Tom Marra, president and CEO of Symetra Financial Corporation.

In her new role, Skinner will drive Symetra’s individual life distribution strategy and develop new platforms for life insurance sales. In addition to life distribution, she will have responsibility for institutional markets, life business development and advanced markets.

During her insurance career, Skinner has held sales leadership positions with several major life companies, including Principal Financial Group, Lincoln Financial Group and John Hancock Financial Services. Most recently, she served as executive vice president and chief distribution officer at Guardian Life Insurance Companies.

“Meg is an experienced sales executive with an impressive record of success. She builds high-performing teams and consistently exceeds her sales objectives,” said Marra. “Her understanding of and long-standing relationships with influential life distribution partners will help Symetra achieve growth across a variety of life insurance sales channels.”

Skinner will be based in Symetra’s Farmington, Conn., office. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.

LIFE at Inaugurations: Rare and Classic Photos, 1933 – 1969

An American presidential inauguration might not carry the same drama and suspense that election night sometimes does, but even for those who have been through it all before — Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Ike, Clinton, Obama and others who were re-elected — the inaugural ceremonies offer, at the very least, a chance to set the tone for the four years to come. In fact, several inaugural addresses (FDR’s first, Lincoln’s first and his second, JFK’s in 1961) are now considered among the greatest American political speeches in history — declamations that managed to at-once capture and shape the mood of the era in which they were delivered.

Will any future president ever write and utter more powerful words than those spoken by Lincoln — and addressed, unambiguously, to the secessionist Confederate State of America — on the eve of the Civil War?

“I am loath to close,” he said at his oath-taking in March 1861. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

But beyond the politics, the occasional poetry, the pomp and the circumstance of these quasi-coronations, there is also the quite obvious fact that for many of the men and women (and sometimes the children) who attend an inauguration, it’s a party. It might not be an intimate party, or a let-it-all-hang-out party; but the opportunity to witness, in person — along with several thousand other folks — the peaceful transition of power in the most powerful country in the world is a rare and even, at times, a moving treat.

[See TIME.com's "Obama’s Inauguration: Who’s Who in the Ceremony."]

It is a spectacle, for sure: but it is a spectacle that, at least in theory, celebrates the notion that the most powerful human being on the planet works for us.

Here, on the occasion of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, LIFE.com offers a series of pictures — some classic, some that never ran in LIFE — of the inaugural ceremonies from presidents Roosevelt through Nixon. The span of time covered here coincides, more or less, with the years in which LIFE magazine published as a weekly. The photos themselves, meanwhile, offer a fascinating glimpse into the myriad ways that American culture — its politics, fashions, media, etc. — has changed, and how much has remained weirdly, and comfortingly, the same.

Life of Pi still tops the box office

ANG Lee's Life of Pi continues to pull in Australian audiences, holding its No.1 position as a weekend drawcard over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.


Moviegoers paid more than $2.859 million over the weekend to see Life of Pi, the film about a boy who finds himself adrift on a boat with a tiger in the Pacific Ocean.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is also keeping audiences happy in second place and has pulled in more that $38 million in four weeks.

Judd Apatow's latest comedy This Is 40 debuted in third position, raking in $1.877 million ahead of Les Miserables in fourth place and Wreck-It Ralph, which also holds steady in fifth position.

Gangster Squad dropped from third to sixth place on the back of some unimpressive reviews, Jack Reacher fell one place to seventh and the family comedy Parental Guidance is unchanged at No.8.

Sir Anthony Hopkins' impersonation of famed director Sir Alfred Hitchcock fell two places to ninth while animated spook-fest ParaNorman rounds out the Top Ten.

Life Time Earns Nutrition Business Journal's Management Achievement Award

The nutrition industry’s most notable business leaders of 2012 have been named in Nutrition Business Journal’s (NBJ) annual Business Achievement Awards issue, published this month. Life Time – The Healthy Way of Life Company (NYSE: LTM) has been awarded with the Management Achievement Award for its courageous leadership endeavor to banish processed and artificial food products from its LifeCafe locations nationwide.

