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In the not-too-distant future, scientists tell us, we will regard the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy agents as akin to the bleeding therapy administered by 19th century country doctors. And a Purdue University chemist has developed a tool to help make the future of laser-guided cancer therapies a reality. W. Andy Tao has developed a nanopolymer that can be coated with drugs, enter cells and then be removed to determine which proteins in the cells the drug has entered. Knowing which proteins are targeted would allow drug developers to test whether new drugs target only desired proteins or others as well. Eliminating unintended protein targets could reduce the often-serious side effects associated with cancer drugs. Tao said there currently is no reliable way to test drugs for “off-targeting.”

Indianapolis-based Medical Animatics, a 3D animation company, is making a foray into the game business. The company will develop a game for kids ages 6-12 to help them learn safe behaviors at home, in their neighborhoods, at school or at a park. Medical Animatics will develop the game for Ohio-based Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Health games designed to be both educational and enjoyable are being developed by two other companies with Indiana ties—Bloomington-based Wisdom Tools LLC and Indianapolis-based Gabriel Entertainment, as well as by growing numbers of developers around the country. Medical Animatics also develops 3D animated instructional and informational materials for the health care, higher education and sports industries.

Northern Indiana's Manchester College plans to begin work this summer on its new $18 million pharmacy school. School spokeswoman Jeri Kornegay said Thursday that a ground-breaking for the 75,000-square-foot building in Fort Wayne is expected early this summer, possibly in June. Until the building is complete in July 2012, the college's School of Pharmacy will continue to occupy space at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, about 30 miles east of North Manchester. The project is supported by a $35 million grant from Lilly Endowment that's the largest gift in the college's history. While pharmacy schools have opened on a rapid pace around the nation in recent years, Indiana is one of 18 states with a shortage of pharmacists. Manchester’s will be the third in Indiana offering doctorates in pharmacy, joining schools at Butler University in Indianapolis and Purdue University in West Lafayette.

Mishawaka-based Franciscan Alliance plans to spend $8.4 million to open an administrative center in Greenwood, creating nearly 85 jobs in the next four years. The Catholic health care system, formerly known as Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, will buy, remodel and equip the 96,505-square-foot freestanding building at 1040 Sierra Drive. The administrative center—dubbed the Franciscan Ambulatory Business Office—will house all physician billing operations for the organization’s 13 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois. Franciscan Alliance employs 18,200, including 556 physicians, and expects to grow its physician team to more than 630 next year. Hiring at the administrative center should begin in April as renovations are made. Franciscan Alliance is the second hospital system to announce plans recently to consolidate operations in central Indiana. In October, St. Louis-based Ascension Health, the parent organization of St. Vincent Health, decided to locate a $10.9 million professional service center in Indianapolis, creating up to 500 jobs by 2013.

U.S. News & World Report ranked the best hospitals in the Indianapolis area based on the ones that have medical specialty groups of either national prominence or high performance on such metrics as survival, safety, staffing, technology and patient volumes. Topping the list was the downtown medical complex of Clarian Health, now called Indiana University Health. The academic medical center—which includes Methodist, IU and Riley hospitals—ranked nationally in 11 areas, including gastroenterology, urology, geriatrics, orthopedics, neurosurgery and cancer. It also scored as high-performing in gynecology. Coming in second in the ranking was St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, which scored as high-performing in 12 specialties. Other hospitals in the local top five were IU Health North Hospital, St. Vincent Carmel Hospital and, in a tie for fifth place, St. Vincent Heart Center and Wishard Health Services.
 

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Harlon Wilson, president of Indianapolis-based Medical Animatics, says the uncertainty created by the recession and now health care reform have dried up most opportunities for his 3-D animation firm to win new business with health care clients. So he’s looking at new markets—such as the recent online learning work for Harrison College that led Medical Animatics to sell some of its assets to the for-profit university. And Wilson is still banking on persistent needs to educate patients to cause health care to bounce back.

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Company news

Indiana University has created the Indiana Institute for Personalized Medicine, with $11.25 million in funding from its School of Medicine, its IUPUI campus, the Indiana Physician Scientist Initiative and the Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. The newly created institute will conduct research and work to develop tools that help health care providers select the best medicines for patients based on their genetic traits. “Much of the future of health care is in personalized medicine, meaning more precise targeting of the right medication to the right patient at the right time,” said Dr. David Flockhart, an IU professor of cancer epidemiology and genetics who has been named director of the institute.

Eli Lilly and Co. and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation have agreed to to spend $1.4 million over three years to fund the research at University of Geneva that could help patients with type 1 diabetes to regenerate insulin-producing cells destroyed by the disease. Previous research by Geneva’s Pedro Herrera showed the possibility of converting pancreas cells that do not produce insulin into insulin-producing cells—and to do so without genetic manipulation. Researchers at Indianapolis-based Lilly will now collaborate with Herrera to find potential targets in the pancreas that when exposed to a drug would induce this cell conversion. Lilly hopes to be able to then develop drugs that could treat type 1 diabetes and, perhaps, eliminate the need for insulin therapy.

Endocyte Inc. went public on Friday, selling 12.5 million shares at $6 apiece. The price has since risen to about $7.30. The West Lafayette-based drug-development company twice cut the price of its offering last week. It had intended to sell about 5.4 million shares for a range of $13 to $15 apiece. The underwriters of Endocyte’s IPO have an option to buy an additional 1.8 million shares, which could bring Endocyte’s total sale to $86 million. Including the underwriters' options, the company could see proceeds of up to $86.3 million. The company, which has no sales to date, intends to use all the money from the sale to advance development on its experimental drugs. Its lead product candidate, EC145, is a potential cancer treatment. The company hopes to move it into late-stage development as a potential ovarian cancer treatment. Endocyte is trading under the "ECYT" symbol on Nasdaq.

Indianapolis-based Medical Animatics sold some of its assets to Indianapolis-based Harrison College. The deal included three master-level designers, animation equipment and portions of Medical Animatics’ illustration libraries. Harrison, formerly known as the Indiana Business College, intends to use the assets to develop content for its online, on-ground and blended courses. Medical Animatics, which had made instructional courses for health care clients, had helped Harrison design an online medical assisting program, which launched in January. Harrison did not purchase the full agency or its name, and will not assume any of the company’s liabilities. Medical Animatics founder Harlon Wilson said the company is looking to take its work into new markets.

Bioanalytical Systems Inc. swung to a profit in its most recent quarter. The West Lafayette-based provider of pharmaceutical testing equipment and services earned $310,000, or 6 cents per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31. In the same quarter a year ago, the company lost $1.5 million, or 30 cents per share. Revenue for the most recent quarter totaled $8.1 million, a 27-percent increase from a year ago, as pharmaceutical companies renewed their research and development spending. Bioanalytical also trimmed $265,000 in expenses in the past year.

Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences boosted its fourth-quarter revenue by 19 percent to $1.3 billion, compared with the same quarter a year ago. Quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization also edged up from $69 million to $72 million. Dow Agro’s overhead expenses increased 3 percent during the quarter because of new product launches and commercial activities related to recent seed acquisitions. It also spent 14 percent more on research and development. Dow Agro is a unit of Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical Co.
 

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