Indiana’s problem with brain drain is that its business community is too weak to offer enough jobs or high enough pay to keep graduates with the best money-making potential—those with degrees in science, technology, engineering, math and business.
An IBJ analysis of surveys of the nation’s college seniors shows Indiana has less of a brain drain than most other states. Instead, what ails Indiana is the lack of a “brain gain” of educated adults.
The Landmark Center at 1099 N. Meridian St. and the historic Century Building at 36 S. Pennsylvania St. (pictured) are both in receivership but attracting interest from potential buyers and tenants.
Indianapolis-based Harlan Laboratories may violate loan covenants in the next three to six months, and its ability to refinance a $280 million loan that matures in July 2014 is “highly questionable,” according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service. It’s unclear if the privately held company has an escape plan brewing. Harlan Laboratories employs about 330 people in the area and has annual sales of $326 million. The company appeared on the verge of pulling off a $305 million refinancing in February, but the deal fell apart and was shelved in April, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Corp. The ratings agencies say the company is not performing well enough to attract lenders. And even if it could engineer a refinancing, it likely would struggle to make the required payments. By Moody’s tally, Harlan’s “adjusted debt” is a whopping 7-1/2 times its so-called EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).
Indianapolis-area hospitals are billing patients insured by their employers 264 percent more for outpatient services than what the federal Medicare program would pay for the same services for the same patients in the same facilities. That’s what researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Studying Health System Change found when they analyzed claims data for 590,000 patients, all below the age of 65, who were covered in 2011 by the union-negotiated health plans at automakers General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. The study was paid for by an organization that is funded by the automakers, the UAW and the International Union. The study compared the claims from 13 metro areas against one anther, all of them in the Midwest. Indianapolis had the highest hospital outpatient prices among all cities and the second-highest inpatient prices, behind only Kansas City. Interestingly, Kokomo had the third-highest inpatient prices and the second-highest outpatient prices. Physician prices in Indianapolis were in the middle of the pack, about 10 percent to 20 percent higher than Medicare prices. The authors of the study say hospitals’ market power, which has increased in recent years due to consolidation among hospitals and doctors, is the most likely explanation for the higher prices.
New Jersey-based Covance Inc. has formed a collaboration with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute to conduct early-stage clinical trials for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. The Indiana CTSI, which was formed by partnership of Indiana, Purdue and Notre Dame universities, will provide access to a 13,606-square-foot, 24-patient facility at IU Health University Hospital in Indianapolis. The institute also could, if needed, expand operations into a recently renovated 33,078-square-foot, 50-patient facility in the same building. This space reopens to clinical research for the first time in six years due to the efforts of the Indiana CTSI. The alliance between Covance and the Indiana CTSI was facilitated by BioCrossroads, an Indianapolis-based life sciences business development group. Covance already conducts Phase 1 clinical trials at an 80-bed facility in Evansville. But there has been a paucity of Phase 1 clinical trial work in Indianapolis since locally based drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. shut down its clinic at the IU School of Medicine in 2007.
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana expects the average premiums it charges on the health insurance exchanges being created by Obamacare to be about $60 per year less for each of its health plan members than they would have been without the law.
A new study found that Indianapolis-area hospitals are charging patients insured by their employers 264 percent more for outpatient services than the federal Medicare program pays for the exact same services at the same hospitals.
The assets of Greenwood former drugmaker Elona Biotechnologies Inc. will be liquidated at an auction Sept. 27. Elona, which was trying to make a generic version of insulin known as a biosimilar, was put into receivership in June after the city of Greenwood filed a foreclosure action to recover more than $9.5 million in loans and incentives. Bernadette Barron, the Chicago-based receiver for Elona, hired Indianapolis-based Key Auctioneers Inc. to liquidate Elona’s assets. Those assets include an unfinished, $28 million headquarters and manufacturing facility, as well as patents and other intellectual property. Elona was founded in 1997 by two former Eli Lilly and Co. scientists. If launched, Elona’s insulin would have been a cheaper competitor to brand-name insulins made by Indianapolis-based Lilly and other companies. There are no generic versions of insulin sold around the world. Elona was seen as a rising star, and Gov. Mike Pence even visited the company in March 2012 as part of his “jobs tour,” which was a key element of his gubernatorial campaign.
On Thursday, Greenfield Mayor Richard Pasco and officials from Hancock Regional Hospital will break ground on the O3 PureMed medical waste facility. O3 PureMed is the first commercial facility in the region to dispose of medical waste using an ozone-based green technology. The facility is a partnership of Hancock Regional and Greenfield-based waste management firm Fisk Services.
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. looked south for its latest partnership, a deal with Louisville-based health insurer Humana Inc. to conduct research to improve the health care of their members and patients. The companies will work together to identify and analyze data to improve health care quality and outcomes. The initial project will investigate the characteristics of Type 2 diabetes patients associated with increased health care costs. The companies might then study treatments that could change some of those characteristics. "We are pleased to partner with Humana on research that will help benefit patients facing a variety of diseases, including diabetes," said Dr. Dara Schuster, a medical fellow at Lilly. "Working together, we hope to provide patients with insights and guidance that will help them tailor their care to best match their individual needs."
