Company news

Two of the five most-advertised drugs belong to hometown drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. According to 2009 data from The Nielsen Co., Lilly spent $178 million to advertise Cymbalta, its antidepressant and pain medicine, and another $167 million to hawk Cialis, its anti-impotence pills. Those two drugs ranked No. 4 and No. 5, respectively. They trailed Pfizer’s Lipitor, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Abilify, and GlaxoSmithKline plc’s Advair.

Bioanalytical Systems Inc., a life sciences company based in West Lafayette, received a delisting warning from the NASDAQ Capital Market. The company has until Aug. 31 to get its stock price above $1 per share for at least 10 straight days. Otherwise, Bioanalytical might have to move its shares to over-the-counter trading. The recession has cut severely into Bioanlytical’s revenue from contract research services and monitoring instruments, which it sells to phramceutical companies and medical research organizations. The company’s stock hasn’t traded above $1 per share since Jan. 20. The shares are trading at 74 cents apiece.

The expansion at St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers' Indianapolis campus will include a cancer center that will quadruple the size of St. Francis’ current cancer facility. St. Francis hopes to break ground this summer on the 60,000-square-foot addition to its existing 20,000-square-foot center. According to St. Francis executive Keith Jewell, the expansion will include two inpatient units, a larger research department, medical offices for breast surgeons and gynecologic oncology surgeons, an outpatient bone marrow transplant clinic, a stem-cell laboratory, and an "appearances center" where patients can purchase wigs and prosthetics.

Dow AgroSciences’ new $340 million local research-and-development investment almost wasn't made in Indianapolis. The company hired a site-selection firm and seriously explored establishing those operations elsewhere. That ugly scenario would have cost Indianapolis not only the 577 jobs Dow AgroSciences has pledged to add by 2015, but also possibly the 1,200 it already has at its local headquarters. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. gave the company $12.5 million in performance-based tax credits and another $205,000 in training grants to encourage the expansion. The city of Indianapolis will kick in $500,000 from its Industrial Development Grant Fund to help pay for road, sewer and water improvements related to the project. Indianapolis has also committed to establish a property tax increment financing, or TIF, district to help Dow AgroSciences defer $20 million in project costs. The TIF district must be approved by city and state officials. The jobs are attractive, projected to pay $65,000 to $95,000 annually. “We know what we can expect from Indianapolis, and we like it,” Dow Agro CEO Antonio Galindez told IBJ. “Put it all together and we concluded this is the right place to be.”

Dr. Greg Larkin, the former medical director at Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., was appointed Indiana’s new health commissioner Wednesday by Gov. Mitch Daniels. He will replace Dr. Judy Monroe, who left March 8 to become deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Larkin will join the health department April 1. Since 2007, Larkin has been chief medical officer for the Indiana Health Information Exchange, which promotes health information technology for the advancement of patient and community care. During his 22-year career at Lilly, he managed five domestic health care clinics and the company’s domestic employee and retiree health plan.