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California-based Beckman Coulter Inc., which employs more than 500 people in the Indianapolis area, is up for sale, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to investigate a sale. After the Journal’s report, the company’s market value neared $5 billion. Potential buyers include private-equity firms such as the Blackstone Group and Apollo Global Management, or other companies in the medical-device industry, such as Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories, Germany-based Siemens or even Roche Diagnostics Corp. a Swiss company that operates its North American headquarters out of Indianapolis. Beckman’s testing machines are used in hospitals and medical research labs. In 2007, it moved more than 200 jobs to Indianapolis as it relocated its centrifuge development and manufacturing facilities. In October, Beckman announced plans to add 95 more jobs in Indianapolis over the next three years.

What is it about White County? In the same month that White County Memorial Hospital said it’s ready to merge with Indianapolis-based Clarian Health, now White County’s Monticello Medical Center is selling its four-physician family practice to St. Elizabeth Regional Health in Lafayette. St. Elizabeth is part of the Franciscan Alliance, which operates the three St. Francis hospitals in the Indianapolis area. Monticello, the White County seat, is about 30 miles north of Lafayette. St. Elizabeth will employ the four physicians, as well as three nurse practitioners, who collectively serve the largest percentage of White County residents. Locking up family practitioners is key for hospitals right now as they try to form themselves into “accountable care organizations” that will be paid by Medicare and private insurers for managing the long-term health of patients. Medicare’s rules will require accountable care organizations to provide family, or primary, care to at least 5,000 patients.

Indiana University’s health care budget will fall $24.9 million short of projected expenses in 2011-12, according to the Herald-Times of Bloomington, as a low-deductible Anthem Blue Access health care plan has become too expensive to offer to its 18,000 employees. IU trustee Tom Reilly Jr. implied that employees need to cover some of the extra costs.

Eli Lilly and Co. suspended a Phase 3 clinical trial of a skin-cancer drug after 12 patients in the study died, according to Bloomberg News. The deaths, among the 300 patients in the study, “may be treatment-related,” said Amy Sousa, a Lilly spokeswoman. Lilly was testing tasisulam on patients whose skin cancer had spread and who didn’t benefit from earlier treatment. No new or existing patients will be given the drug while the company evaluates safety data for the trial. But Lilly will continue to study tasisulam against breast, ovarian and renal cancers and against soft-tissue sarcoma, the company said.

It’s back to reality for Bioanalytical Systems Inc. After its stock price soared 135 percent in three trading days, the stock started falling back to earth—helped in no small part by the company’s underwhelming earnings report. The West Lafayette-based firm said revenue dipped 13 percent, to $7.4 million, in its fiscal fourth quarter compared to the same period a year ago. Its loss narrowed to $300,000 in the quarter, compared to a loss of $1.4 million in the same period last year. The company sells testing equipment and services to pharmaceutical firms, which have been retrenching the past two years. “The revenue decline in fiscal 2010 stems mainly from study delays, price declines and spending reductions by our customers as part of their overall cost-savings initiatives,” Bioanalytical officials noted in a statement. But the company’s business accelerated in the second half of its fiscal year, causing CEO Anthony Chilton to give an upbeat outlook for 2011.

Eli Lilly and Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve their diabetes medicine Byetta for use in combination with basal insulin, which diabetics take in between meals to control their blood sugar. The companies would like to reignite Byetta sales, which have slumped since 2008, when the FDA publicized cases of pancreatitis among patients taking the drug. Indianapolis-based Lilly and San Diego-based Amylin tried to win approval this year for a once-weekly version of Byetta, called Bydureon, but the FDA asked for more tests, delaying the drug’s approval until 2012.

BioCrossroads’ Indiana Seed Fund invested $250,000 in Indianapolis-based Aarden Pharmaceuticals. Aarden’s leading drug program focuses on tuberculosis. The company’s product is based on research by Zhong-Zin Zhang, a professor and chairman of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Zhang is an expert in protein tyrosine phosphates, a group of signaling enzymes that regulate cellular processes. His research was funded through Lilly Endowment’s Indiana Genomics Initiative. The company decided last year to establish its headquarters here, selecting Indianapolis over San Diego.

Clarian Health physicians will now provide cardiac services to patients at Columbus Regional Hospital facilities under a new affiliation. The agreement ensures Columbus Regional has full-time availability of heart surgeons, in additional to the interventional cardiology care provided by Indiana Heart Physicians-Columbus. Columbus Regional has offered 24-7 heart surgery since 2002. In 2011, Clarian will change its name to Indiana University Health.

CNO Financial Group Inc. got a financial strength upgrade from A.M. Best Co., the pre-eminent rating agency for insurance companies. New Jersey-based Best boosted its grade on Carmel-based CNO from B (fair) to B+ (good), crediting CNO with focusing more on business lines where it has a clear competitive advantage and its recent financial restructurings. CNO, which was formerly called Conseco, sells life and health policies to middle-income families.

Warsaw-based Zimmer Holdings Inc. acquired Sodem Diffusion S.A., a Switzerland-based maker of orthopedic surgical power tools. The company will be merged into Zimmer Surgical, a unit based in Dover, Ohio. Zimmer has been trying to diversify its business as sales of its hip and knee implants have stagnated in western markets.