In October, as part of its continued commitment to a healthy way of life, Life Time transformed its LifeCafe menu to feature fresh, clean and healthier food items in all 85 LifeCafe destinations nationwide. The new menu offers pre-prepared, made-to-order and packaged products free of trans fats, bleached flours, and artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and sweeteners and demonstrates an easy, no excuses positive change to nutritious and delicious eating.

“We are honored to have earned Nutrition Business Journal’s (NBJ) Management Achievement Award,” says John Reilly, senior vice president of corporate business. “Being the Healthy Way of Life Company comes with a great responsibility and commitment to our customers. As such, we set out to create an environment full of healthy choices while also setting an example for others whose businesses evolve around feeding America. We are honored to be recognized for our leadership in this space.”

Operating under the mission “If it’s here, it’s healthy,” Life Time has made a commitment to its members and customers, promising clean and confident eating. The LifeCafe menu includes all-natural beef with no added hormones or antibiotics, wild-caught fish, gluten-free Udi’s bread, shakes and smoothies with organic fruit, orange juice and milk and breakfast sandwiches and wraps with organic, cage-free eggs. LifeCafe has also partnered with health-conscious brands to ensure that every drink, energy bar, supplement, snack or other food product sold meets its stringent requirements for healthy eating.

NBJ is the premier publication for the nutrition, natural, organic, dietary supplement and integrative medicine industries. NBJ’s Business Achievement Awards recognize the industry’s greatest leaders making significant advancements in health, wellness and nutrition. NBJ publisher Patrick Rea, along with editor-in-chief Marc Brush, will honor all award recipients at the NBJ Summit on July 25.

Sun Life, partner to buy Aviva's Malaysian insurance JV

Sun Life Financial Inc and Malaysian state investor Khazanah will buy Aviva Plc's Malaysian insurance joint venture with lender CIMB Group for 1.8 billion Malaysian ringgit ($597 million) in a deal that will accelerate Sun Life's push into southeast Asia.

Sun Life, Canada's third-largest insurer, has targeted the region for expansion due to its rapid growth, high savings rates, and relative underpenetration of insurance products.

"We see huge opportunity there. There are 600 million people, the economies are growing, there is a growing middle class" in Southeast Asia, Kevin Strain, president of Sun Life Financial Asia, told Reuters.

Britain's Aviva, the world No. 6 insurer, is exiting markets across the world to boost its underperforming share price. Last month, Aviva sold its U.S. business for $1.8 billion.

Under the terms of the deal, Sun Life and Khazanah Nasional Bhd will buy 49 percent each in CIMB Aviva Assurance Berhad and Islamic insurer CIMB Aviva Takaful Berhad, which together form the joint venture.

CIMB Group Holdings will retain a 2 percent stake. Sun Life and Khazanah, which owns a 29.9 percent stake in CIMB, will each pay half of the purchase price.

Khazanah owns stakes in some of the country's largest listed firms, ranging from Axiata Group Bhd, Asia's third-largest mobile services group outside Japan and China by subscribers, to Malaysia's biggest property company by market value, UEM Land Bhd.

"This is an important investment for Khazanah," said Azman Mokhtar, Khazanah's managing director. "It marks not just an opportunity to invest into an asset in a growth sector, but also brings together a unique commercial partnership among three strong parties in their respective areas."

The deal, which is not expected to have meaningful earnings impact for Sun Life in the near term, includes a new 20-year exclusive bancassurance agreement with CIMB Bank.

Analysts who follow Sun Life said the deal appeared to be on the expensive side, but was still a positive for the company's long-term growth goals.

"Off the cuff, it looks to be a bit pricey, but bigger picture I think a step in the right direction," said Tom Lewandowski, a St. Louis-based financial analyst at Edward Jones.

Sun Life is now present in seven Asian markets, including four in Southeast Asia, following its launch of a joint venture in Vietnam last year with PVI Holdings.

Shares of Sun Life rose 40 percent last year on the back of recovering markets, and were up 1.2 percent at C$28.27 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday. Aviva's shares fell 0.03 percent in London.

