Company news

Eli Lilly and Co. lost the first round of its family legal dispute with Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. The California-based company won an injunction that prevents Indianapolis-based Lilly from using the same sales force to sell the Amylin-created drug Byetta as well as a new drug called Tradjenta, made by Germany-based Boerhinger Ingelheim GmbH. Both drugs are for patients with Type 2 diabetes, and therefore would compete against each other. Byetta is an injectable medicine and Tradjenta is an oral agent. Lilly said it is disappointed with the first ruling and will keep fighting Amylin’s lawsuit.

Franklin-based Johnson Memorial Hospital and Indianapolis-based Community Health Network will put their clinical collaboration agreement into effect June 1. The agreement was reached in February, after Johnson Memorial also considered proposals from Franciscan St. Francis and Indiana University Health. The deal, while not an acquisition, solidifies Community’s presence in the fast-growing southern suburbs of Indianapolis, where it already maintains a 150-bed hospital along County Line Road. Johnson Memorial, located nearly 15 miles south, is licensed for 101 beds. Hospitals and doctors are being pushed by health insurance plans to partner up to keep patients healthy—both before and after they actually seek medical care. But Community and Johnson Memorial are also looking to expand their  offerings, particularly for heart patients.

Advion BioServices, a subsidiary of New York-based Advion BioSciences Inc., has opened its 22,000-square-foot drug-discovery and bioanalytical laboratory at the Purdue Research Park of Indianapolis' technology center at the Ameriplex Business Park near the Indianapolis International Airport. The new facility, staffed with 50 employees, was announced in March. Advion, a contract-research organization, will focus on earlier-stage, drug-discovery and metabolism bioanalytical services that evaluate how a potential new medicine is absorbed and metabolized in experimental models. Many of these services generate the data needed to prepare a molecule for human trials.

Indianapolis-based BioStorage Technologies announced Thursday it has opened a 60,000-square-foot biorepository facility in Indianapolis. The $4.6 million facility, located near the Indianapolis International Airport, will be used to prepare, store and transport tissue and blood samples. BioStorage serves biotech companies, such as Massachusetts-based Biogen Idec, as well as medical-device makers such as Minnesota-based Medtronic Inc. and academic research institutions. The facility will allow BioStorage to prepare samples for its clients via automated equipment, which the company says provides the accuracy needed by high-volume medical researchers. BioStorage, founded in 2002, is one of a handful of central Indiana companies that have developed a specialty in life sciences logistics. Others include Indianapolis-based Sentry BioPharma Services Inc., Plainfield-based MD Logistics Inc., and Bloomington-based BioConvergence LLC.