The latest technology and life sciences news in WRALTechWire’s Bulldog Bulletin roundup:

  • Red Hat stock rated ‘outperform’

RALEIGH – Red Hat has an “outperform” rating and a $70 price target from Credit Suisse analyst Sikantha Panigrahi.

Panigrahi initiated coverage Friday, saying in part that Red Hat is “the de facto leader in open-source software and continues to gain share in the operating system market with its flagship product Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). In addition to RHEL’s continued growth momentum, we also believe that the growing adoption of open source within mainstream IT has positioned Red Hat to increasingly upsell its newer products (JBoss middleware, Gluster storage, virtualization, and CloudForms), thereby driving further billings growth.”

Red Hat closed on Thursday at $56.99.

  • Google takes Lenovo stake

BEIJING – Reuters reports that Internet search firm Google will own a 5.94 percent stake in China’s Lenovo Group Ltd worth $750 million once Lenovo’s deal to buy Google’s Motorola handset division closes, citing a disclosure on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Google would take 618.3 million Lenovo shares at $1.213 per share, the stock exchange said late on Thursday.

Lenovo agreed to buy Google’s Motorola handset division last week for $2.91 billion in a cash and stock deal.

  • Smashing Boxes releases white paper

DURHAM – Web design and development agency Smashing Boxes has released a white paper on mobile health applications.
The paper focuses on the benefits of mobile health applications that address the burgeoning problem of medication nonadherence, and how continuing research in the field of mobile health applications will begin to combat that issue, greatly benefiting the general public.

“Our hope is that by harnessing emerging mobile applications, higher quality healthcare can be provided, and unnecessary healthcare spending can be reduced,” Smashing Boxes CEO Nick Jordan said in a statement.

  • INC Research makes clinical pharmacology hire

RALEIGH – Clinical research organization INC Research has appointed Beatrice Setnik to be the company’s vice president, clinical pharmacology.

Setnik will support INC Research’s class Early Phase Business Unit, providing scientific direction on matters related to abuse liability. She comes to INC Research from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), most recently serving as Senior Director, Medical Development-Neuroscience, where she led clinical development, including abuse potential evaluation of several opioid formulations. Before Pfizer, she worked as a research scientist providing scientific input on specialty phase I-II clinical trials, including abuse potential studies.