Sun Life, which also has a large U.S. presence that includes mutual fund manager MFS, last year said it aimed to grow its operating profit from its Asian division to C$250 million by 2015. Through the third quarter of 2012, the Asian unit had produced C$79 million in operating profit.

Sun Life Chief Executive Dean Connor has said the company will update its financial objectives, including a company-wide goal of C$2 billion operating profit by 2015, once it closes its pending $1.35 billion sale of its U.S. annuity business later this year.

Pacific Life Insurance Company Announces Pricing and Upsizing of Tender Offer

Pacific Life Insurance Company (“Pacific Life”) today announced the determination of the Full Tender Offer Consideration, as shown in the table below, for its previously announced cash tender offer to purchase up to $250,000,000 (subject to increase, the “Tender Cap”) aggregate principal amount of Pacific Life’s 9.25% Surplus Notes due 2039 (the “Notes”). Pacific Life also announced that it has increased the Tender Cap from $250,000,000 to $322,793,000. Except as described in this press release, all other terms of the offer as described in the Offer Documents (as defined below) remain unchanged.

On January 2, 2013, Pacific Life commenced the offer to purchase Notes in accordance with the terms and conditions set forth in the offer to purchase, dated January 2, 2013 (the “Offer to Purchase”) and the related letter of transmittal (the “Letter of Transmittal” and, together with the Offer to Purchase, the “Offer Documents”), sent to holders of the Notes.

American General Life Companies Reprices AG Select-a-TermSM Insurance

American General Life Companies (American General) announced today that it has repriced AG Select-a-Term, issued by American General Life Insurance Company and The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York. Considerable price reductions were achieved: up to 9 percent in non-tobacco classes for policies with face values of $500,000 or more. The product’s guaranteed level premiums for 17 available term durations (10-year and 15- through 30-year) provide maximum flexibility and customization.

“AG Select-a-Term has long represented a very attractive combination of flexibility and customization, especially since it offers 17 term durations — four times as many durations than most leading carriers,” said Tim Heslin, Vice President and Head of Product Strategy and Implementation. “Now, AG Select-a-Term features an even more competitive pricing structure than before, with a market-leading position in 20-, 25- and 30-year non-tobacco classes.”

He added, “In today’s economy, having life insurance is more crucial than ever. AG Select-a-Term’s new, lower premiums along with its ultimate flexibility help it perfectly address many family and business needs. What’s more, the repricing of the product supports our commitment to the broker community because, like everything we do at American General Life Companies, it is strategically designed to help our distribution partners succeed in today’s marketplace.”

He continued, “For even greater efficiency, we launched projects in 2012 with three goals: to position American General for strong future growth, improve capital efficiency and reduce expenses. The result is that we are more competitive in our product offerings and have increased our ability to address weak economic conditions.”

Regarding the features of AG Select-a-Term specifically, extended ages and durations provide economical coverage for insured until age 90 and a broad selection of available riders increases customization options. Additionally, AG Select-a-Term is convertible to AG ROP Select-a-Term®, fixed, index and guaranteed universal life insurance, including AG Secure Lifetime GULSM (some conditions and product limitations may apply).

Have Astronomers Found Chemical Precursor to Life?

Astronomers have found tentative traces of a precursor chemical to the building blocks of life near a star-forming region about 1,000 light-years from Earth.

The signal from the molecule, hydroxylamine, which is made up of atoms of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, still needs to be verified. But, if confirmed, it would mean scientists had found a chemical that could potentially seed life on other worlds, and may have played a role in life's origin on our home planet about 3.6 billion years ago.

The findings were presented Jan. 9 at the 221st annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society .
"It's very exciting," said Stefanie Milam, an astrochemist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who was not involved in the study. If the findings can be verified, "this will be the first detection of this new molecule. It gives us a lot of hope for prebiotic chemistry in this particular region."

Some astronomers think that the ingredients for life are formed in cold, gas-, dust- and plasma-filled interstellar clouds. Comets, asteroids and meteors forming in these clouds bear such chemicals, and as they continually bombard planets, they could have deposited the chemicals on Earth or other worlds, said Anthony Remijan, an astrochemist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Va., who led the research effort.

