Company news

Indianapolis-based St. Vincent Health will manage operations at Monroe Hospital in Bloomington under an agreement announced Sept. 4. Adding Monroe gives St. Vincent control of hospitals stretching from Indianapolis to Bedford and even farther south to Salem and Evansville. St. Vincent owns or operates 22 hospitals around the state. The only other Indiana hospital with that kind of geographic reach is Indianapolis-based Indiana University Health, which owns Bloomington Hospital. St. Vincent will oversee quality and safety efforts, physician relations, patient experience, finance and other functions to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The 32-bed facility, which opened in 2006, is owned by Alabama-based Medical Properties Trust Inc. Monroe has routinely lost money, including a loss of $13.2 million in 2011, according to hospital reports to the federal Medicare program, made available by the website AHD.com. Monroe had total patient revenue last year of $102.4 million. The hospital had been courting potential partners or buyers for at least two years. It entered discussions not only with St. Vincent, but also with Mishawaka-based Franciscan Alliance and Munster-based Community Healthcare System.

Nyhart Actuary & Employee Benefits has established its first office on the West Coast with its latest acquisition. Nyhart will add 15 employees by acquiring San Diego-based Epler Co., a regional actuarial, employee benefits and compensation-strategies firm. Nyhart now has 100 employees, including 70 at its headquarters in Indianapolis. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal gives Nyhart new expertise on employee compensation, which it hopes will help bolster its pension business for private, church and public plans. Nyhart serves plans with $15 billion or more in assets, providing fund analysis, advisory services on employee compensation and retirement benefits, and actuarial work on health care issues. It is the third acquisition Nyhart has made in the last two years.

Tymora Analytical Operations LLC has received a $150,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health. The West Lafayette-based company will use the money to develop nanotechnology products that aim to help researchers analyze the adding of phosphate molecules to proteins in the body, a process that plays a role in cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other maladies. Tymora’s leading product would allow researchers to detect multiple changes to proteins in a single experiment. The 2-year-old company has been funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, an investment by Purdue’s Emerging Innovations Fund and winnings from business plan competitions.

Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health will now make its pediatric specialists available at The South Bend Clinic. Riley specialists in cardiology, diabetes, gastroenterology, neurology and rheumatology will see patients from throughout the northern Indiana and southern Michigan regions. Riley's hospital facility in downtown Indianapolis treats children from all over Indiana and beyond the state's borders.