North Bay Business Journal

PETALUMA — The American arm of Danish ambulance giant Falck, one of the largest ambulance companies in the world, has acquired Petaluma-based Verihealth Inc., an ambulance and medical transport company founded in 2000.

NOVATO — Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. (Nasdaq: RPTP), after steadily growing its pipeline over the past 12 months, will relocate its corporate headquarters to a nearly 31,000 square-foot space at 7 Hamilton Landing, a space formally occupied by Walt Disney Corp.’s ImageMovers Digital animation studio.

From Marin to Mendocino, current hospital projects represent at least $550 million worth of combined construction spending.

And it’s a number that will double if and when one of the largest projects — the $500 million rebuild of Marin General Hospital — gets off the ground.

NOVATO — Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp. (Nasdaq: RPTP) today said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its drug designed for the treatment of nephropathic cystinosis, a rare and possibly life-threatening metabolic disorder.

It’s the first FDA-approved product for Raptor, started in 2005 by former executives and researchers of Novato-based BioMarin Pharmaceutical, itself a developer of treatments for rare diseases.

U.S. commercial launch is expected by July. FDA approval triggers the second of two $25 million payments to Raptor.

As Sonoma County’s political leaders continue to move forward with the process of setting up a county-wide public power agency, many in the business community are examining what the renewable energy-focused proposal would mean to their operations.

NAPA — Napa Valley hosted 2.94 million visitors in 2012, generating $1.4 billion in direct tourism spending, and more than three-quarters of them come for dining and wine tasting, according to results from two studies released Thursday.

NAPA — Fifty-four rental townhomes and a 124-unit apartment complex on the Sheveland Ranch property in south Napa sold to a San Francisco real estate investment firm for $39.5 million.

SANTA ROSA — SenarioTek has been able to survive economic slumps over its 10 years in business by diversifying target markets for its products used in testing wireless communications systems.

Unemployment rates across the North Bay in March dropped several percentage points, and Sonoma County had its best year-over-year job growth in 12 years, according to state figures released this morning.

SONOMA COUNTY — Offering the clearest picture yet of expected pricing from a renewable energy-focused power agency under development in Sonoma County, a new report shows that a typical business customer in the launch phase of Sonoma Clean Power could expect to pay between 3.1 percent less per month and a half-percent more than conventional utility rates.

GREENBRAE — Marin General Hospital received a 10-year extension on its deadline for rebuilding a seismically sound facility from the state yesterday, which will move the completion date to 2030 instead of 2020, officials said.

SANTA ROSA — Telephone and Internet service provider Sonic.net is rapidly expanding its business connections, including a major sales push in Southern California and a planned fiber-to-the-business network in Santa Rosa.

WINDSOR — Kaiser Permanente on Thursday said it would give Alliance Medical Center a $60,000 grant to help the nonprofit health center’s expansion at its Windsor site.

HEALDSBURG — A maker of private-label and “custom-label” wines has filed for an initial public offering of stock to raise up to $43.5 million.

SANTA ROSA — Exchange Bank saved millions of dollars last year when it bought back nearly 45 percent of stock sold to the U.S. Department of the Treasury as part of 2008′s Capital Repurchase Program, partially unwinding its own involvement with the national initiative launched to boost capital at banks hit hard by the financial crisis.

Unemployment rates across the North Bay dropped in February, in some counties by more than a full percentage point, as the January holiday lull in hiring gave way to positive growth in a number of industries, according to preliminary state figures released Friday.

Five of the six North Bay counties added 13,900 jobs over 12 months.

FAIRFIELD — Solano County is enjoying a resurgence in jobs and taxable sales, but high home foreclosure rates and indications of job importation are among regional improvements needed for the local economy fully to rebound, an economist said Thursday.

SANTA ROSA — Wells Fargo Center for the Arts today announced plans for a four-part, $10 million upgrade project to improve patron and artist experience, increase accessibility and provide greater flexibility at the 31-year old center.

Health plans and providers in the North Bay overall received high marks in a state survey from the state Office of the Patient Advocate.

WINDSOR — Two family-owned Bay Area packaging and janitorial products supply companies are coming together under the same roof of a new 42,000-square-foot distribution facility.