Federal health officials on Monday approved the first generic versions of the blockbuster drug Zyprexa, which posted sales of $5.7 billion last year for Indianapolis-based drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co Inc.
Lilly’s patent-loss challenges—the biggest of which takes effect today—will force the company to rely even more on its 1,300 Indiana vendors.
A few years back, the Indianapolis-based American College of Sports Medicine created the American Fitness Index, ranking the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. To no surprise, the Indianapolis area has never ranked well—coming in 44th last year and 45th this year. But now, the College of Sports Medicine is piloting a program—in Indianapolis and Oklahoma City—that will try to do something about it. The college, which includes physicians, researchers and other health professionals, will interview leaders in both cities to identify key areas for action, then offer expert assistance to launch efforts to boost physical activity, and try to reduce rates of smoking, obesity and other maladies. The goal is to add four additional cities in 2012 and 2013 each, bringing the total to 10 communities that will receive tailored technical assistance. The Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation and the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis are both supporting the pilot.
BioCrossroads’ Indiana Seed Fund has invested $300,000 in a startup company developing an absorbable stent to treat cardiovascular disease. Zorion Medical is chaired by former Eli Lilly and Co. executive David Broecker, who has moved to Indianapolis from Boston. Broecker, a Wabash College graduate in chemistry and mathematics, previously was president and CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based biopharmaceutical company Alkermes Inc. Broecker also is CEO of BioCritica Inc., a locally based firm founded last May that acquired commercialization rights to Lilly’s Xigris, a drug to treat the blood infection sepsis. Zorion developed a stent that can be absorbed into the body—as opposed to existing stents made of metal. The biomaterial also can deliver drugs to help heal the artery.
Los Angeles-based CBRE Inc. says Indiana University Health is cheating it out of commissions related to several real estate deals in Indianapolis, Lafayette, Frankfort and Mooresville. Most notable is IU Health’s canceled plan for a $73 million administrative office building at 16th Street and Capitol Avenue, which would have been built near a $120 million neuroscience hub across the street from IU Health's Methodist Hospital campus. IU Health instead purchased the Gateway Tower plaza at 10th and Illinois streets to house administrative staff. Officials told IBJ in March the price was so good on Gateway Plaza—where the hospital system already rents 130,000 square feet—that they couldn’t refuse. Attorneys for IU Health declined to comment because the ligitation is pending.
The California-based St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which raises money for childhood cancer research, awarded a $145,566 grant to Dr. Jodi Skiles, a pediatric researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Her research, conducted in the United States and in Kenya, will focus on developing individualized dosing regimens of vincristine, a core anticancer agent used in many childhood cancers, which reaches toxic levels for some patients much more quickly than others.
BioCrossroads’ Indiana Seed Fund has invested $300,000 in a startup company chaired by a former Eli Lilly and Co. executive developing an absorbable stent.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker earned $1.24 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30, down 5 percent from the same quarter a year ago, even as revenue surged 9 percent.
Eli Lilly and Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Byetta has received expanded approval for use with the world’s top-selling insulin to treat Type 2 diabetes.
Sherry Keramidas, who earned her doctorate in neuroscience and physiological psychology from Purdue University, is executive director of the Maryland-based Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society, which is holding its annual conference Oct. 22-26 at the Indiana Convention Center.
Dr. Nicholas M. Barbaro has been named chairman of the department of neurological surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the first medical director of the new Indiana University Health Neurosciences Center of Excellence. Barbaro will join IU on Nov. 1 after departing the University of California-San Francisco medical school, where he oversees neurosurgery residents and is conducting a federally funded study of epilepsy. Barbaro will succeed Dr. Paul Nelson, who is retiring.
Tom Laux will step down in March as CEO of Indiana University Health Morgan Hospital in Martinsville. Laux has led the county-owned hospital since 1999 and engineered its merger with Indianapolis-based IU Health.
Dr. Bill VanNess will retire at the end of 2012 as CEO of Community Hospital Anderson. VanNess, an Anderson native and family physician, has led the hospital, which is affiliated with Indianapolis-based Community Health Network, since 1997.
Bryce Carmine, president of Eli Lilly and Co.’s bio-medicines division, and Frank Deane, president of Lilly’s global manufacturing operations, both will retire on Dec. 31. They have worked at the Indianapolis-based drugmaker for 36 and 33 years, respectively. Dave Ricks, president of Lilly’s U.S. subsidiary, will become chief of the bio-medicines unit. That division oversees sales in the United States, Europe and Japan of some of Lilly’s most lucrative drugs, including the antipsychotic Zyprexa, the antidepressant Cymbalta and the anti-impotence pill Cialis. Succeeding Deane will be Maria Crowe, now senior vice president for global drug product manufacturing. Lilly also announced that Alex Azar, its vice president of U.S. managed health care services, will replace Ricks as head of Lilly USA.
