Endocyte faces big decisions with new cancer drug
Endocyte’s lead drug showed big impact on lung cancer patients, but some analysts think the company should scrap it for a newer drug that is more powerful.
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Major Health Partners will construct an $89 million hospital on the north edge of Shelbyville, after nearly a decade of shifting services to that location. According to the Shelbyville News, Major’s board voted Sept. 22 to build a 300,000-square-foot facility in the Intelliplex technology park along Interstate 74 and move from downtown Shelbyville. Construction on the project could begin as early as next month and take about two years to complete. Major first revealed detailed plans for the hospital six weeks ago, but the project could not go forward until the board’s 6-0 vote. The hospital will include 56 beds, all in private rooms, and 38 outpatient observation beds. Major’s current hospital has 72 beds in mostly semi-private rooms. When completed, the new complex will also have four operating rooms and house 57 physicians and a staff of about 930.
Researchers at Purdue University and the Indiana University School of Medicine have received a $3.7 million grant to study how blueberries reduce bone loss in postmenopausal women. The five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine will pay for researchers to conduct human trials aimed at finding the most effective varieties and dosage levels of blueberriers for reducing bone loss. “This is one of the most compelling avenues to pursue in natural products research because blueberries would be a new alternative to osteoporosis drugs and their side effects,” said Connie Weaver, the head of Purdue’s department of nutrition science and one of the grant recipients.
Bernard Health, a health benefits brokerage firm based in Tennessee, opened its second retail store in Indianapolis last week. The 1,270-square-foot store is downtown on Pennsylvania Street, just north of Washington Street. Bernard, which now employs seven here in Indianapolis, opened its first local retail store in the Nora neighborhood in 2012 and now has 12 stores nationwide. For a fee, Bernard helps individuals and small businesses evaluate and purchase health benefits. It is one of several new models being tried out by benefits brokers in Indiana to adapt to new rules and opportunities under Obamacare.
The Indiana University School of Medicine received gifts totaling $1 million on the 40th anniversary of Dr. Larry Einhorn’s discovery of a drug combination therapy that nearly cured testicular cancer. In September 1974, Einhorn, a professor at the IU medical school, first tested the cancer drug cisplatin with two other cancer drugs—a combination that boosted survival rates from the cancer from about 20 percent to 95 percent. According to the medical school, 300,000 patients have survived testicular cancer after receiving the drug therapy Einhorn discovered. The most famous is Lance Armstrong, the cycling champion stripped of his victories after admitting to doping. The gifts will help launch a gene sequencing program among survivors so future patients can be given treatments that reduce side effects and complications. Half the donated money came from A. Farhad Moshiri of Monaco, who previously donated $2 million to IU. Another $300,000 will come from the children of local real estate magnate Sidney Eskenazi and his wife, Lois.
When will corporate travel come back?
An industry coalition is launching an attack on the ‘AIG effect’ in the hope of restoring a lucrative niche.
The Interview Issue: Ron Ellis
Ron Ellis has been CEO of the drug discovery firm Endocyte Inc. since 1996. When he moved to West Lafayette to take the job, he wouldn’t let his wife paint the interior of their new house—for fear he’d be looking for a new job soon. Endocyte has yet to generate any revenue.
The pain (and pleasure) that comes from paying more of our health care bills
Paying off medical debts over time is now a common experience for families with health insurance and becoming more so. And that is inducing big changes in the health care marketplace.
Trucking companies raise wages as driver shortage grows
Average driver wages may rise as much as 6 percent in 2014, said Kenny Vieth, president of Columbus, Indiana-based Americas Commercial Transportation Research Co.
Why small firms have been irate about health insurance
For Indiana employers with fewer than 10 workers, health insurance premiums have risen 11.5 percent, on average, from 2001 to 2013. That ranked second-highest among all states.
Reviews: Season openers at the IRT and Phoenix
The first act of IRT’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” might make you wonder why the show isn’t produced more often. The second act makes it clear.
Company news
A Purdue University startup is developing drugs that could reduce a neurotoxin believed to play a part in multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain and Parkinson’s disease. Neuro Vigor LLC formed last year, based on the research of Riyi Shi, a Purdue professor of neuroscience and biomedical engineering. The company is now trying to raise money to help it prepare for and conduct human trials of one of its drugs. Its drugs are designed to reduce the level of acrolein in patients’ brains. "Our preclinical research has shown by lowering acrolein we could much reduce the symptoms and pain of neurological diseases and injuries,” Shi said in a statement. He co-founded Neuro Vigor along with Mark Van Fleet, a senior executive with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and David Giddings, the former president of Boehringer Mannheim Corp.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved Dow AgroSciences LLC’s Enlist corn and soybean traits in the United States. Indianapolis-based Dow Agro now awaits action by the Environmental Protection Agency to register the companion herbicide to the Enlist traits, which is a new version of the 2,4-D weed killer that's been around since the 1940s. The EPA has said it will rule this fall on Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences' application to market the chemical. After the EPA acts, Dow Agro said, it will update its plans to bring Enlist to market in 2015. The agriculture industry has been anxiously awaiting the approvals, as many weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, a herbicide commonly used on corn and soybeans now. Dow Agro, which is a subsidiary of Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co., also formed a strategic research and development alliance last week with Greenfield-based Elanco Animal Health. The two companies will work to develop products that enable livestock producers to increase meat and milk production. Elanco, a subsidiary of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., was a co-founder of Dow Agro in 1989 but sold its stake to Dow Chemical in 1997.