The $2.5 billion purchase of ExactTarget will add $140 million to $145 million in revenue this year for Salesforce.com, the firm said Thursday. Its shares soared 13 percent in Friday morning trading.
The daily flights, which are expected to begin on Jan. 7, will fulfill a longtime wish of local tech firms eager for more direct access to the West Coast and Silicon Valley.
A realization struck recently as I was sitting in the shade of an umbrella stuck into the white sand that rims Thunder Bay in northeast Michigan, a copy of “The Last Policeman” across my lap.
Brookings Institute researchers recently published a book called “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America” that profiles how quickly poverty is migrating from many urban centers to their surrounding suburbs. Metro-area poverty has grown fastest in the suburbs over the past 30 years—experiencing a 64-percent increase versus 29-percent growth in urban centers.
As a child, racial segregation was a fact of my life, whether by law or by custom. In the South, barriers between whites and blacks were rigidly codified by statute before the civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s.
I’m happily overwhelmed by the number of events I anticipate attending and reviewing during the coming arts season. Take a look.
Eli Lilly and Co. said it is investigating allegations its employees paid Chinese doctors at least $4.9 million in bribes and kickbacks to promote the sales of two diabetes drugs.
The Indianapolis-based appliance and electronics retailer’s stock hit a sort of milestone Tuesday, closing above $18 for the first time since early 2011.
State utility regulators scolded Indianapolis Power & Light Co. on Wednesday for a presentation that “fell below our expectations.” Now IPL must credit ratepayers $10 million.
In this age of austerity, there’s almost no chance of Indianapolis hospitals creating a Cleveland Clinic-like hub of innovation.
Indianapolis Power and Light Co. plans to revamp coal plants in Indianapolis and Petersburg to comply with federal rules. State regulators gave the go-ahead on Wednesday, setting the stage for a potential rate hike.
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., already the promoter of the leading anti-impotence pill Cialis, will now try to speed up development of a drug to treat premature ejaculation. Canada-based TVM Life Sciences Ventures VII, which manages funds supplied by Lilly, invested in Ixchelsis Ltd., a new company created in the United Kingdom to develop the experimental drug, which is called IX-01. The drug was originally discovered at a research facility in the United Kingdom operated by New York-based Pfizer Inc., the company that brought the anti-impotence pill Viagra to market. Lilly’s Chorus unit will oversee development of the drug to determine if its proposed concept of action appears to work. “TVM’s strategic relationship with Lilly enables its project-focused companies, like Ixchelsis, to reach clinical proof of concept efficiently and cost-effectively,” said Darren Carroll, Lilly’s vice president of corporate business development, in a prepared statement. If and when the drug’s proof-of-concept is verified, Lilly will have the option to acquire the drug for further development. Lilly and TVM estimate that as many as 30 percent of men worldwide suffer from premature ejaculation.
Warsaw-based Zimmer Holdings Inc., which lost a February trial against Stryker Corp. over a surgical device, was told to pay more than $228 million—three times the jury award plus other costs—and stop selling certain products. According to Bloomberg News, the increase in the jury award was appropriate because Zimmer intentionally infringed Stryker patents to build its business for pulsed lavage, a technique that removes damaged tissue and cleans bones during joint-replacement surgery, U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said in an order issued Wednesday. He also ordered Zimmer to stop selling its Pulsavac Plus device. A federal jury in Grand Rapids, Mich., in February sided with Stryker and awarded $70 million in damages. The dispute is over devices that use pulsing liquid, such as water or saline solution, to loosen debris from a surgical site and remove it by suction. The $228 million figure is more than the second-quarter profit for either company. Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Stryker reported $213 million in earnings on sales of $2.2 billion. Zimmer, based in Warsaw, reported $152 million in earnings on $1.2 billion in sales.
Three months after the recall of its Zilver PTX stent to prop open peripheral arteries, Bloomington-based Cook Medical Inc. put the device back on the market around the globe, according to MassDevice.com, an industry trade publication. Cook voluntarily recalled the stents in April after getting reports of one patient death and one injury when the equipment that delivers the stent into patients broke off during surgery. In late May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration slapped its “deadly” warning on Cook’s recall of its stent, which props open arteries in the legs and arms to prevent serious blood clots. Millenium Research Group has estimated that Cook derives $2,750 from each Zilver stent it sells in the United States. Since it first hit foreign markets in 2009, the Zilver stent has been deployed in more than 30,000 patients, according to data from Cook. The Zilver, which is the first stent covered with an inflammation-reducing drug, was introduced to the U.S. market in December 2012. The Zilver recall did not affect stents that were already placed in patients.
Many stories have been unearthed by Indiana media recently, showing a government that often operates more in private than public.