So while life may have emerged from hydrothermal vents on Earth — a theory that many scientists support — the molecules that eventually transformed into the earliest life forms had to come from somewhere, and that "somewhere" may have been space.

To test this theory, astronomers look for the chemical fingerprints of simple, inorganic compounds forming in interstellar clouds. These compounds aren't life or even carbon-based, but they can react with other molecules to form some of the building blocks of life, such as amino acids or the nucleotides that make up DNA. In recent years, scientists have found several different prebiotic molecules in space, said Brett McGuire, doctoral candidate in chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

In the hunt for these molecules, Remijan and colleagues scanned a star-forming region of the Milky Way called L1157-B1 using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA).

They found a very weak signal of hydroxylamine, which makes sense since, inside L1157-B1, a violent gas jet is slamming into the interstellar medium; the shock from this gas outflow would be sufficient force to trigger these chemical reactions in the otherwise frigid depths of an interstellar cloud. The result: hydroxylamine. In turn, hydroxylamine could react with other compounds, such as acetic acid, to form amino acids that could be dumped onto other worlds during space-rock collisions.

"We have some very preliminary evidence of its detection, a very weak signal that kind of looks like a line," McGuire told LiveScience.

The signal is extremely faint and doesn't definitively confirm the presence of hydroxylamine. But the signal does seem to come from the right region, McGuire said. The findings are exciting, but they are not yet a definitive chemical signature of hydroxylamine, Milam told LiveScience. "Every molecule has a fingerprint, and basically what he's presented is the thumb print. So we need all the other fingers to confirm that this is the actual molecule."

To confirm the finding, Remijan's team will keep probing the star-forming region for more signals that could confirm what they're seeing isn't coming from some other chemicals, Milam said.

Sun Life Adds Junk Bonds to Offset Rate Decline

Sun Life Financial Inc. (SLF) is altering its investment mandate to add high-yield bonds to the C$115 billion ($117 billion) of assets it oversees as the lowest interest rates since at least 1950 sap investment income.

“One thing that we had not considered historically but we do have the ability to do now is to think about making allocations to the high-yield market,” Chief Investment Officer Stephen Peacher said in a Jan. 9 interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office. Peacher called it “the best risk-adjusted asset class in the market for the last five years.”
Enlarge image Sun Life to Add Junk Bonds Thwarting Rate Decline

A man walks inside of the Sun Life Financial Inc. office on Bay Street in Toronto, Ontario. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

Declining interest rates around the world are draining income for insurers and pension funds that often aim for minimum annual returns of about 8 percent on investments. That’s pushing investors into riskier markets such as high-yield bonds, which attracted $72.4 billion of fund inflows in 2012 while equity allocations shrunk, according to data compiled by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global.

“To the extent people can get outside the government bond market they should do it,” Peacher said.

Sun Life, Canada’s third-largest insurer, has less than 1 percent of assets devoted to junk bonds, compared with an average of 3 percent to 4 percent earmarked by U.S. life and property insurers, according to Barclays Capital. Of the life insurers, Symetra Financial Corp. (SYA), Unum Group (UNM) and Aflac Inc. (AFL) had the most exposure to high-yield corporate bonds as a percentage of book value in September.
Top Performer

High-yield bonds were the best-performing company bonds worldwide last year, gaining 18.8 percent versus 10.8 percent for investment-grade peers and 4.4 percent for global governments, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. Average global government bond yields of 1.3 percent are near a record low of 1.23 percent on Dec. 5, the index shows.

Relative yields of global high-yield bonds issued by Canadian firms declined to 496 basis points yesterday, the lowest since April 2010, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show. Peacher said he can afford to wait for prices to decline before buying.

“We don’t have to be there so we can time our purchase,” he said. “We should be able to ride through any downturns and we should be able to be fairly opportunistic about what we buy into that market, and I want to take advantage of that.”

Low rates may encourage speculative-grade companies with weaker balance sheets to borrow, posing a risk to investors by creating an asset bubble, he said.
Big Risk

“I think that that’s the big risk for the high-yield market,” Peacher said. “You have to be comfortable that the new bonds being sold aren’t creating a profile for the market that’s about to blow. And I don’t think we’re there yet.”

