BLOW: Government is a friend, with benefits
The only thing keeping millions more out of poverty were the very safety net programs that many Republicans despise.
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STOSSEL: Pining for today’s champions of freedom
Alfred Kahn was a bureaucrat who, under President Carter, managed to kill off the Civil Aeronautics Board and Interstate Commerce Commission.
Company news
After 15 years of increasing yelps from primary care doctors, WellPoint Inc. is finally launching a plan to pay more for the family doctor’s time. The Indianapolis-based health insurer said Jan. 27 that it will increase the fees it pays to primary care specialists and even start paying for such services as crafting care plans for patients with complex medical problems. It also will offer doctors an opportunity to share in some savings when better patient care leads to a reduction in costs. An example of what WellPoint has is mind is paying doctors to take the time to coach overweight patients who have diabetes to develop an exercise plan and then making sure they stay on it. "It makes the physician the kind of physician their patient wants them to be," Jill Hummel, WellPoint's vice president of payment innovation, told the Associated Press. WellPoint reasons that by spending more at the primary care level, it can cut down on emergency room visits and hospital admissions—which are the most expensive types of care. Primary care doctors say low reimbursement rates force them to cram as many patient visits as possible into a typical day in order to make enough money to stay afloat. That keeps them from spending more than a few minutes with each patient. For a time, physicians made extra money by starting their own imaging and diagnostic centers. But health plans—both governmental and private—sharply curtailed payments to physician-owned facilities, sharply curtailing that source of revenue.
The third time’s a charm. California-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Massachuetts-based Alkermes Inc. succeeded in their third attempt to gain U.S. clearance for Bydureon, a once-weekly version of Amylin’s Byetta diabetes shot. The companies had been developing Bydureon with Eli Lilly and Co. until November. But Indianapolis-based Lilly broke off its partnership with Amylin after the two companies feuded over Lilly’s agreement to sell a competing diabetes medicine with Germany-baseed Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH. Amylin also agreed to make a one-time payment of $250 million to Lilly and to pay as much as $1.2 billion in royalties based on future sales of Bydureon and Byetta. In the meantime, Lilly is working to develop its own version of Bydureon, which is called dulaglutide. In 2010, Byetta produced revenue of about $700 million for the two companies, but its market share had been dented significantly by a once-daily version of the medicine, called Victoza, which was launched in 2010 by Denmark-based Novo Nordisk A/S.
Actress Florence Henderson—better known as Carol Brady from “The Brady Bunch”—will star in a series of advertisements for American Senior Communities LLC, an Indianapolis-based chain of nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The campaign will debut statewide this week in television, radio and print. Henderson, a native of Dale, currently hosts “The Florence Henderson Show” on Retirement Living Television and recently released her autobiography, “Life is Not a Stage.” Henderson previously served as a spokeswoman for Oldsmobile, Polident, Tang, Rain Soft, Pepsi and Wesson Oil. The advertising campaign was created and produced by Indianapolis-based marketing firm Bohlsen Group.
What’s New: Happy Dog Hotel and Spa
This week, meet Bev Schroeder, who opened Happy Dog Hotel and Spa in Carmel last month.
HICKS: Measuring intangibles part of economist’s job
A frequently heard criticism of economic analysis is that it focuses only on those things that can be easily measured. This is an astonishing and vacuous censure championed largely by the innumerate among us.
House bill would cut barber licensing requirement
Besides no longer requiring barbers and cosmetologists to be licensed, the bill also exempts dieticians, hearing aid dealers, private investigators and security guards.
Flavor-maker under siege fights back in court
Locally based Sensient Flavors LLC is fighting back with a fury in federal court, following months of intense federal and state scrutiny of the health risks at its Indianapolis plant.
Lilly losing dominance in diabetes treatment
Eli Lilly and Co., after more than a decade of setbacks, is counting on diabetes to help it survive a string of patent losses on other products that have begun to sap the drugmaker’s sales.
Endocyte stays course despite being battered by investors
After spending most of 2011 as a Wall Street darling, the year ended ugly for Endocyte Inc. But CEO Ron Ellis thinks the West Lafayette-based drug developer is in better position than ever.
KENNEDY: Pols playing games with right-to-work
Let’s get real: If so-called “right-to-work” laws generated economic growth, Mississippi would be an epicenter of economic activity.
State unlikely to revive natural-gas grandeur
Indiana was once the world’s capital for natural-gas production, but recent advances in drilling and resource-recovery technology are not likely to revive those glory days anytime soon because of a combination of human-made and natural obstructions.
BEHNING: An appointed superintendent would streamline education
The governor has control over the state board, but the superintendent controls the agenda.
Company news
The Warsaw-based makers of orthopedic implants could be hurt by a new plan floated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to target "unnecessary" medical device claims, according to the trade publication MassDevice. Medicare officials will ask doctors to provide up-front justification for certain medical equipment, especially for orthopedic and cardiac devices. The program, set to launch in 11 states next month, will flip the reimbursement system from the agency's existing "pay-and-chase" method of looking for improper payments after they've already been made. It’s more bad news for orthopedics companies—including Warsaw’s Zimmer Holdings Inc., Biomet Inc. and DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. They have already been hurt by the recession and high unemployment, as jobless patients have put off elective surgeries. The companies are also bracing for a new industry tax instituted by the 2010 health care overhaul.
Batesville-based Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. has agreed to acquire Germany-based Volker Group for $85 million in cash, pending regulatory approvals. Volker makes bed frames and other furniture for long-term care and hospital facilities. The company, which sells mainly in Europe and other foreign markets, had 2010 revenue of roughly $100 million. Hill-Rom also makes hospital beds and other equipment, as well as provides information technology components to enhance the performance of its products. Hill-Rom said Volker’s business would strengthen its product offerings in Europe, and would boost its 2012 earnings by 2 cents or 3 cents per share. The transaction is expected to close within the first quarter of 2012.
Shares of Endocyte Inc. plummeted nearly 70 percent after clinical trial results announced Dec. 13 showed the company’s experimental ovarian cancer drug led to shorter overall survival times than treatment with a standard cancer drug. Some analysts called the sell-off an overreaction, but shares of the West Lafayette-based company remained depressed nearly a week after the news. Endocyte officials stressed that the study of the drug EC145 did not include enough patients to be statistically meaningful in terms of overall survival. Also, they noted that survival rates for patients taking standard therapy were several months longer than seen in any other study. Previous clinical trial results released by Endocyte have shown that EC145 significantly increases the length of progression-free survival for ovarian cancer patients who have cancers that are resistant to treatment with common platinum-based drugs. Investors, however, assumed the worst. In the Phase 2 trial results reported Dec. 13, patients taking EC145 with the cancer drug Doxil survived a median length of 14.1 months, which was longer than in any previous study of the drug. But patients taking Doxil alone experienced median survival rates of 16.9 months.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. is feuding with St. Louis-based pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Inc., according to the Associated Press. Express Scripts said WellPoint, the second-largest health insurer in the nation, has raised the possibility of filing a lawsuit over contract terms and Express Scripts’ performance under that contract. But Express Scripts officials also said the companies are negotiating, and they believe they can resolve the dispute. WellPoint is disputing the implementation of some terms of the contract and "certain operational matters associated with Express Scripts' performance" under those terms. The contract between the companies went into effect on Dec. 1, 2009, after WellPoint sold its pharmacy benefit management business to Express Scripts.
2011 CFO OF THE YEAR: Mike Reffeitt
Mike Reffeitt, CFO at BioStorage Technologies Inc., is the top honoree in the private companies (revenue $100 million or less) category.