BOHANON: Cautious concerning government initiatives
Free-market economists are skeptical of government programs designed to promote economic development.
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SHELLA: Stars might align for old deals to happen
Dwayne Sawyer just set a new world record for quickest rise and fall of an Indiana statewide elected official. His tenure as auditor fell just short of four months.
LANOSGA: Got a warrant for my cell phone information?
I’ve written a fair bit in these pages about the pitfalls of official secrecy—the often unjustified withholding of information by public agencies at all levels of government.
Lilly needs more R&D successes to counter declining ROI on new drugs
Eli Lilly and Co.’s success at moving an experimental migraine medicine forward by using outside companies and capital is good news for this reason: The fundamental business of Big Pharma drug development is in bad shape.
Company news
Positive results from a Phase 2 trial in patients convinced Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. to reacquire an experimental migraine medicine, which goes by the name LY2951742. Lilly aims to conduct a Phase 3 trial, the last stage of testing before it can submit the drug for market approval. The drug was licensed from Lilly in 2011 by Massachusetts-based Arteaus Therapeutics, a company formed at the same time by venture capital firms OrbiMed and Atlas Venture. Lilly did not disclose the financial terms of its deal with Arteaus. However, Lilly will record a fourth-quarter charge of $57.1 million to reflect the reacquisition costs and Lilly’s assumption of ongoing development expenses of the drug. The drug is one of nine experimental drugs Lilly has licensed to outside firms as a way to share the risk of research and development costs. Lilly calls the risk-sharing arrangement with venture capital firms its Capital Funds Portfolio. The migraine medicine is the first one Lilly has reacquired from a participating venture-backed company.
Eli Lilly and Co. needs new drugs to patch a larger-than-expected hole in its revenue. On Jan. 7, the Indianapolis-based drugmaker revised its 2014 revenue forecast. Instead of its longstanding prediction of $20 billion in revenue, Lilly now expects to bring in between $19.2 billion and $19.8 billion. Wall Street analysts expected $19.6 billion, according to 17 estimates compiled by Bloomberg News. Revenue is falling at Lilly after its U.S. patents on antidepressant Cymbalta expired in December. Cymbalta generated $4.99 billion in 2012, but analysts expect its sales to plummet to $1.43 billion this year, according to Bloomberg. Also in March, Lilly will lose patent protection on its osteoporosis drug Evista. Analysts expect Evista sales to drop to $498.6 million this year from nearly $1 billion annually before. Lilly expects its 2014 profit to range between $2.77 and $2.85 per share. Analysts anticipated $2.78.
WellPoint Inc. plans to unwind one of the deals Angela Braly made late in her troubled tenure as CEO of the Indianapolis-based health insurer. WellPoint agreed to sell online contact lens retailer 1-800-Contacts to Boston-based private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners LP. WellPoint will also sell Glasses.com, a subsidiary of 1-800-Contacts, to Milan-based Luxottica Group SpA. WellPoint’s new CEO, Joe Swedish, said he wants to focus on its core insurance business. “As we prepare for the coming changes to the health-care system, we are focused on our core growth opportunities across both our commercial and government business segments,” Swedish said in the statement. “Proceeds from this transaction will support our continued capital deployment strategies.” WellPoint bought 1-800 Contacts from private equity firm Fenway Partners in June 2012 for about $900 million. The purchase added to investor anger against Braly. She left the company two months later.
The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration announced Friday it will add 3,400 people to the Healthy Indiana Plan, a health insurance program for low-income Hoosiers. That’s the number of Hoosiers who had been among the 50,000 on the program’s waiting list who reapplied and were deemed eligible. But state officials said they expect 20,000 Hoosiers to apply for HIP by the end of this year. The program, which had been running at about 40,000 participants, will have its enrollment capped this year at 45,000. Gov. Mike Pence is negotiating with the Obama administration to use HIP to expand coverage to all Hoosiers with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty limit. For now, HIP participants cannot have incomes above the federal poverty limit, which is $11,490 per adult or $23,550 for a family of four.