Eli Lilly and Co. agreed to pay AstraZeneca plc as much as $500 million to jointly develop an experimental oral drug for Alzheimer’s, according to Bloomberg News. The two companies will work together to develop AZD3293, which belongs to a class of drugs called BACE inhibitors that block production of amyloid, a protein that causes plaque to build up in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients. The two companies will work to begin studies in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease. Lilly will lead clinical development while AstraZeneca will be responsible for manufacturing. London-based AstraZeneca will receive the first milestone payment of $50 million in the first half of 2015 and the companies will share equally all future costs and potential global revenue. Indianapolis-based Lilly had been developing its own BACE inhibitor, but it failed in clinical testing because of safety issues. The only drugs approved for Alzheimer’s merely ease symptoms for a few months while the debilitating brain disease progresses. Still, they generate more than $5 billion annually.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new injectable diabetes drug from Eli Lilly and Co. for adults with Type 2 diabetes, according to Bloomberg News. The drug, Trulicity, is part of a new class of medicines called GLP-1 agonists, which spur the pancreas to create extra insulin after meals. Indianapolis-based Lilly is counting on new drugs like Trulicity to replace falling revenue from blockbusters like the antidepressant Cymbalta, which is facing cheaper generic competition after the expiration of its patent. Analysts predict the drug could eventually bring in $700 million to as much as $1.3 billion annually in revenue. The drug will bear a boxed warning — the most serious type — highlighting that rats tested with Trulicity had cases of thyroid cancer, though it's unclear whether they were caused by the drug. Lilly will be required to conduct follow-up studies on cases of thyroid cancer, heart problems and other potential safety issues with the drug.
What if hospitals ‘upcharged’ you for being fat?
As local hospitals try to offer package deals with upfront prices on joint replacement surgeries, they're struggling with the reality that patients' other health conditions can significantly increase their cost of care.
Recent wins worth $4B to Lilly market value
Lilly is finally putting meat on the bones of its predictions about its experimental diabetes and cancer drugs. That gives investors the certainty they crave that Lilly’s future revenue won’t remain in its 2014 doldrums.
CONTERNO: Attack diabetes epidemic together
The numbers tell an urgent story: Diabetes is a global epidemic that strikes close to home.
Democrats raise doubts about Ballard’s preschool plan
Funding concerns involving the homestead credit have prompted work on an alternative plan that Democrats expect to unveil soon.
Data deluge prompts teacher colleges to extend training after graduation
Rattled by new state teacher ratings, the colleges hope to avoid black eyes, themselves.
School of Philanthropy at IUPUI appoints new dean
Indiana University has found a successor to Gene Tempel, who is set to step down as dean of the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI. The position will be funded through the newly created Eugene R. Tempel Deanship.
Startup Companion Diagnostics trying to work through bankruptcy
Companion Diagnostics Inc., a biotech company that relocated to Indiana from Connecticut in 2010, has entered bankruptcy reorganization while it tries to develop a therapy for inflammation.
Company news
Eli Lilly and Co. plans to seek regulatory approval early next year for a new once-a-day insulin after the diabetes treatment fared better than the blockbuster drug Lantus in two late-stage clinical studies. According to the Associated Press, Lilly’s drug peglispro produced statistically significant lower blood sugar levels in Type 1 diabetes patients when compared to people who took Lantus, which garnered $7.8 billion in sales last year for France-based Sanofi SA. Peglispro is a basal or background insulin that patients with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes can take along with shorter-acting mealtime insulin to help keep blood sugar levels stable.
St. Vincent Health wants to build a $14 million sports performance facility for serious athletes at Indy Cycloplex, a city park that includes the Major Taylor Velodrome cycling track. St. Vincent’s proposal is one idea being discussed with Marian University, which has a contract to manage the park for the city, and four amateur sports groups: Indiana Sports Corp, Play Ball Indiana, USA Football and USA Track & Field. St. Vincent’s idea, if accepted, could become reality as early as 2017. While no firm plans are in place, the groups are likely to discuss the possibility of relocating their offices or some of their operations to the site to create an “amateur sports community,” officials said. The four sports groups are all based in Indianapolis, but are spread around the city. Facilities for research, training, sports safety and performance are among the possible development options on the table in the hope they could attract other sports-governing bodies to Indianapolis. Another possibility for the site is a youth sports park.
Just three months before the parent company of AIT Laboratories was sold in 2009 to its employees for $90 million, it was appraised for less than one-fifth as much, according to a lawsuit filed Aug. 29 by the U.S. Department of Labor. That sudden swing in value is why the federal government has sued AIT founder Michael Evans and the bank he hired to help sell AIT, alleging they breached their fiduciary duties. The suit, filed in federal court in Indianapolis, asks the court to force Evans and Louisville-based PBI Bank to give back any gains they made from the sale. Evans, 70, owned nearly 88 percent of AIT when it was sold to an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, according to the lawsuit. Evans did not cash out that entire stake immediately when the sale was made, but instead was to be paid over time as AIT employees made contributions to the ESOP, which functions as their company retirement plan. The lawsuit claims Evans has been paid $16.3 million. It's not clear from the suit how much more he might be in line to collect. The complaint notes that in 2013, a period when AIT was under severe financial pressure, a recapitalization resulted in Evans, who had helped finance the buyout, receiving a 90-percent stake in AIT. Meanwhile, the ESOP's stake shrank from 100 percent to 10 percent.
HENDERSON: No, you can’t hide anymore
Customer retention and new sales can be trendy. If you’re Comcast/Xfinity, as an example, you’re reeling from the insane firestorm of social media castigation as regards to how you’ve trained, monitored and improved the quality of your customer service representatives.