The Toronto-based insurer pared cash reserves to C$6.5 billion at the end of the third quarter from C$12 billion at the beginning of the financial crisis through purchases of corporate bonds, private placements and mortgage securities.

Sun Life’s investments in high-yield will start in “hundreds of millions” of dollars, said Peacher, who oversaw Putnam Investments LLC’s high-yield portfolios. He joined Sun Life in 2009 and is based in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts.

Elsewhere in credit markets, the extra yield investors demand to hold bonds of investment-grade Canadian companies narrowed one basis point yesterday from a day earlier to 130 basis points, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch data. Yields rose to 2.99 percent from 2.97 percent.
Private Placements

Provincial bond spreads declined to 72 basis points, while yields increased to 2.64 percent from 2.61 percent, Merrill data show.

Provincial bonds, yielding an average 50 basis points more than pre-crisis levels, are among the most attractive securities in Canada, Peacher said, citing Quebec’s issue of C$500 million of 10-year notes Jan. 8 which offered a spread of 103.5 basis points to government debt. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, sold C$1 billion in 2.1 percent bonds maturing in 2018 yesterday, priced to yield 59.5 basis points over government. Prince Edward Island, the smallest region, raised C$125 million in 40-year bonds at 113 basis points over government debt.

The insurer has about C$18 billion in private placements, which are securities sold to a relatively small number of investors. It’s boosting these less-liquid investments as it requires less cash to back its insurance liabilities. Such investments include machinery leases, infrastructure projects and commercial mortgages, Peacher said.
Post-War Low

Apart from provincial debt, most of the firm’s investments this year will avoid low-yielding government debt, Peacher said. Canadian government bonds trailed most world peers except Japan, the U.S. and Switzerland last year, according to Bloomberg’s EFFAS Bond Index, as accommodative policies by central banks around the world dimmed Canada’s safety appeal.

The Canadian 10-year yield reached 1.565 percent on July 23, the lowest since at least 1950. The 2.75 percent note due in June 2022 yielded 1.97 percent at 10:30 a.m. in Toronto, down 8 cents to C$106.71.

Sun Life’s investments are predominantly investment-grade, Peacher said. Any speculative-grade holdings are so-called fallen angels that have been downgraded, or holdings inherited from portfolios it’s acquired.

“We could buy a below-investment grade, individual investment but to go out and make an allocation in that sector, it just was not in line with our policies,” Peacher said.

Sun Life will target BB rated securities in its high-yield purchases to avoid higher capital charges for lower-rated securities, he said.

“It’s a wonderful asset class,” Peacher said. “You end up going through a year or two of terror but then it always comes back. The big coupons make up for a lot of bills, and as long as you’re not forced to sell when default rates go to 10 percent you’re fine.”

'A Life In Friendships' Is A Life Well-Lived

You know how sometimes in life you make a friend, and at first you want to talk to her all the time, feverishly telling her details that, by their very personal nature, will bind you to this other person forever, or so you hope? But inevitably, of course, friendships shift and change and become something different from what they initially seemed.

I think books can undergo a similar transformation. You start reading a book thinking it's going to be one thing and one thing only, but after a while you realize it's gradually become something else, too. And so you feel a complicated set of emotions that replace your initial one-note purity.

I sort of felt this way about Susanna Sonnenberg's memoir She Matters: A Life in Friendships. Initially, I found myself drawn right in to the author's friendship vortex, fascinated by the knowing observations and beautiful writing she's applied to this most compelling of subjects. Here's Sonnenberg writing about an intense summer camp friendship, described to Judy Blume perfection:

"She stood next to me and we held in our stomachs when Greg La Rosa ambled by and said, 'Hi.' She explained marshmallow spread as we sat down with trays of Fluffernutter sandwiches ... She made me a peach-pit ring, and I made her a peach-pit ring.

"On my last day we said, 'How can I live without you?' "

What surprised me in this memoir was that, as the narrator gets older, her friends sometimes reveal that they certainly can live without her. There are bad, raw friendship breakups in this book. In one scene, Sonnenberg receives a letter from a girl who had been her college roommate 25 years earlier: "What she remembered of our acquaintance was that she hated me," Sonnenberg says.

