After a string a bad luck, Eli Lilly and Co. finally won a court ruling in a patent case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington stood behind a lower-court ruling that blocks plans by Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. to sell a generic version of the Evista osteoporosis treatment before March 2014. The court also said the judge was correct to invalidate two other patents that expire in 2017. The ruling protects a drug that generated $682.2 million in U.S. sales last year for Lilly. Last month, Lilly lost an appeal over the patent on its cancer medicine Gemzar and lost an initial ruling over the patent on its attention-deficit treatment Strattera.
Indianapolis-based SonarMed Inc., which makes respiratory monitoring technologies for hospital patients, has raised $1 million from angel investors. The money should allow SonarMed to launch its Airway Monitoring System, which won clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April. Participants in the Series A funding round included StepStone Angel Investors, Spring Mill Venture Partners and BioCrossroads, all headquartered in Indianapolis, along with Chicago-based Hyde Park Angels and Cincinnati-based Queen City Angels.
Clarian Health is expected to create nearly 1,200 jobs when it builds a neurosciences center and administrative building just south of Methodist Hospital. Clarian is partnering with Shiel Sexton Co. Inc. on the roughly $200 million project, in which the hospital system would lease space in the buildings. The 1,187 jobs Clarian expects to create would boast an average annual salary of nearly $47,000. Clarian plans to start construction in November on the 247,000-square-foot, $120 million neurosciences center, with a completion date of April 2012. Meanwhile, work on the 280,000-square-foot, $87 million administration building is scheduled to start in April and would be finished in May 2013.
Angie’s List has partnered with Tennessee-based Healthcare Blue Book to give consumers price information before they receive medical care. The Indianapolis-based consumer review and rating service started making the price information available to members on its website Wednesday. The same information already is available directly from Healthcare Blue Book, a website launched last year that provides the average price health care providers charge for services ranging from ordinary pediatrician visits to complicated surgeries to expensive diagnostic imaging tests. Healthcare Blue Book encourages consumers to negotiate upfront with health care providers, even generating a contract for them to sign agreeing to the fair price Healthcare Blue Book’s database finds for the doctor’s local area. Angie’s List has been making available consumer-generated reports and ratings on health care providers since the spring of 2008.
