EnerDel Inc. CEO David Roberts has resigned and chief operating officer Michael Canada will replace him on an interim basis, the Indianapolis lithium-ion battery manufacturer announced Thursday afternoon.
The typical hospital around the country will see its profits wiped out entirely by the changes coming from health reform and the aging of the population. But in Indianapolis, the hits will be cushioned by this region's fatter commercial reimbursements.
Indianapolis Business Journal gathered leaders in Indiana’s life sciences industry for a Power Breakfast panel discussion April 24. Among other topics, the panelists discussed whether Obamacare helps or hurts companies in the industry, the biggest barrier to life sciences startups, and how rising activity among angel investors has changed the life sciences landscape.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal addressed the NRA's annual leadership forum, a kind of political pep rally the organization considers one of its premier events.
Dr. Alexia Torke, an internist, has been named associate director of the Indiana University Center for Aging Research. Torke is a researcher at the Indianapolis-based Regenstrief Institute and a professor at the IU School of Medicine. The Center for Aging Research works with scientists, clinicians, patients and others to develop and test innovative strategies to improve the quality of health care and self-care of older adults. Torke graduated from Carleton College and received a medical degree from the IU School of Medicine.
Mark Anderson has been named director of Franciscan Physician Network’s Joint Replacement Surgeons of Indiana and the Center for Hip and Knee Surgery at Franciscan St. Francis Health. Anderson, who has worked at Franciscan for 16 years, graduated from Indiana University’s physical therapy program in 1997 and earned an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2009.
Developer’s Flaherty & Collins is gaining a reputation developing trendy projects, the latest of which is a 28-story retail and residential tower on the site of the former Market Square Arena.
The House Ethics Committee expressed concerns Wednesday that House Speaker Pro Tem Eric Turner’s efforts to kill a proposed nursing home moratorium did not achieve the “highest spirit of transparency” and vowed to tighten those rules.
Jump IN for Healthy Kids has a budget of $1.5 million and hopes to identify and extend successful efforts to improve diet, activity and healthy choices among children and their families.
Indianapolis officials plan to use a downtown light show and $30 million in pre-raised corporate cash to wow the NFL’s team owners into granting the Circle City the title of Super Bowl host for the second time in six years.
Before local hospitals slashed staff and expenses last year, they had been boosting the pay packages of their top executives faster than hospitals around the country. Seven of every 10 senior executives at the major hospital systems in Indianapolis saw their total compensation rise more than 10 percent from 2010 to 2012.
Tax cuts have consequences as predictable as the sunrise. The politicians who cut taxes boast about their concern for taxpayers and their superior efficiency; they assure us that our low taxes will lure new business, then they run for higher office or otherwise head for greener pastures where the accuracy of those claims is unlikely to be tested. The politicians who have been left to operate with less money engage in equally predictable behaviors.
The Accountable Care Consortium was envisioned as a vehicle through which the hospitals would eventually funnel all of their roughly $2.5 billion in annual contracts with health insurers and employers.
Endocyte Inc.’s stock fell more than 60 percent in early trading Friday after the drug it’s developing with Merck & Co.’s backing failed to help patients in a trial for ovarian cancer.
The top honor at the Mira Awards on Saturday night went to software firm Interactive Intelligence, while academia made waves in other categories at the annual technology-sector event.
The $26M exhibit will be named the Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center in recognition of the donation from Indianapolis philanthropist Cindy Simon Skjodt.
When I predicted on March 13 that Obamacare would fail to expand individual private insurance coverage in Indiana, I was completely off. It now looks like an extra 30,000 Hoosiers have bought individual health insurance this year.
Indiana University plans to turn the former Wishard Memorial Hospital campus into a 26-acre, $200 million research complex that would bridge IU’s School of Medicine with the city’s life sciences firms, including those at the nascent 16 Tech business park. The plans call for classrooms, offices, labs and business-incubation space. The university is trying to lure the newly created Indiana Biosciences Research Institute to the facility. And the School of Medicine wants to set up a drug discovery center, which would house 12 of its faculty. IU’s public health and dentistry schools have eyed the complex as a possible home base, said Jay Hess, dean of the IU med school. The former Wishard will also become the new home of the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp, which tries to commercialize the intellectual property created at IU. The IURTC announced in April that it will sell its Innovation Center on West 10th Street.