And as a young mother, after a relaxed lunch with a friend, Sonnenberg gets an email that has the bluntness of a wartime telegram: "I can't be friends with you anymore," the woman says. And in yet another encounter, a vulnerable Sonnenberg asks a friend if she and her boys can come over that evening. The friend puts her off, asking to do it another night. Sonnenberg eventually confronts her, saying how hard it had been for her to ask for something specific.

That line serves as the heart of this book, because of course the author does count — not only to her friends, at least much of the time — but also to her readers, who will surely admire her honesty, intelligence and lack of vanity, and be occasionally taken aback by her unrelenting intensity. As a result, the book becomes not only what I initially thought it was — an affecting, emotional and nostalgic look at the ways in which women form bonds — but also just as much a study of the boundary issues that can crop up between friends and threaten to ruin everything.

Susanna Sonnenberg is the author of a previous memoir called Her Last Death.

Marion Ettlinger/Courtesy of Scriber
Sonnenberg, who's aware of her passions and ambivalences, and doesn't hide from them, made me think about what a friendship is, anyway. After all, you're not related to these people, you're not married to them (although in one compelling episode, she does become lovers with a friend), so what exactly do you owe each other? What are the rules? And why do they keep changing all the time?

It should also be mentioned that the author's first book was also a memoir, about her dramatic, unstable, druggy mother, one of those people about whom other people probably said, "She was larger than life." A life-sized mother would have been just fine, for it's easy to see how having such an overwhelming mother might not only damage a daughter's friendship here and there, but also heighten a daughter's need for caretaking, love and attention from all female friends, forever. The author certainly is well aware of this, and she never tries to hide it, but simply gets it all down on paper.

But here's the funny thing: Had Susanna Sonnenberg written an empowering look at all the gentle women friends she's loved over the years, her book wouldn't have been interesting at all. Instead, I think, she's written something that interests, exhausts, moves, perplexes, impresses and yes, matters.

Meg Wolitzer's most recent book is called The Uncoupling. Her next book is The Interestings, which will come out in April.

VG Life Sciences Inc. Announces Stock Ticker Symbol Change to “VGLS”

VG Life Sciences Inc. (OTC Pink: VRAL)(OTC Pink: VGLS) today announced that it will change its stock ticker symbol to “VGLS” from “VRAL” to reflect the company’s recent name change to VG Life Sciences Inc. from Viral Genetics, Inc. The new “VGLS” ticker symbol will be effective at the start of trading January 10, 2013.

The stock ticker symbol change follows the company’s recent name change and emphasizes the company’s evolution from a pure science / research and development entity into a company that is now focused on broader high-growth life sciences operations, including overseeing the company’s patented compounds in preIND ovarian cancer clinical trials at Baylor Scott & White Health, and additional opportunities with a broader reach into bio-fuels, agricultural applications and other high growth industries.

Life Fitness Unveils New App Integrations for Open API at CES

Life Fitness is elevating heart rates at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with the introduction of two apps featuring integration into LFopen, Life Fitness’ open API (Application Programming Interface). Each app will work seamlessly with Life Fitness equipment and allow exercisers to enhance their workout experience using their mobile devices.

“Our users want the ability to customize their workouts and create unique experiences that engage and motivate them. With our new open platform products, we are giving consumers the tools they need to enhance their fitness routines by integrating personal technology,” said Chris Clawson, president, Life Fitness. “LFopen puts Life Fitness at the frontier of fitness technology and working with these influential fitness app developers allows us to bring Life Fitness equipment to its full potential.”

Life Fitness is the first fitness equipment manufacturer to open portions of its product platform, allowing developers access so third-parties, including fitness facilities, can create applications that work directly with Life Fitness equipment.

