3 new names in the Philly50

The business world is swirling, with IPOs and M&A. Philly50 prefers IPAs, M&Ms, and chocolate-and-vanilla swirl, but the list of the largest area companies has three changes midway through 2014 because of all that business activity.

The key criteria for inclusion in the Philly50 are a headquarters in the Philadelphia region and market capitalization.

The additions are Incyte Corp. at No. 12, Navient Corp. at No. 15, and Penn Virginia Corp. at No. 50

The deletions are Quaker Chemical Corp., Beneficial Mutual Bancorp Inc., and Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Incyte, which trades under the ticker symbol INCY on the NASDAQ, is a pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Wilmington. Incyte now focuses on developing drugs for cancer and inflammation, but it evolved (with slightly different names) from a firm selling database technology to biotech companies as the life-science world was focused on mapping the human genome in the 1990s.

Incyte's lone drug on the market today is Jakafi, which is approved by the FDA for treatment of patients with intermediate or high-risk myelofibrosis, which the Mayo Clinic describes as "an uncommon type of chronic leukemia - a cancer that affects the blood-forming tissues in the body." The drug produced $69.65 million of the $89.79 million in total first-quarter revenue for Incyte, which reported a net loss of $33.96 million.

The company attributed the net loss to increased spending for late-stage clinical trials and costs for preparing to sell other medicine.

Former Novartis oncology president Hervé Hoppenot was hired in January to replace longtime CEO Paul A. Friedman, who is retiring. In early June, chief financial officer David Hastings, who joined Incyte in 2003, exercised stock options, some dating to 2006, and sold 200,000 shares for $10.55 million, according to an SEC filing.

Navient is a financial services firm that spun out of SLM Corp., better known as Sallie Mae (also a Philly50 member.) Like SLM, Navient has headquarters in Newark, Del. It trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol NAVI and manages student loans for clients in higher education and federal, state, and local governments.

Penn Virginia has headquarters in Radnor and trades under the symbol PVA on the NYSE. Founded in 1882, the company shifted focus in 2010 from natural gas to oil and natural gas liquids.

Quaker Chemical is based in Conshohocken and its stock trades under the symbol KWR on the NYSE. Its customers are in primary metals, metalworking, and other basic process industries.

Beneficial Mutual Bancorp, which trades under the symbol BNCL on the NASDAQ, has headquarters in Center City and has 60 locations in the region.

Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, which trades under AUXL on the NASDAQ, is based in Chesterbrook. It recently bought QLT, a Canadian company, with the intention of reregistering in Canada to take advantage of lower corporate taxes.