Retiring Indiana University School of Medicine Dean Dr. Craig Brater has, in his 13-year tenure, doubled the school’s number of research-oriented faculty to 700, doubled the amount of space for them to work in, and doubled the revenue from research grants and contracts. But all that effort has hardly budged IU in national rankings.
Strong sales and penny-pinching helped Eli Lilly and Co. beat Wall Street’s expectations in the second quarter, leading the company to raise its profit forecast for the year.
Eli Lilly and Co. will freeze pay this year for most workers, including executives, in a move designed to save $400 million by the end of 2016, according to Bloomberg News. The Indianapolis-based drugmaker, which employs more than 38,000 workers worldwide, is reducing expenses and counting on emerging markets, animal health products and experimental diabetes drugs to revive growth as it loses revenue from top products to generic competitors. Cymbalta, a depression pill that at $5 billion a year is the drugmaker’s biggest seller, loses U.S. patent protection in December. That development, as well as the 2014 expiration of patents on the osteoporosis drug Evista, will slash Lilly’s revenue 20 percent, the company said.
Indianapolis-based ApeX Therapeutics, a cancer drug discovery firm, received a $240,332 grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health via the Small Business Innovation Research program. ApeX, which uses technology licensed from Indiana University, will use the grant to develop an oral or injectable medicine to treat leukemia and other tumors in children. ApeX previously received funding from Indiana University's Innovate Indiana Fund and Indianapolis-based Pearl Street Venture Fund.
Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures invested $50,000 in Evansville-based Curvo Labs LLC, which has developed a data platform to help hospitals, surgery centers and medical device companies share information. Curvo uses supply purchase histories and surgeon preference data from hospital and surgery centers to identify business opportunities for medical device companies. It also helps hospital administrators drive down their costs of purchasing medical devices. Elevate Ventures is a private organization charged with investing funds provided by the state of Indiana.
Marian University, a small Catholic college started by Franciscan nuns, next month will launch just the second medical school in Indiana. Marian President Dan Elsener is credited with pulling off the audacious move with a mix of big dreaming, careful planning, deft networking and “don’t take no for an answer” fundraising.
The pay freeze will save $400 million through 2016, said a spokesman for the Indianapolis-based company. Lilly won’t give pay raises to executives, supervisors or most employees. Some bonuses will also be reduced.
Eli Lilly and Co. said it will test its experimental Alzheimer’s drug in patients with early stages of the disease after the medicine failed to slow the condition in more advanced patients. According to Bloomberg News, the trial of 2,100 patients, called Expedition III, will measure patients’ ability to do daily tasks like cooking or driving, and to remember words after a delay. Lilly is pushing ahead with the drug, called solanezumab, as potentially the first medicine to demonstrate that it treats Alzheimer’s causes rather than just the symptoms. The drug targets the buildup of plaque known as beta amyloid in the brain that’s thought to be a basis of Alzheimer’s. The trial should take about 22 months to complete. In earlier clinical trials, solanezumab failed to show overall effectiveness, but did appear to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s in patients with mild forms of the disease. Lilly’s new trial will use new tests for biological signs of the disease to help enroll early-stage patients and to see whether their illness is advancing. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, and the number is expected to surge to as many as 16 million by 2050 as the population ages, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. No drugs on the market have been shown to slow the disease. The market for medicines may be worth $20 billion annually, Deutsche Bank estimated last year. Merck & Co., Novartis AG, Roche AG and other large drugmakers are pursuing treatments.
San Diego-based American Specialty Health Inc., a wellness-program provider, plans to open an office in Carmel by March, employing at least 300 in “an operations, customer service and redundancy center.” Sources familiar with the situation said Carmel may also become the company’s corporate headquarters. Founded in 1987 in CEO George DeVries’ extra bedroom, ASH operates 13 subsidiaries that offer health-and-wellness services to employer groups, health plans and insurance companies nationwide. Its Healthyroads unit, for example, provides a Silver&Fit “healthy aging” program to Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. ASH and other players in the wellness industry are expected to keep growing thanks to provisions in the 2010 Affordable Care Act that create incentives to promote health-management programs. Privately held ASH reported revenue of $221 million last year, up 64 percent from 2009, when the company first appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of the country’s fastest-growing businesses. DeVries is a graduate of Culver Academies in northern Indiana and serves on its board. ASH already has a nine-person office on 96th Street in Indianapolis, and Freeman said those employees eventually will move to Carmel.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. will pay $1.7 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to resolve allegations it left the information of more than 612,000 members available online because of inadequate safeguards. According to the Associated Press, between Oct. 23, 2009, and March 7, 2010, security weaknesses in an online application database left the information of 612,402 people accessible to unauthorized users. That information included names, birthdates, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, and health data. WellPoint, the nation’s second-largest health insurer, reported the breach to the Health and Human Services Department. The agency then started an investigation, saying WellPoint's actions may have violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
Catarmaran Corp., a pharmacy benefits manager, plans to hire 205 people within two years at a hub it's building in Jeffersonville, according to the Associated Press. The Illinois-based company has committed to hiring 104 full-time, permanent employees next year and a total of 205 by 2015. The jobs paying an average of nearly $24 per hour will include pharmacists, technicians, call-center employees and others.
