Company news

Twenty-six people have sued Anthem Inc. claiming identity theft and fraud due to the massive data breach Anthem reported on Feb. 4. The Indianapolis-based health insurer had 78.8 million current and former customers’ records stolen by hackers from Dec. 10 to Jan. 27. But Anthem maintains it’s not the source of its customers’ troubles because the FBI has yet to see anyone trying to sell information from the Anthem hack on the black market. Figuring out who’s right could play a key role in determining whether Anthem ends up paying damages in these cases, which now number 101. The cases have been consolidated before a federal judge in California.

Eli Lilly and Co.’s experimental lung cancer drug necitumumab received a favorable nod from an advisory committee convened by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Without holding a vote, a majority of the committee members agreed that Lilly’s drug has a favorable risk-benefit profile despite safety concerns about potentially fatal blood clots, according to a report by Medscape. The FDA is expected to make a decision on Lilly's application for necitumumab later this year. The FDA does not have to follow the recommendation of its advisory committees, but it usually does. If approved, necitumumab is expected to generate $567 million in sales in 2020, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts’ estimates. The drug treats the squamous variety of lung cancer, which accounts for 25 percent to 30 percent of all lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Patients in a clinical trial who took necitumumab lived a median of 11.5 months, 1.6 months longer than those who got only chemotherapy, the FDA staff report said. One study showed that, out of 538 patients taking necitumumab and chemotherapy, 9 percent experienced a serious clot, compared with 5 percent of 541 patients given only chemotherapy, according to the staff report.

Enrollment in the expanded version of the Healthy Indiana Plan, known as HIP 2.0, has climbed to nearly 290,000 participants, with about 60 percent of those people under age 40, according to state figures presented July 9 during a public hearing in Indianapolis on the program. According to the Evansville Courier & Press, about 70 percent of the people enrolled are paying monthly contributions for HIP-Plus plans, which include vision and dental insurance, while 30 percent reverted to the HIP-Basic plan, according to state figures presented Thursday. The average monthly contribution for a HIP-Plus member in June was $10.99, state figures show. The HIP-Basic plan is the default health care coverage for participants earning below the federal poverty line who choose not to pay monthly contributions.