The two new apps will allow exercisers to use their mobile devices to automatically log workout statistics such as time, distance and calories burned when their device is connected to Life Fitness equipment, eliminating the need for manual entry. The two apps introducing Life Fitness integration at CES are:
runtastic. The runtastic app is designed to help exercisers track their sports activities and connect with friends who are also using the app. Users can then create profiles on runtastic.com to cheer friends on, share photos, keep track of exercise stats, log run or biking routes and more. runtastic’s integration with Life Fitness and new fitness hardware offerings will be on display at the runtastic booth, South Hall 26508.

Wahoo Fitness. Wahoo Fitness is a running and cycling app that tracks fitness data from Wahoo sensor products like the Wahoo Run/Gym Pack, Blue HR Strap, Balance iPhone-powered Scale and KICKR PowerTrainer. With Life Fitness integration, Wahoo Fitness users will be able to track data from their indoor cardio workouts, in addition to their outdoor workouts. The Wahoo Fitness app for Life Fitness will be on display at the Wahoo Fitness booth, South Hall 26525.

Both apps will be on display and available for testing in each respective booth on a Life Fitness Elevation Series Discover SE treadmill. Their integration with LFopen will be released following CES and will be available via an app update on users’ mobile devices.

Life Spine Announces Limited Release of Lateral Solution Systems

Life Spine, a medical device company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets products for the surgical treatment of spinal disorders, has begun the limited release of the CENTRIC® Lateral Retractor and PLATEAU®-X Lateral Spacer Systems.

“The Life Spine expandable retractor is one of the most versatile and user friendly lateral retractor systems I have ever used,” said Michael Liu, M.D., FACS, a neurosurgeon from Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville, OR. “I believe that with its design enhancements, this will be the best system out in the market today for extreme lateral approaches to the spine.”

The CENTRIC Lateral Retractor System offers independently controlled blades and an open frame design for maximum visualization under fluoroscopy.

Save lives faster: Massachusetts Life Sciences Center taking applications for Accelerator Loan Program

In the life sciences space and looking to speed your way to market? The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center has opened up the seventh round of its accelerator program, which offers a loan of up to a million dollars to qualified early-stage life sciences companies.

The news comes on the same day as MLSC announced that a previous participant — Avaxia Biologics — repaid its own loan after raising $6.4 million in a Series B round. So far, the Accelerator has funded 24 companies, with six having paid back their loans so far.

Information on applying for the program is available at the MLSC’s website.

Full release is below.

Massachusetts Life Sciences Center announces next round of Accelerator Loan Program for early-stage companies

WALTHAM, Mass. – As the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) today launched the seventh round of its Accelerator Loan Program, the MLSC also announced that Lexington-based Avaxia Biologics Inc., an Accelerator company awarded $375,000 in 2010, has paid back its loan early after successfully raising $6.4 million in its Series B financing round. The company’s repayment totaled $459,362.

The Accelerator Loan Program is the MLSC’s flagship investment program that provides working capital to early-stage life sciences companies. Launched in 2009, the program offers loans of up to $1 million per company and seeks to “de-risk” start-up companies that are in need of financing to serve as flexible working capital or for the purchase of capital assets.

The Accelerator Loan Program provides support to companies at a critical stage of their development cycle, enabling them to conduct vital research and proof of concept studies, and attract subsequent investment while improving the odds of bringing cutting-edge innovation to the marketplace. The MLSC is now accepting applications for the next round of the program, which are due by noon EST February 8, 2013, on the MLSC’s web site at www.masslifesciences.com.

To date, the Accelerator Loan Program has awarded $15.1 million in loans to 24 companies, which have generated more than $105 million in additional equity or acquisition proceeds. Six of these companies—Good Start Genetics, InVivo Therapeutics, 4s3 Bioscience, Pluromed, MoMelan and most recently Avaxia Biologics—have paid back their Accelerator loans early with interest.

Avaxia Biologics Inc. is a privately-held, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Avaxia is a leader in the growing field of gut-targeted therapeutics — orally administered, minimally absorbed drugs that are designed to act locally in the gastrointestinal tract. Avaxia’s lead clinical candidate, AVX-470, is an oral anti-TNF antibody for inflammatory bowel disease. This transformative product offers potentially improved safety and efficacy over existing anti-TNF therapies by focusing immune suppression only where needed in the diseased gut. On November 27, 2012, the company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for AVX-470 for the treatment of ulcerative colitis. Avaxia expects to initiate a Phase 1b clinical trial of AVX-470 in patients with active ulcerative colitis in early 2013. Avaxia is using its proprietary oral antibody platform to develop gut-targeted therapeutics to address many other serious diseases such as type 2 diabetes, celiac disease, GI acute radiation syndrome and oral mucositis.

