Search Results

General Electric Co. has mounted an all-out effort to get its supporters in Congress to defy Defense Secretary Robert Gates when the House of Representatives votes on the $567 billion defense bill for fiscal 2011. GE wants Congress to keep funding its backup engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Gates says a second engine […]

Eli Lilly and Co. is a likely suitor for two cancer drug developers, according to unnamed sources interviewed
by The Financial Times. The Indianapolis-based drugmaker has made cancer its most intense area of new drug investment—as
have many of its peers. The company was outbid last year for Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, which was scooped up by New Jersey-based
Celgene Corp. Now, industry insiders believe Lilly will bid for Gloucester’s competitor in the race to develop the next
lung cancer drug, Colorado-based Allos Therapeutics Inc. Also, Lilly is a likely bidder for Washington-based Seattle Genetics
Inc., which is developing drugs to treat leukemia and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

With funding still spotty for medical and biotech startups, a huge amount of attention is focusing on Qualified Therapeutic
Discovery Project Credits, which will award $1 billion in tax breaks to small companies developing products that help diagnose,
treat or prevent illnesses. Each business can receive a credit for as much of half its investment into qualified research
and testing of its products, according to a description of the act by Bingham McHale, an Indianapolis law
firm hoping to win clients by helping them apply. The credit will be paid in cash if a company has little to no tax liability.
Only companies that have 250 or fewer employees (of any type) can receive the credits.

Roche Diagnostics won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its test of antibodies that
build up to fight the hepatitis C virus in human fluids. The Elecsys Anti-HCV can be performed on certain models of Roche
Diagnostics’ Cobas and Modular Analytics machines. In April, Roche received FDA clearance for another immunoassay in
its infectious-disease portfolio, Rubella IgM. Roche Diagnostics operates its North American business out of Indianapolis.

Michiana Health Information Network has added Elkhart General Healthcare System to its health information
exchange service. Doctors in Elkhart can now receive electronic copies of medical records and laboratory results from Elkhart
General Hospital quickly and without the privacy issues of e-mail. Once fully implemented, all Elkhart physicians with electronic
health records will have the ability to instantly receive hospital reports, laboratory results and radiology reports directly
into their EHR systems. Michiana Health Information Network, established in 1999, includes more than 3,200 community health
care professionals in northern Indiana and southwest Michigan.

In its latest response to withering criticism of its breast-cancer policies, WellPoint Inc. started Tuesday
to pay for all breast cancer patients to stay two days in a hospital after mastectomy surgery. Some states already require
insurers to cover hospital stays of 48 hours if the patient and her doctor wanted that much time for recovery after mastectomy
surgery. But Indiana requires payment only for a 24-hour stay. Now, WellPoint will make the 48-hour policy standard for its
customers in any state. Indianapolis-based WellPoint has been under fire since a Reuters article in April said the company
uses a computer algorithm to target breast cancer patients for cancellation of their policies. WellPoint has repeatedly called
the article’s claims “inaccurate and grossly misleading.” But the article provided the basis for sharp criticism
of WellPoint from President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and dozens of members of Congress.

IUPUI took two steps closer to creating a School of Public Health as it gave Lilly Scholars awards to help
two professors start up public health research projects. The awards are funded by a $1 million gift from the Eli Lilly
and Co. Foundation. Jennifer Wessel, who was hired from personalized genetics company SRI International, will focus
her research on developing interventions based on individuals' genetic profiles that can promote healthy lifestyles to
prevent or delay coronary artery disease. Silvia M. Bigatti, who has been a professor of psychology at the Indiana
University School of Medicine since 2000, will study factors related to stress and coping in cancer patients and
their partners and also community-based preventive health behaviors among Latinos.

The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles has approved a Stop Diabetes specialty license plate. Like Indiana's
other special group-recognition license plates, the Stop Diabetes plate will cost $40, with $25 of that cost directly benefiting
the American Diabetes Association. The funds raised will support education and research about diabetes. According to the American
Diabets Association, more than 714,000 Hoosiers have diabetes and at least 1.6 million, roughly a fourth of the state's
population, are at high risk for it.

Endocyte Inc.'s experimental cancer drug doubled survival times for women with difficult cases of ovarian
cancer. In a clinical trial of 91 women, Endocyte’s drug EC145, when combined with another chemotherapy drug, Doxil,
held off ovarian cancer for six months, compared with 3 months for patients given Doxil alone. The data are interim results
from a Phase 2 clinical trial involving 150 women. Endocyte, based in West Lafayette, plans to move its drug into a large
Phase 3 trial later this year.

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. and Merck KGaA’s Erbitux failed to slow early-stage colon cancer,
in a clinical trial that left scientists mystified. Erbitux is already approved to treat colon cancer in advanced stages,
and scientists presumed it would also work in earlier stages, according to Bloomberg News. The finding is the latest of at
least three studies that have narrowed the scope of Erbitux. It recorded sales last year of $1.4 billion, according to IMS
Health.