BIZWATCH : MARKETS.

PIXAR PERFECT: Pixar Animation Studios, up 2-3/4 at 24-3/4. The movie animation company reported first-quarter profits of $6.3 million, or 13 cents a share, beating Wall Street expectations Pixar would only break even. Pixar said Thursday afternoon that it expects revenues from the film ``Toy Story,'' produced for release by Disney, to have a more significant impact on revenues in the remainder of 1996 than the first quarter.

MEMO

HAZARDOUS DUTY: Repetitious work, poor job design and violence have become the most significant safety and health problems in the American workplace, a union study says. Since the early 1970s, rapid changes in the workplace have created significant new safety and health problems that put millions of workers at risk, according to the study released Friday by the AFL-CIO.

DRUG WARS: A lawsuit filed against the Food and Drug Administration could delay introduction of a new drug for multiple sclerosis. Berlex Laboratories Inc., maker of the MS drug Betaseron, said Friday that it sued the FDA to stop it from approving a competing drug, Avonex, by Biogen Inc. The FDA is close to giving final approval of Avonex. The suit said such approval would violate the FDA's own procedures and a federal law that gives Berlex the right to sell its drug without competition. Biogen of Cambridge, Mass., said it considers the lawsuit to be completely without merit.

NORTHWEST PASSAGE: Northwest Airlines has agreed to an alliance with Air China to steer passengers onto each other's flights. The deal announced Friday comes after the United States and China agreed in December to allow their countries' airlines to co-promote flights. Northwest said its Air China venture is the first alliance between major U.S. and Chinese airlines.

EXECUTIVE FILE

HE KEPT ON TRUCKING: George E. Powell Jr., who transformed Yellow Freight System into one of the country's biggest trucking companies, will retire at the end of June as chairman of Yellow Corp. Powell, who will turn 70 in June, made the announcement Thursday at Yellow's annual shareholders meeting in Overland Park, Kan. A. Maurice Myers, who recently became president and chief executive officer of the Overland Park-based trucking company, will succeed Powell as chairman upon Powell's retirement June 30.

TWICE WOULD BE NICE: Five months after he was forced out of a top position at Time Warner Inc., Michael Fuchs may be ready to return to the entertainment industry as a chief executive officer. ``I loved starting with a small company and making it bigger,'' he said at the Bloomberg Forum. Fuchs, a corporate lawyer by training and a graduate of Union College, noted that he would be happy if he could repeat that sort of endeavor. Fuchs, 50, spoke optimistically of having a chance to duplicate his success at a company such as Time Warner's Home Box Office. He took the helm of HBO in 1984, after working his way through the ranks as the cable network achieved prominence.

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