Company news
Regenstrief Institute Inc. plans to build a $13 million, 80,000-square-foot headquarters at 10th and Wilson streets, the Indiana University School of Medicine announced on Aug. 14. The facility will be built on the medical school's campus at IUPUI on land leased from Indiana University. Regenstrief, a not-for-profit medical research organization, plans to move 50 investigators, 165 staff members and a number of affiliated scientists into the building when it is completed in mid-2015. Most of those employees now work in nearby locations at 1050 Wishard Blvd. and 410 W. 10th St. The Regenstrief Foundation has committed $5 million to the new building and the IU School of Medicine is contributing another $1 million, officials said. Schmidt Associates of Indianapolis is handling architecture and interior design. Regenstrief investigators developed and operate the Regenstrief Medical Record System, which has served as the electronic medical record system for Wishard, and now Eskenazi Health, since 1973. It is the oldest continually operational medical record system in the United States, Regenstrief said.
Eli Lilly and Co. says it will close its Elanco Animal Health enzyme plant in Terre Haute by early 2016 as part of a consolidation, according to the Associated Press. Lilly spokesman Ed Sagebiel told the Tribune-Star that the Indianapolis-based company is consolidating all of its animal enzyme manufacturing to a site in Great Britain. He said the plant closure will affect 23 employees, all of whom will be offered comparable positions at a Lilly plant near Clinton that employs about 500 workers. Clinton is about 15 miles north of Terre Haute. The Terre Haute plant makes animal feed enzymes that help animals digest food more efficiently, boosting farm productivity. Lilly purchased the Terre Haute plant in 2012.
Carmel entrepreneur Zeke Turner has agreed to sell the real estate investment trust he started two years ago for $950 million to focus on his original nursing home development company, Mainstreet Property Group. HealthLease Properties REIT, which Turner leads as CEO, announced Aug. 13 that it will be sold to Ohio-based Health Care REIT Inc. The Toledo, Ohio-based company, also known as HCN, also agreed to form a development partnership with Mainstreet under which it will acquire 17 projects Mainstreet has under construction and 45 senior care campuses it plans to build. In all, the deal is worth more than $2.3 billion. HCN, the largest U.S. health care landlord by market value, said it will pay $14.20 per share in Canadian dollars for HealthLease, 31 percent more than HealthLease's stock price before the deal was announced. HealthLease Properties, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns 51 senior care facilities in Canada and the United States, including 12 in Indiana. In second-quarter results announced Aug. 12, the company’s revenue and profit doubled from the previous year, to $17.6 million and $5 million, respectively, in Canadian dollars. Mainstreet has been the fastest-growing company in the Indianapolis area over the past three years. Revenue skyrocketed to more than $66 million last year.
A federal judge said Indiana can challenge an Internal Revenue Service rule that offers tax credits to Hoosiers who purchase health insurance on Obamacare’s federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov. According to Bloomberg News, U.S. District Judge William T. Lawrence in Indianapolis denied an IRS bid to dismiss that portion of the state’s 2013 lawsuit, in which it claimed the rule illegally conflicts with a provision of the federal law limiting those tax credits to enrollees in state-created exchanges. Lawrence’s ruling comes three weeks after U.S. appeals courts in Washington, D.C., and in Richmond, Virginia, reached conflicting conclusions about availability of the subsidy for which 4.5 million people have qualified. Indiana was one of the states that opted to not create an exchange. Lawrence, in his ruling, rejected U.S. contentions that Indiana and the 39 state public school systems that joined it in the suit would suffer no harm from the rule. Lawrence did, however, reject Indiana’s contention the mandate violated its sovereignty, ruling it, and 25 other states, lost that argument in the early stages of a 2010 Obamacare challenge that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the legislation as a valid exercise of Congress’ taxing authority.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. will change its name back to Anthem Inc., the brand under which it sells most of its coverage, according to Bloomberg News. The name change will be completed by the end of the year, pending shareholder approval, the company said in a statement. WellPoint will hold a shareholder vote on the change in November. WellPoint and other large health insurers find themselves increasingly marketing directly to consumers, as Obamacare requires most uninsured Americans to obtain coverage and employers thrust more responsibility for costs on their workers. The company sells plans in 14 of the health care law’s new insurance exchanges, in most cases under its Anthem brand. The company doesn't sell plans under the WellPoint name. WellPoint Inc. was formed in 2004 when Indianapolis-based insurer Anthem Inc. completed a $16.5 billion merger with California-based WellPoint Health Networks Inc. Anthem Inc. was originally formed in 1995 when Indianapolis-based insurer Associated Group merged with Cincinnati-based Community Mutual Insurance Co. Anthem demutualized and conducted an initial public offering in 2001.
Bloomington’s Monroe Hospital LLC, which has had a close relationship with Indianapolis-based St. Vincent Health, filed for bankruptcy reorganization on Aug. 15 and plans to sell its business to a Canadian hospital operator. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, filed in federal court in Indianapolis, said the 32-bed hospital had more than twice as many liabilities as assets. It has been losing money due to low patient traffic in the face of cross-town competition from Indiana University Health’s Bloomington Hospital. Monroe and St. Vincent signed a management agreement two years ago, with St. Vincent taking responsibility for Monroe’s quality and safety efforts, finance functions, physician relations and patient satisfaction. St. Vincent also considered adding Monroe to its 22-hospital network. Those merger talks and St. Vincent’s management of those Monroe services ended last October, but longtime St. Vincent executive Joe Roche was installed as Monroe’s CEO. St. Vincent is now one of Monroe’s largest creditors, with the hospital owing St. Vincent’s physician group $170,000. St. Vincent physicians provide cardiac care and orthopedic surgeries to Monroe patients. Even after the hospital is sold to a new owner, St. Vincent will try to continue its clinical relationship with Monroe.