Indianapolis-based Algaeon Inc. plans to move its algae-growing operation to Westfield, investing $25 million and adding 25 jobs over the next five years. The biotech firm is seeking to phase in personal property taxes while it ramps up production.
Indianapolis-based VoCare Inc. has formed a partnership with Motorola Mobility LLC, a subsidiary of Google Inc., to offer telehealth and remote monitoring services to seniors via Motorola smartphones. The partnership comes as VoCare raised $5 million this spring and is now trying to raise another $20 million. Along with Motorola, VoCare will offer smartphones that come preloaded with applications that connect to health care monitoring peripherals, the peripherals themselves, along with the phone and data services needed to power them. The VoCare phones have a safety button that connects them immediately to a remote call center if they experience falls or other emergencies. Also, VoCare’s remote monitoring system can keep track of seniors' health status as they use the medical peripherals or if their typical movement patterns change, suggesting a change in health. VoCare CEO Steve Peabody said in a prepared statement that the service will allow doctors to keep track of their patients and, using the video functions on the smartphones, make “virtual house calls.”
Indianapolis-based Indigo BioSystems Inc. has changed CEOs after securing $8.5 million in venture capital. The north-side firm of 47 employees makes software used by medical and research labs to review and analyze chemical compounds and tissue samples. Its new CEO is past president Randall Julian, a former Eli Lilly and Co. researcher who founded the company in 2004 through the drugmaker’s venture group. Julian takes over from Raul Zavaleta, who had led the company since 2011 so Julian could focus on product development. Zavaleta remains with the company as a consultant and a board director. Bootstrap Venture Fund LP, headquartered in San Diego, led the $8.5 million investment round. The investment is Indigo's second from a venture capital firm. The company raised $1.8 million in 2011. It has also received $1.75 million in grants from the federally funded 21st Century Research and Technology Fund, as well as $700,000 in conditional tax credits through the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Indianapolis-based Cornerstone Cos. could break ground this year on an $11 million medical office building, expected to be largely owned by the doctors who practice there. Cornerstone is planning to locate the three-story, 43,000-square-foot building along Interstate 69 on a four-acre site on Olivia Way, which is near both the St. Vincent Fishers Hospital and the Indiana University Health Saxony Hospital. The Fishers Town Council agreed to forgive two-thirds of the property taxes on the project for six years. When the abatement runs out, Deer Creek Point’s property tax bill is expected to be about $178,000 a year—$70,000 more than a retail project would generate, according to projections prepared by public finance firm H.J. Umbaugh & Associates.
Cornerstone Cos. plans to locate the $11 million project near Interstate 69.
Peapod Inc. has discovered fertile ground in Indianapolis despite a crowded field of grocery competitors, said Scott DeGraeve, senior vice president at the country’s oldest and biggest online grocery-delivery service.
Peapod Inc., an online grocery-delivery service, is seeking city tax incentives to help it with an expansion that would create 238 jobs by 2018. The jobs would pay about $15 per hour.
Indianapolis-based health insurer WellPoint Inc. will start paying cancer doctors $350 per month more for every WellPoint patient they treat—if the doctors agree to follow WellPoint’s recommended treatment plans, according to the Wall Street Journal. The program aims to curb the 25-percent annual growth in spending on cancer care and to reduce the nearly one-third of chemotherapy patients who receive treatment conflicting with current medical evidence and best practices. The extra payments are also designed to make it easier financially for oncology practices to prescribe lower-cost drugs—because the revenue oncologists make from those drugs is less than more expensive drugs. Because oncologists not only prescribe, but also infuse many cancer drugs into their patients, the drugs often account for a substantial amount of their practice revenue. The program will be implemented July 1 in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin.