Looks like both sides are wrong about Medicaid
New research shows that expanding Medicaid won’t save money, in spite of the claims of Obamacare supporters, but it will provide modest help to patients’ health and pocketbooks, in spite of conservative critics’ contention to the contrary.
Lilly reacquires migraine medicine after encouraging results
Positive results from a Phase 2 trial in patients convinced Lilly to reacquire an experimental migraine medicine. Lilly recorded a charge of $57 million to reflect the purchase price and the costs of further development.
EDITORIAL: Forge ahead with preschool
Gov. Mike Pence said last month that he wants to help young children from low-income homes start kindergarten “ready for a life of learning.” We applaud that goal, and ask the governor and General Assembly to craft voucher legislation that encourages the highest-quality preschools.
Company news
Encore Health Network, a network of health care providers owned by Community Health Network, Indiana University Health and Deaconess Health, has added St. Vincent Health to its fold. The Indianapolis-based network will offer discounted access to St. Vincent doctors and hospitals in the Anderson, Carmel, Fishers, Indianapolis and Kokomo markets. Insurance companies, third-party administrators and employers contract with Encore and its Encircle network products to obtain discounts on medical services.
Indiana University Health and UnitedHealthcare entered the new year without a contract. That would normally mean UnitedHealthcare’s customers would pay higher prices at IU Health’s hospitals and physician offices. But IU Health has decided to still give patients the same "in network" co-pays and deductibles that UnitedHealthcare had negotiated under the expiring contracts, keeping patients’ costs the same until a new deal is reached. IU Health said in a press release it would apply the "in network" discounts only to the patient portions of its bills, not to the portions paid by UnitedHealthcare. The Minnesota-based health insurer first notified its customers on Dec. 2 that its contracts with IU Health could expire at year end. Such contracts typically shave 30 percent or more off the list prices of a hospital system’s services. The contract dispute could affect the roughly 400,000 Hoosiers that have employer-based or individually purchased insurance with UnitedHealthcare. That represents about 12 percent of the Indiana commercial market, according to data from Tennessee-based market research firm HealthLeaders-InterStudy. IU Health operates 20 hospitals and employs nearly 1,500 physicians around Indiana.
The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily blocked an Obamacare requirement that religiously affiliated employers provide health insurance that includes birth control. The decision gives temporarily relief to Catholic plaintiffs that said Obamacare’s requirement to provide contraception coverage violated their religious freedom. In a related case, Indiana-based Franciscan Alliance and other Catholic organizations won a temporary injunction from a federal judge in Indiana, to allow the Supreme Court challenge to play out before Franciscan would be required to provide contraception coverage to its workers via its health insurance plan. "We simply asked that the government not impose its values and policies on plaintiffs, in direct violation of our religious beliefs," said Kevin Leahy, CEO of Franciscan Alliance, which operates three hospitals in the Indianapolis area. The Affordable Care Act required all health insurers to cover contraception at no cost to its health plan members and required all employers with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance to their workers. Both provisions were set to take effect Jan. 1.
Crux of Medicaid showdown is how to fight poverty
When Gov. Mike Pence tries next month to negotiate a Medicaid expansion deal in a meeting with the Obama administration, it will be a clash of the conservative and liberal approaches to fighting poverty.
MERRITT: Reconsider nuclear energy
Renewable or reliable? That is the unavoidable choice when debating energy policy. For Indiana, you can have one, but not the other.
Contract between UnitedHealthcare, IU Health to expire
IU Health has decided to still give patients the same “in network” co-pays and deductibles that UnitedHealthcare had negotiated under the expiring contracts, keeping patients’ costs the same until a new deal is reached.
EDITORIAL: Simon gifts to make big mark on region
It’s hard to overstate the importance of generous benefactors to the quality of life of this region.