A highly touted partnership between St. Vincent Health, Community Health Network and the Suburban Health Organization is coming to an end—just 18 months after it began. The Accountable Care Consortium was envisioned as a vehicle through which the hospitals would eventually funnel all of their roughly $2.5 billion in annual contracts with health insurers and employers. Those contracts would have been based on the ability of St. Vincent, Community and the suburban hospitals to keep patients healthy and in need of less care, especially expensive hospitalizations and surgeries. The concept is known in health care circles as “population health management.” The consortium signed up 12 employers as customers—half of which were among the hospitals that formed the consortium. Those hospitals included the 22 operated by St. Vincent, eight operated by Community and six that are part of the Suburban Health Organization. But the hospitals found that changes in the marketplace were happening at a faster pace than they anticipated—making it difficult to coordinate responses fast enough.
Endocyte Inc. stock plunged more than 60 percent Friday after the drug it’s developing with Merck & Co. backing failed to help patients in an ovarian cancer trial. The news could be particularly bad for the West Lafayette-based company, which has no other marketed products. According to Bloomberg News, the Phase 3 study was stopped after an analysis showed that vintafolide didn’t demonstrate efficiency when treating patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, the companies said in a statement Friday. Just over a month ago, Endocyte was being mentioned as a possible premium takeover target after it reported that vintafolide slowed progression of lung cancer and won European backing to treat ovarian cancer. Endocyte said it will continue to test vintafolide for lung cancer, with late-stage data possible toward the end of the year. Endocyte has 70 employees in West Lafayette and 25 in Indianapolis. An Endocyte spokeswoman declined to say whether Endocyte expects to trim its work force as a result of the setback with vintafolide.
Health information technology firm hc1.com promised to nearly triple its Indiana work force over the next five years, adding 175 jobs by 2019. Hc1.com currently employs 93 people, mostly in Indiana. The company makes software that helps medical labs, radiologists and other medical offices manage patient records, bills and other data critical to managing their operations. Hc1.com will invest $2.5 million to lease and renovate 9,466 square feet to expand its existing 16,626-square-foot headquarters in Northwest Technology Park at 96th Street and Zionsville Road. The firm has quietly raised more than $14 million from investors. CEO Brad Bostic told IBJ last year that hc1.com was on track to double its $10 million in annual sales. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered hc1.com Inc. up to $3 million in tax credits and up to $100,000 in training grants based on the company’s job-creation plans. The credits are performance-based, meaning the company only receives them once Hoosiers are hired. Boone County is contributing $50,000.
A group of prominent corporate executives has created a new organization to find ways to reduce obesity among central Indiana children. Jump IN for Healthy Kids has a budget of $1.5 million and hired Indianapolis attorney Ron Gifford to spearhead the effort. Jump IN was founded by 17 local executives, including Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Lechleiter, Roche Diagnostics Corp. CEO Jack Phillips, Anthem Indiana President Rob Hillman, Indiana Pacers President Jim Morris, IUPUI Chancellor Charles Bantz, Indianapolis Star Publisher Karen Crotchfelt, Lilly Endowment CEO Clay Robbins, United Way of Central Indiana CEO Ann Murtlow, YMCA of Greater Indianapolis CEO Eric Ellsworth, and the CEOs of the major hospital systems in Indianapolis. The group hopes to identify successful efforts to improve diet, activity and healthy choices among children and their families—both around Indianapolis and around the country—and then work to replicate or adapt those efforts to reach more people in the metro area. Jump IN hopes to work with schools, churches, employers, medical providers, grocery stores, neighborhood associations and individual families.
WellPoint Inc.’s first-quarter medical enrollment rose 1.3 million from the prior three-month period as WellPoint benefited from new customers through the Obamacare exchanges. According to Bloomberg News, WellPoint has the highest share of enrollments of insurers through Obamacare, with 400,000 on government exchanges through Feb. 14. Those customers also are younger than anticipated, making the company’s prediction of “double-digit” rate increases next year less likely. WellPoint said it now expects 600,000 enrollments through the public exchanges this year. WellPoint's profit swooned in the first quarter, but less than analysts expected. It earned $701 million, down 21 percent from a year earlier. Excluding investment gains and one-time charges, those profits translated into earnings per share of $2.30, down from $2.94 a year ago. But Wall Street analysts expected profit to dip as low as $2.13 per share, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters. For all of 2014, WellPoint now expects to earn more than $8.40 per share, up from a forecast of more than $8.20 it issued in March, and a forecast of $8 it issued in January.
My weekend included Dance Kaleidoscope at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. And yours?
Local officials bidding for the 2018 Super Bowl had hoped to announce a new downtown hotel in time to land the big game, and local hospitality and real estate officials acknowledged the Pan Am location is the most likely site.
Three large health insurers including Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. and Aetna Inc. say that a high percentage of their new Obamacare customers are paying their first premiums, partly undermining a Republican criticism of enrollment in the program.