“The Accelerator loan from the MLSC was of critical importance to Avaxia’s early growth,” said Barbara S. Fox, CEO of Avaxia. “The MLSC reviewers evaluated our programs, identified the key areas we needed to address in order to successfully raise private funding, and provided the resources we needed to clear those initial hurdles. That early funding and the credibility that came with MLSC support allowed us to raise funds and advance our lead product into clinical testing for ulcerative colitis. We have now raised a total of $10.5 million from private investors and have hired 13 full-time employees in Massachusetts. We honestly would not have been able to get there without the support of the taxpayers of Massachusetts, and we are proud to be able to repay the loan in full.”

“The Center’s Accelerator Program fills a critical gap in the life cycle of promising early-stage companies that are bringing new technologies to the marketplace,” said Dr. Susan Windham-Bannister, President CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. “Through this program we provide the Center’s endorsement of promising young companies, promote their visibility and create leverage for the institutional investors who can further help move these companies forward. Several of our Accelerator companies were started by female entrepreneurs, and we extend special congratulations to Barbara as the first female entrepreneur to repay an Accelerator loan. Avaxia’s success in raising private capital is the latest validation that the Accelerator program meets an important market need. We are very pleased to accept the early repayment of Avaxia’s loan, and we commend the company on its progress in developing new therapies for ulcerative colitis.”

As in all past rounds of the Accelerator Loan Program, applications will be subjected to a rigorous evaluation process, including a double-blind peer review, evaluation by the MLSC’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and further screening by the MLSC’s Investment Sub-committee of the Board of Directors, which includes an in-person Q&A by selected companies and live presentation by finalists. Final awards are scheduled to be announced by the MLSC’s Board of Directors in May of 2013. Information sessions for potential applicants will be held throughout January in various locations. Dates and locations are listed on the MLSC’s web site.

“We look forward to reviewing the seventh round of Accelerator Loan Program applications,” said Dr. Harvey Lodish, Chair of the MLSC Scientific Advisory Board, Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and Professor of Biology and Professor of Bioengineering at MIT. “Composed of leaders from Massachusetts’ universities and medical schools and from venture capital and industry sectors, our Scientific Advisory Board evaluates each application for the importance, quality, and novelty of the project; for the company’s business plan; and for its projected use of MLSC funds that can enable it to secure additional funding. Since the Accelerator Loan Program’s inception, this rigorous review process has yielded a strong group of small companies able to develop their innovative science or engineering and ultimately introduce new patient therapies or diagnostics to market.”

Research and Markets: Life Insurance in China

Life Insurance in China industry profile provides top-line qualitative and quantitative summary information including: market size (value 2007-11, and forecast to 2016). The profile also contains descriptions of the leading players including key financial metrics and analysis of competitive pressures within the market. Essential resource for top-line data and analysis covering the China life insurance market. Includes market size data, textual and graphical analysis of market growth trends, leading companies and macroeconomic information.

Highlights
- The value of the life insurance market is shown in terms of gross premium incomes from mortality protection and retirement savings plans. All currency conversions have been calculated using constant 2011 annual average exchange rates. The insurance market depends on a variety of economic and non-economic factors and future performance is difficult to predict. The forecast given in this report is not based on a complex economic model, but is intended as a rough guide to the direction in which the market is likely to move.

- The Chinese life insurance market had total gross written premiums of $134.7 billion in 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.1% between 2007 and 2011.

- The life insurance segment was the market's most lucrative in 2011, with total gross written premiums of $128.7 billion, equivalent to 95.5% of the market's overall value.

- The performance of the market is forecast to decelerate, with an anticipated CAGR of 10.9% for the five-year period 2011 - 2016, which is expected to drive the market to a value of $225.5 billion by the end of 2016.