About 30 new management or professional hires have appeared on Purdue's payroll since Daniels took office in January. At least six are former colleagues from Daniels' days as governor and as a top executive at Eli Lilly and Co.
The trial of 2,100 patients, called Expedition III, will use new measures of cognitive function, such as the ability to do tasks like cooking or driving, or remembering words after a delay.
When it comes to the culture-war politics of same-sex marriage, our governor and legislators would be well advised to listen to Indiana’s business and corporate leadership and forgo their pious pandering to the shrinking number of Hoosiers spooked by social change.
Eli Lilly and Co. Chairman and CEO John Lechleiter is back to full-time work after undergoing surgery on May 13 for a dilated aorta. The Indianapolis-based drugmaker said both a company doctor and Lechleiter's personal physician have cleared the 59-year-old to return. Chief Financial Officer Derica Rice served as acting CEO for the Indianapolis-based drug company during Lechleiter's leave, and independent director Ellen Marram served as acting chairwoman.
Eli Lilly and Co. and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH submitted their long-acting insulin for market approval in Europe, using the pathway for generic biotech, or biosimilar, drugs. If approved, the drug, known as insulin glargine, would finally allow Indianapolis-based Lilly to catch up with competitors Sanofi-Aventis SA and Novo Nordisk N/A in offering a once-a-day insulin for diabetics. France-based Sanofi launched the first long-acting insulin, Lantus, in 2000. Denmark-based Novo followed with its own version, Levemir, in 2004. Analysts predict sales of Lilly’s insulin glargine could top $1 billion by 2020, with some of that revenue flowing to Germany-based Boehringer.
The federal Medicare issued a mostly negative reimbursement proposal for Eli Lilly and Co.’s Amyvid imaging agent for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in living patients. According to Bloomberg News, the federal health plan for seniors will pay for the brain scans using Lilly’s drug only for patients participating in approved clinical studies. The $3,000 test, approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, identifies clusters of the brain protein amyloid, which is an indicator of Alzheimer’s disease. Previously, such protein clusters could be viewed only during an autoposy. The ruling is an unexpected setback for Amyvid after European Union regulators endorsed it in January. Lilly paid $300 million in 2010 to acquire the drug and its developer, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals Inc.
The private equity firms that own Warsaw-based Biomet Inc. want their money back, according to the Financial Times. They are considering relisting the maker of orthopedic implants as a public company or selling it whole to other investors, the London newspaper reported, citing three unnamed sources. Biomet was purchased in 2007 for $11.4 billion by four private equity firms: Blackstone, KKR, TPG and the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs. The volume of hip and knee surgeries has declined since Biomet was purchased, but Biomet’s financial performance has improved, anyway. The company concluded its most recent fiscal year with $3 billion in sales and $946 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Still, the Financial Times says current stock prices for Biomet’s competitors suggest the company may have a value of $8 billion—less than what its owners paid for it.
Major Health Partners will decide in the next six months whether to spend $23 million to maintain its existing hospital in downtown Shelbyville or spend $100 million to build a new hospital in the Intelliplex business park north of town. According to the Shelbyville News, Major Health Partners has been gradually moving to Intelliplex since 2005, opening outpatient centers focused on oncology, orthopedics, cardiology and obstetrics. Now hospital officials have drawn up tentative plans to build a 240,000-square-foot facility in Intelliplex. Major officials also said they could build a “shell” facility at Intelliplex and then add services there, while maintaining its existing, 61-bed hospital. “At some point, we will have to move, but when do we pull the trigger? That is the tough question," Major CEO Jack Horner told the Shelbyville News. Major, which is owned by the city of Shelbyville, will hold community forums before making a decision.
Indiana University Health lost a four-month battle to convince the Illinois Medicaid program to pay for a multi-organ transplant for two patients. The surgeries were expected to cost more than $1 million each, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, yet no hospitals in Illinois are capable of performing them. That’s why the two patients, a 32-year-old woman and a 67-year-old woman, came to IU Health in Indianapolis. An ethics panel called the procedures, which IU Health’s surgeons have performed 38 times, experimental. Also, the Illinois Medicaid program cited a dearth of resources in declining to cover the procedures.