NEWSMAKERS: Scott Dorsey
One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent names placed a lot of faith in ExactTarget Inc. CEO Scott Dorsey this year.
NEWSMAKERS: Mitch Daniels
Mitch Daniels moved out of the Statehouse in early January after eight years as governor. But he never left the headlines.
For the holidays: A hopeful, health care reading list
In the Christmas spirit of hope, I’m offering a reading list of several optimistic reports about health care reform—even though many of my recent posts, and the mood of the country in general, have been decidedly downbeat.
Lechleiters, Bralys contribute $1M each to United Way
John Lechleiter, Angela Braly and two other local business leaders have pledged a combined $3 million to United Way of Central Indiana over the next four years. United Way is trying to raise $42.5 million by the end of the year.
Top movies of 2013: Lou’s picks
“Inside Llewyn Davis” and “American Hustle” among my personal picks for best films of the year. What topped your list?
Hospitals slow to embrace future, survey finds
Hospital executives, in spite of mounting financial pressures under their older business models, are stepping cautiously into the future, with nearly half opting against new accountable care business models touted by Obamacare.
Company news
Tom Fischer, chief financial and chief operating officer of Community Health Network, departed suddenly this month. Sources with knowledge of the situation described Fischer’s exit as a firing. But a Community spokeswoman said Fischer resigned in a private meeting with Community CEO Bryan Mills. Fischer, 60, who joined Community as CFO in 2005, declined to comment. Mills and Fischer have been close friends for decades, dating to the time they both worked for the Ernst & Young accounting firm. Now Holly Millard, Community’s chief accounting officer, is serving as interim CFO while Community searches for a replacement. Community is trying to cut expenses 15 percent to 20 percent, including via staff reductions. Community laid off more than 150 employees during the first nine months of this year, many of them part of what it described as a systemwide realignment. Community spokeswoman Lynda de Widt described the staff reductions as part of the normal course of business in an organization that has 13,000 employees. Community reported in late November that it had spent $5 million this year on severance costs.
Because Indianapolis-area hospitals have let go a wave of workers this year, the University of Indianapolis will host a seminar to help nurses and health care professionals search for new jobs. The seminar, “Reinventing Yourself: A Personal Transformation for Healthcare Workers” is scheduled from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Jan. 11 in UIndy’s Schwitzer Student Center at 1400 E. Hanna Ave. The free event is sponsored by UIndy’s School for Adult Learning, School of Nursing and College of Health Sciences, and will tout UIndy’s health-related educational programs. Also, John Vice, a longtime human resources manager for Eli Lilly and Co., will tell attendees how to pursue new career paths.
Nearly 2,800 Hoosiers selected a private insurance plan on the Obamacare exchange in November, nearly four times as many as did so in October. The faster pace of enrollment was mirrored in the other 35 states that are also relying on the federally run Healthcare.gov web site for online enrollment. The Obama administration worked feverishly in November to correct major technical problems with the website that prevented numerous Americans from enrolling. Even so, the pace of enrollment in the federal exchange will need to be nearly 12 times faster than it was in November if enrollment via the exchange is going to meet a federal projection of more than 4.8 million enrollees by the end of March. According to a report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 137,204 actually selected a private health insurance plan during October and November, with about 110,000 of them doing so in November. In 14 states and the District of Columbia, which are operating their own insurance exchanges, enrollment also surged in November, to nearly 148,000 people, compared with about 80,000 in October. Enrollment via the state-based exchanges will need to triple its pace to meet an overall federal projection of 7 million enrollees via the Obamacare exchanges.
More than 10,000 low-income Indiana residents who participate in the Healthy Indiana Plan will be able to keep their benefits through April. The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration announced Dec. 10 it is extending for an extra three months its Healthy Indiana Plan to participants who earn between 100 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The move will give members more time to obtain coverage through the federal health care exchange. FSSA Secretary Debra Minott said many HIP members have struggled to enroll in the exchange because of technical issues. The HIP extension could cost Indiana up to $11 million.