The Mind Trust is laying plans to hand out up to five $1 million grants next June to teams of educational entrepreneurs who would use the money to develop and launch innovative charter schools in Indianapolis.
One of the city’s largest and oldest law firms said Wednesday that it has completed its merger with Minneapolis-based Faegre & Benson LLP. It will operate as Faegre Baker Daniels beginning Jan. 1.
Bryce Carmine, president of Lilly’s bio-medicines division, and Frank Deane, president of Lilly’s global manufacturing operations, both will retire on Dec. 31.
Executives at Bloomington-based Cook Group never have had kind words for the 2.3-percent excise tax that the 2010 health reform placed on medical-device makers. But now the maker of catheters, stents and other medical implants is trotting out specific numbers on just how much the tax is costing Cook. Company President Kem Hawkins told Fox Business the excise tax will cost Cook Group about $17 million in 2011. By comparison, Cook spent $12 million to open a plant in Canton, Ill., which now employs 300 people. “If people don’t think companies are being forced to leave our shores, they need to take a look around at what’s happening,” Hawkins told Fox Business. “Our government shouldn’t be placing obstacles in the path of companies that employ Americans.” In October 2009, the late founder of Cook Group, Bill Cook, said the tax could force the company to trim 1,000 jobs.
The planned merger of Indiana University Health and Kokomo’s Howard Regional Health System is now dead, the two hospitals announced Oct. 3. The integration of the two not-for-profit hospital systems was approved by Howard Regional's board in late May. At the time, Howard Regional officials said they needed the economies of scale of a larger system because of deteriorating demographics in its trade area and the threat of lower reimbursement from the 2010 health reform law. But now Howard CEO Jim Alender is citing the uncertainty of health reform as the reason for cutting off discussions with IU Health. “We know change is coming, but we do not know the form of these changes given the ongoing debates in Washington and the litigation over health care reform,” Alender said in a prepared statement. IU Health CEO Dan Evans said the two hospitals will continue to work in partnership.
Performance weakened at Warsaw-based Biomet Inc. during the three months ended Aug. 31. The maker of orthopedic implants said sales in the quarter were flat, when factoring out the benefit of foreign exchange rates. And the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell nearly 2 percent, or $3.9 million, to $202.5 million. Officially, Biomet recorded a loss of $39.2 million, more than twice as large as its loss during the same quarter a year ago. Sales, including the benefit of foreign exchange rates, rose nearly 4 percent to $664.6 million. "Biomet's results indicated continued weakness in its core (knees and hips) as well as spine and trauma markets,” wrote Barclays analyst Adam Feinstein in a research report. He added, “the flat growth in core recon and declines in spine and trauma point to continued weakness in ortho market fundamentals.”
WellPoint Inc. subsidiary National Government Services Inc. won a five-year Medicare contract worth up to $273 million. Under the agreement, WellPoint will process Medicare claims from Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Wisconsin and Washington. WellPoint has been trying to grow its business as a contractor for Medicare and Medicaid programs, which are predicted to grow in coming years even as WellPoint’s employer-sponsored health insurance business stagnates.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. doesn’t plan to buy Pfizer Inc.’s $3.6 billion animal-health business, CEO John Lechleiter told Bloomberg Oct. 5. In July, Lilly Chief Financial Officer Derica Rice said Lilly was interested in some Pfizer assets, but Pfizer said it wouldn’t break the business into smaller pieces to sell. “We don’t think we have to make a large acquisition,” Lilly’s Lechleiter said. “In our animal-health business, we’ve got a pretty good mix of organic growth and growth from smaller acquisitions. I think that’s the approach we’re going to take.” Lilly's Elanco animal-health business, which is based in Greenfield and has 2,400 employees, is expected to rack up sales this year of $1.7 billion.
Eli Lilly and Co. got called out in a recent report on companies that took advantage of the 2004 tax holiday on foreign profits and have since slashed jobs.
Cialis, Lilly’s blockbuster erectile dysfunction drug, now can be taken to treat enlarged prostate. FDA approval means men who suffer from both disorders can take one medication.
The local not-for-profit is launching a program this month that will dole out million-dollar grants to teams of education entrepreneurs to help them start local chains of charters.
By 2013, Lilly hopes to reduce water intake another 5 percent, while reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills an additional 20 percent.
Certainly, sports figures need to be included among the 30 honored on whatever they end up calling Georgia St.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. doesn’t plan to buy Pfizer Inc.’s $3.58 billion animal-health business, CEO John Lechleiter said Wednesday.
Eli Lilly and Co., the world’s biggest maker of psychiatric drugs, is in talks with Mustafa Nevzat Ilac Sanayii AS to sell the Turkish company’s treatments in 26 countries, said Mustafa Nevzat’s CEO.
In the last of eight installments of Who’s Who, we profile leaders in education. More than 100 individuals were nominated, representing public and private schools, secondary and post-secondary education, educational think-tanks, legislators and other organizations active in the sphere.