Lilly officials said they will push ahead with the first-of-a-kind imaging chemical, despite the mostly negative ruling by Medicare officials.
Eli Lilly and Co. Chairman and CEO John Lechleiter is back to full-time work after taking a leave in May to have surgery for a dilated aorta, the company announced Monday morning.
On Wednesday, the 36-year-old Stevens stunned the city of Indianapolis by leaving the tiny school he led to back-to-back national runner-up finishes to take the Celtics job. The news hit hardest inside historic Hinkle Fieldhouse.
Judges have spoken and people have celebrated, but human resources departments remain confounded on what will change for their companies with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act.
The state's universities crank out patents that find their way to pharmaceutical, prosthetics and surgery technology companies. But they also generate reams of patents in areas with few industrial applications.
Thieves broke into the Connecticut warehouse of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. in 2010 by scaling an exterior wall and cutting a hole in the roof. They lowered themselves to the floor and disabled alarms before using a forklift to load pallets of drugs into a getaway vehicle.
The federal government is set to decide this month whether the federal Medicare program should pay for a $3,000 test that for the first time accurately identifies the signature brain plaques of Alzheimer’s disease, according to Bloomberg News. The test, approved last year by U.S. regulators, uses Eli Lilly and Co.’s Amyvid imaging agent to trace the brain protein amyloid. Alzheimer’s disease affects 5 million Americans, a number that patient advocates say could double by 2050. But the test is controversial because there are no available treatments that even slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. A final decision from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will come July 9. While a negative decision would limit use of the tests, approval would probably lead to coverage from private health insurers, too.
Nyhart Actuary & Employee Benefits plans to expand its Indianapolis headquarters and create as many as 25 jobs here by 2017. The firm will invest $840,000 to lease and equip an additional 8,000 square feet of office space, according to Nyhart CEO Thomas Toten. Nyhart currently is negotiating an expansion of the 20,000 square feet it leases at 8415 Allison Pointe Blvd. in the Castleton area. Nyhart currently has 68 full-time employees in Indianapolis and about another 30 across five other states. The firm already has started hiring additional actuaries, administrators and benefit consultants from college programs for its Indianapolis expansion. Founded in 1943, Nyhart provides consulting services to more than 1,000 public and private companies in 48 states on issues such as pensions, retirement benefits, compensation and other employee benefits. Nyhart has been in growth mode lately. In August, Nyhart acquired San Diego-based The Epler Co., a regional actuarial, employee benefits and compensation strategies firm.
Lilly Endowment Inc. will give $10 million to help start the Indiana Biosciences Institute. The institute is already due to receive $25 million in startup funds from the state. The institute aims to attract 100 new scientists to Indiana to conduct research and development work aimed at launching new therapies for metabolic diseases. The effort has been spearheaded by BioCrossroads, an Indianapolis-based life sciences organization, and has received significant support from Gov. Mike Pence and John Lechleiter, the CEO of Eli Lilly and Co. The institute needs to raise $15 million over the next year or so to fully fund its startup efforts. Beyond that, the institute hopes to raise an endowment of $310 million to help fund its operations. It also hopes its researchers attract steady grants from life sciences research companies, such as Indianapolis-based Lilly and Bloomington-based Cook Group Inc.
Eli Lilly and Co. won a United Kingdom patent lawsuit against a Johnson & Johnson unit over a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, according to Bloomberg News. A patent held by J&J’s Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development unit isn’t valid, Judge Richard Arnold said in a ruling in London on June 25. Both companies are developing treatments targeting the buildup of plaque in patients’ brains that’s linked to the condition. Companies developing the first treatments for Alzheimer’s are competing for what might be a $20 billion market, according to a report last year by Deutsche Bank AG analysts.
The head of the state Family and Social Services Administration said the federal government is expected to approve an extension of the Healthy Indiana Plan, but a request to use the plan for an Indiana Medicaid expansion could take much longer. According to the Associated Press, FSSA Secretary Debra Minott said Gov. Mike Pence directed her and others to ensure those already enrolled in HIP are secure before negotiating an expansion through the program. Roughly 40,000 low-income residents are enrolled in the program, which operates under a federal waiver. But the waiver is set to expire at the end of the year, potentially leaving enrollees without coverage. Pence resubmitted an application with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in April seeking to use the state's hybrid health savings account plan as the vehicle for Medicaid expansion. CMS rejected an earlier request from former Gov. Mitch Daniels, citing concerns about the premium paid by members and a need for improved coverage. The expansion would cover residents earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, using new funds authorized by Obamacare.
The $3,000 test for the first time accurately identifies the signature brain plaques of the debilitating disease.
Over the last quarter century, the husband-wife duo has outlived a number of bigger and slicker competitors, even as the Great Recession decimated some bigger PR and advertising shops.
