With more than 2,000 members attending monthly events organized by chapters in Indianapolis, Bloomington and West Lafayette, tech entrepreneurship group Verge is poised to expand, outgoing executive director Matt Hunckler says.
The life sciences industry in Indiana employs 55,500 workers paying average wages of more than $88,500 per year, according to new figures released Tuesday by Indianapolis-based life sciences development group BioCrossroads.
Two new health clinics opened on the west side of Indianapolis last week. HealthNet Inc. opened a community health center on West 10th Street, providing primary, pediatric and OB/GYN care, as well as optomemtry, podiatry, behavioral health and social work services. Also, Community Health Network opened a medical office building in Speedway, which is part of its westward expansion after its acquisition of Westview Hospital on West 38th Street. The offices offer primary care, walk-in care, imaging, infusion therapy and occupational health services. Community also will work with the new Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine to conduct training for medical residents in Speedway.
WellPoint Inc. is still considering former Amerigroup Corp. CEO James Carlson among several finalists to become CEO, Bloomberg News reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. The Indianapolis-based health insurer has delayed defining a role for Carlson, who joined WellPoint through its $4.9 billion acquisition of Amerigroup in December, because he is a contender for the top position, said the person, who asked for anonymity because the information is private. Retired Aetna Inc. CEO Ronald Williams also has been a leading candidate, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations. Carlson, 60, would replace Angela Braly, who was forced out in August amid investor complaints about the company's performance. Carlson built Amerigroup into one of the biggest insurers focused on the growing Medicaid sector. In an e-mail, Kristin Binns, a WellPoint spokeswoman, said the company wouldn’t comment on the CEO search. Maureen McDonnell, an Amerigroup spokeswoman, also declined to discuss the process or Carlson’s role. Katherine Mentus, a spokesman for Williams, declined to comment when reached by telephone. Analysts expect WellPoint to make a decision by the end of February.
Eli Lilly and Co. will have to conduct more studies of its experimental Alzheimer’s drug, but it is getting some outside help. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston chose Lilly’s drug solanezumab for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it, according to the Associated Press. Lilly’s own studies of solanezumab found that it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's, but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start. The new study will enroll 1,000 patients between age 70 and 85 who show a buildup of plaques in their brains but do not yet show signs of Alzheimer’s, including loss of memory and ability to do daily activities. Lilly’s solanezumab is also one of two drugs being studied in Alzheimer’s patients by researchers at Washington University. The other is made by the Genentech unit of Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG.
Indianapolis-based Defender Direct, a home security dealer, has opened an on-site health clinic, joining a number of other area employers that offer such services. Defender Direct’s 650 employees and their families now can receive primary care at the East 96th Street clinic, operated by Indianapolis-based OurHealth. Indianapolis-based MJ Insurance, which has helped such employers as Interactive Intelligence Inc. and others set up onsite clinics, brokered the deal.
Roche Diagnostics Corp. in Indianapolis ranks 89th on Fortune magazine’s latest annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” the magazine announced Thursday. In selecting Roche, the only Indiana company to appear on the list, Fortune cited its on-site medical clinic and fitness center, the company's $30,000 budget for intramural sports, and its health insurance plans tiered to income levels. The Indianapolis campus serves as the North American headquarters for the diagnostics business of Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG.
The Indiana Applied Research Enterprise already has received support from John Lechleiter, CEO of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., as a place for collaboration between academic and industrial scientists.
Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly and Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.
Few things rouse us more than a fall from grace, and the more precipitous, the better. Sports so deliciously delivers grist for our grindstone time and again.
Tiempo Libre at Clowes Hall and “Next to Normal” at the Phoenix Theatre among this week’s picks.
