Investment news

Shares of Edwards Lifesciences Corp. jumped after U.S. regulators approved a newer, thinner version of the company’s artificial heart valve. The stock rose 2.9 percent to $141.96 at 3:43 p.m. in New York. The shares had risen 8.3 percent this year through Tuesday.

SunEdison Inc., the best-performing U.S. solar company, is acquiring a 60 percent stake in 48.5 megawatts of clean-energy capacity in South Africa from BioTherm Energy Pty Ltd.

Do you like spiders? Do you like the idea of wearing spider webs? Well, you’ll soon be able to wear clothing made from the same material as spider webs if a new startup called Bolt Threads gets its way.

As talks aimed at slowing global warming drag on, researchers are pushing new ideas that some are calling last-ditch attempts to avert the worst effects of climate change. Some proposals are uncontroversial, such as using charcoal to lock carbon dioxide into soil or scattering carbon-absorbing gemstones. Richard Branson, the billionaire chairman of Virgin Group Ltd., has offered a $25 million prize for the best solution in the field known as geoengineering.

Opko Health Inc. said it will buy Bio-Reference Laboratories Inc. in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.47 billion.

Ablynx NV is attracting interest from potential new partners eager to join the Belgian biotech company as it tries to harness antibodies from llamas for fighting disease.

RMG Partners, an independent Russian investment company, and East-West Digital News, the first English-language media resource on Russia’s innovation sectors, have recently published their joint overview of Russia’s venture capital market in 2014.

Puma Biotechnology, Inc. (PBYI), a development stage biopharmaceutical company, announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015. Unless otherwise stated, all comparisons are for the first quarter 2015 compared to the first quarter 2014.