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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.

Dr. Mark Pescovitz, a surgeon and researcher for 22 years at the Indiana University School of Medicine, died Sunday in a car accident outside Ann Arbor, Mich. Pescovitz was on his way home to Indianapolis after visiting his wife, Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, who is CEO of the University of Michigan Health System. Ora Pescovitz was the CEO of Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis and the head of research at the IU medical school before taking the job at Michigan in May 2009. A funeral for Mark Pescovitz will be held on Thursday at 2 p.m. at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis.

Dr. Stephanie Wagner has been hired by Clarian Health and the IU School of Medicine as medical director of the neuro-oncology program at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. A Brownsburg native, Wagner most recently was director of the neuro-oncology program at Norton Healthcare in Louisville. Wagner earned her medical degree from Ross University in North Brunswick, N.J., and received her nursing degree from DePauw University in Greencastle.

Blake A. Dye has been named president of the St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana. Dye will start Jan. 17, replacing John Stewart, who now serves a president of the newly formed St. Vincent Medical Group. Dye has been CEO for 11 years of Henry County Hospital in New Castle.

Indianapolis-based Orbis Education, which creates nurse training programs, has hired Norm Allgood as senior vice president of operations and Clay Gillespie as chief marketing officer. Allgood worked for nine years at the Institute for Professional Development, a subsidiary of Arizona-based for-profit educator Apollo Group. Gillespie comes to Orbis from Career Education Corp., a for-profit educator based in the Chicago area.

The Superintendent of Decatur Township Schools is out on bond following arrest for drunk driving. Donald Stinson was arrested in Plainfield this weekend after an officer spotted his vehicle swerving on State Road 267. His blood alcohol level tested at 0.12. Police say Stinson admitted he had been drinking. Stinson issued a written apology that said, “I have embarrassed myself, even worse my family and friends, and have unnecessarily brought negative attention to the district. On both, I am truly sorry!”
 

The family of the man killed in a crash with Indianapolis police officer David Bisard filed a lawsuit Monday against the city, the police department and Bisard himself. Bisard is accused of driving drunk and smashing his squad car into several motorcyclists during a car chase. The lawsuit seeks $700,000 in damages for the wrongful death of Eric Wells, who died at the scene. The amount is the maximum allowed by state law.
 

Police were able to track down and capture a suspected robber after icy road conditions hampered his getaway. The robbery occurred about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Sakitumi Discount liquor store near 30th Street and Lafayette Road in Indianapolis. Officers say the clerk ran out of the store and had enough time to write down the license plate number of the getaway car because it couldn't gain traction on the ice. Police tracked the suspect to a house near 16th Street and Lafayette Road. The suspect surrendered peacefully about an hour later after a SWAT team was called in.