BioCrossroads Inc.’s newest seed fund has plowed $750,000 into two Indianapolis-area life sciences companies. Esanex Inc. received $500,000 to help it develop a therapy that inhibits the ability of cancer cells to grow and survive. The investment will be used to complete a Phase 1 study in patients with tumors and to conduct multiple Phase 2 trials. Esanex is part of the portfolio of Lilly Ventures, the venture capital firm spun out of Eli Lilly and Co. in 2009. Algaeon Inc., meanwhile, received $250,000 to develop a technology for making micro-algae-based products used in human supplements and in animal and fish-feed stocks. The company will use the investment to expand operations and produce additional products. Algaeon is located on the northwest side on West 82nd Street. BioCrossroads, the Indianapolis-based life sciences development group, launched Indiana Seed Fund II in April after raising $8.25 million to help fledgling life sciences companies grow. Its first seed fund raised $6 million that was invested in 11 companies.
WellPoint Inc.’s plan to raise rates that small employers in California pay for medical insurance was criticized as unreasonable by the state insurance commissioner, who said customers are being charged this year to cover U.S. health-law taxes that won’t begin until 2014. According to Bloomberg News, WellPoint’s Anthem Blue Cross unit in California is raising those rates an average of 10.6 percent. Indianapolis-based WellPoint sells small group policies that cover 284,000 California employees. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones accused WellPoint of overstating future medical use and cost trends, and improperly including next year’s taxes. The commissioner provided his findings last month to the insurer, which plans to proceed with the rate increase. Anthem Blue Cross said rates will go up an average of 6.5 percent and the increase is lower than not-for-profit competitors. Around the country, Aetna Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Centene Corp. and other health insurers have proposed large increases on small businesses and individual buyers in recent months, citing rising costs for medical care and greater requirements of the health-care law. The Obama administration has said provisions in the law have kept increases from being even higher.
Johnson & Johnson won the backing of an FDA advisory panel for a diabetes pill the company is seeking to make the first in a new family of drugs for managing blood sugar, putting it ahead of Eli Lilly and Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and AstraZeneca plc, which all are trying to develop similar drugs. According to Bloomberg News, New Jersey-based J&J received a 10-5 vote from the panel to support its drug canagliflozin, although the panel also said the drug raises concerns about heart risks. The once-a-day pill is part of a treatment group known as SGLT2 inhibitors that are intended to have fewer side effects, such as low blood sugar and weight gain, than current diabetes drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to decide on canagliflozin by the end of March; the agency usually follows recommendations of its advisory panels, but it does not have to. Lilly’s drug, which it is developing with Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim Gmbh, is called empagliflozin. The two companies plan to file for FDA approval later this year.
Catheter Research Inc. has acquired assets from Illinois-based Marshall Medical Systems & Equipment Inc., one of the distributors of medical equipment for a subsidiary of Catheter Research called Thomas Medical Systems. Thomas Medical makes medical devices for reproductive and OB/GYN care. Catheter Research did not disclose the purchase price.
The new head of the Indianapolis Museum of Art has reduced the size of his executive team, including cutting a top position, as an initial step to organization-wide restructuring.
The city's largest real estate brokerage expects the industrial and housing markets to boom in 2013, but offers a more cautious view on the office and retail sectors, predicting that uncertainty caused by political gridlock could hamper an already sluggish recovery.
The local ABC affiliate named Terri Cope-Walton to fill the position that’s been open since November. The station veteran had served as interim news director and previously was assistant news director.
Two Illinois companies have acquired a six-building, 446,000-square-foot Indianapolis office portfolio from locally based Duke Realty Corp. Industry sources say the buildings sold for more than $20 million.
Indianapolis City-County Council leaders have agreed to increase visitor and entertainment taxes to avoid what one councilor called a drastic reduction in services.
Last week’s fiscal cliff bargain in Congress dealt a potentially fatal blow to a new health insurance plan, called Remedy Indiana, that was set to launch this year.
About a year after deciding not to campaign for president of the United States, Gov. Mitch Daniels agreed to become the next president of Purdue University.
Braly’s five-year tenure leading the Indianapolis-based health insurer was hurt by the recession but also by repeated missteps.
Plug-in electric vehicles, which are struggling to gain traction nationwide, have even less appeal in central Indiana than they do in most areas of the country, a new study says.
