Company news

A Cicero-based developer has won city approval to build a $15.7 million senior health care center at 16th Street and Arlington Avenue on Indianapolis’ east side. The city’s Metropolitan Development Commission gave its blessing Sept. 19 after accepting an offer from Mainstreet Property Group LLC to purchase the property for $912,500. The city bought the nine-acre parcel from the federal government for $1 in September 2004. It had been used by Raytheon Technical Services Co. LLC. Nearly half of the project’s cost could be financed by $7.4 million in city-issued bonds. Mainstreet’s plans for the center call for 70 skilled-nursing and 30 assisted-living beds. The facility is expected to create up to 150 jobs, Mainstreet officials said. The project would be Mainstreet’s first newly constructed facility in Marion County. In 2006, it purchased out of bankruptcy the Highland Health and Living Center in Indianapolis at 2926 N. Capitol Ave. The company owns or co-owns 13 senior health care centers in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, and has six more under development. It plans to break ground on up to 12 centers by the end of the year, including a $13.3 million facility in Westfield.

A European Union committee has endorsed the use of Eli Lilly and Co.'s erectile dysfunction drug Cialis to treat symptoms tied to an enlarged prostate, according to the Associated Press. The EU’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recommended approval of Cialis for benign prostatic hyperplasia. The condition often comes with such symptoms as the need to urinate urgently and frequently. The European Commission usually decides on the committee's opinion within a month or two, Lilly said Friday. The Commission is not required to adopt the committee recommendation, but it usually does. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Cialis last fall for the treatment of symptoms of an enlarged prostate. Regulators also have approved the use in Canada, Mexico and Brazil, among other countries. Cialis brought in $1.88 billion last year. Its patents will last until 2017.

Indiana’s adult obesity rate is predicted to climb from 25 percent now to 56 percent by 2030, according to new projections released by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That shocking increase would move Indiana from the 38th-most-obese state now to the 26th-most-obese state. Mississippi is predicted to lead the nation in obesity in 2030, as it does now. And even Colorado, which has the least obese population—with only 21 percent obese—is predicted to have 45 percent of its adults obese in 2030. The report, titled "F as in Fat,” was released on Sept. 18. “This study shows us two futures for America’s health,” said Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey CEO of the New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "At every level of government, we must pursue policies that preserve health, prevent disease and reduce health care costs. Nothing less is acceptable.”