Radiopharmaceuticals maker Zevacor Molecular plans to open a $40 million medical isotope-production facility in Noblesville, creating nearly 50 jobs within five years. Noblesville will provide an estimated $1.9 million—about 85 percent of the new property taxes the project should produce—in equipment and other necessities, according to a development deal the Common Council unanimously approved Tuesday. The agreement also calls for Zevacor to get a 95-percent abatement on personal property taxes for 10 years. Zevacor, which has eight employees and an office in Fishers, is a for-profit subsidiary of Decatur, Ill.-based not-for-profit Illinois Health & Science—also the parent of Decatur Memorial Hospital. It operates hospital cyclotrons and nuclear pharmacies in several states, said Kenneth Smithmier, Illinois Health’s president and CEO. A similar facility in Noblesville had been planned three years ago by Positron Corp., but the company failed to line up the necessary financial support.
The Indiana University School of Medicine will help oversee a three-year, $30 million concussion study being funded by the Indianapolis-based NCAA and the U.S. Defense Department, according to the Associated Press. The study, which will involve athletes from as many as 30 universities, will be led by IU's School of Medicine in collaboration with the University of Michigan and the Medical College of Wisconsin. IU researchers aim to collect data on 37,000 athletes.
Indianapolis-based OurHealth LLC plans to create a network of health care clinics serving employers across Indiana over the next four years and hire up to 450 people. The 5-year-old company has pledged to invest nearly $20 million, which would include the cost of doubling the size of its headquarters downtown. It currently leases about 10,000 square feet at OneAmerica Tower. OurHealth also plans to lease real estate for a series of 3,500-square-foot health clinics across the state. In June, OurHealth plans to begin hiring certified medical assistants, health coaches, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and doctors to staff its clinics. OurHealth’s website already has posted job openings in Kokomo, Logansport, Madison, Merrillville and Indianapolis. The firm employs more than 120 people and operates 15 clinics, most of which are dedicated to a single employer. The new clinics typically would serve multiple employers.
French drug company Sanofi will seek to sell Eli Lilly and Co.’s erectile dysfunction drug Cialis without a prescription, the companies announced last week, according to Bloomberg News. Sanofi will apply for approval of Cialis as an over-the-counter treatment in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, and will market the drug after certain patents expire. The deal hinges on regulatory approval in each country—a big question mark, according to analysts. The plan gives Sanofi access to a drug that garnered $2.16 billion in sales last year and faces generic competition in 2017.
Magna Powertrain plans to spend more than $15 million on new equipment for a Muncie factory where it expects to add as many as 50 workers in the coming year.
The county south of Indianapolis was king of the suburbs in the 1970s, but now has fallen far behind Hamilton to the north in population and income, and in recent years slipped behind Hendricks County to the west.
Alcoa Howmet factory in LaPorte, which makes castings for the aerospace and industrial gas turbine industries, will receive local and state tax breaks in return for job commitments.
Radiopharmaceuticals maker Zevacor Molecular plans to open a $40 million isotope-production facility in Noblesville, creating nearly 50 good-paying jobs within five years.
The University of Indianapolis has selected local developer Strategic Capital Partners LLC to build its health sciences center. To help offset its investment costs, Strategy Capital has requested a tax abatement valued at $2.5 million.
Indianapolis-based Cornerstone Cos. Inc. is working on plans for an $11 million medical office building near St. Vincent and IU Health hospitals in Fishers.
The town of Fishers is taking steps to officially terminate a three-year property tax abatement offered to a debt-collection company that is winding down operations.
I am an accidental tourist in the land of government finance. The natives are friendly enough to me, but they seem to like one another less and less.
A day in the life for hundreds of new employees at Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. could mean riding a slide from one floor of their office to the next while earning about $80,000 per year.
Local software firm Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. announced Thursday afternoon that it plans to hire 430 employees by the end of 2016 as part of a major expansion of its headquarters.
Jasper Engine & Transmission Exchange expects to buy, renovate and equip a 220,000-square-foot facility near its headquarters in the southwest Indiana city.
A subsidiary of TOA Industries Co. Ltd. plans to spend $72.1 million to construct and equip an additional 360,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space at its existing facility in Morgan County.
Five local apartment complexes and one owner of multiple rental properties were accused of unreasonably consuming city, public, and law enforcement resources.
An interim administrator plans to get to the bottom of an apparent morale problem and fill at least 10 openings within the department.
