When the Senate passed legislation last week overhauling the U.S. patent system, large multinational corporations like Eli Lilly and Co. rejoiced. But small-business advocates cried foul, saying the changes would put innovative startups at a disadvantage.
The Columbia Club has formed a not-for-profit, the Columbia Club Historic Preservation Foundation, to preserve its 1924 building on Monument Circle. The 28-year-old Columbia Club Foundation already exists for the same purpose, and its fate is now unclear.
A German researcher disputed the validity of a study that found Byetta and another diabetes drug increase cancer risk.
The Indianapolis-based software firm said it has added 190 jobs in Indiana since the beginning of 2010—a 46-percent growth rate in its state employment.
If approved for continuation maintenance, Eli Lilly and Co.’s Alimta could be used for longer stretches in lung cancer patients, generating more revenue.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. caught the attention of employers and health benefits brokers with its agreement to buy a stake in Bloom Health, a private health-insurance exchange that would compete for employers with the state-run marketplaces set to open in 2014 as part of the health reform overhaul. According to Bloomberg News, WellPoint and two not-for-profit health insurers will acquire a 78-percent stake in Minneapolis-based Bloom. It is an online marketplace offering a variety of health plans to about 20,000 workers at almost 50 companies. WellPoint officials think a private exchange could offer more consistency for multi-state employers than the state-run exchanges. Under the Bloom model, companies pay employees a fixed amount to cover a portion of their health-care coverage and workers provide the rest based on the plans they select. The idea of the private health-care exchange and its defined contribution model is similar to the trend in retirement benefits in which employers have been abandoning defined benefit pension plans for the relative financial safety of a 401(k) that allows companies to control how much they spend.
With its bestseller Zyprexa losing patent protection next month, Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. is trying to wring every dollar it can out of its other products, including its $2.2 billion-a-year lung cancer drug Alimta. And Lilly got some good news on that front Monday. A committee at the European Medicines Agency issued a positive opinion for the use of Alimta as a "continuation" maintenance therapy, Lilly announced. That makes market approval by the European Commission more likely. Continuation maintenance approval could mean significantly more dollars for Lilly. It would allow doctors to treat lung cancer patients with Alimta during initial treatment and for numerous months afterward to keep the disease in check. Alimta already was approved as a maintenance drug, but only for use after initial treatment of the disease with other drugs. Receiving approval as a maintenance therapy, which Alimta won back in 2009, helped sales soar 66 percent since then. Alimta sales totaled $1.2 billion worldwide in the first half of 2011. According to Lilly, no chemotherapy is currently approved as a continuation maintenance drug. Alimta is designed to treat patients with non-small cell lung cancer who have a certain tumor type called nonsquamous.
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology gave $450,000 to Dr. Bryan Schneider, a physician-researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. Schneider will use the three-year grant to study the neuropathy that some chemotherapy patients develop in hopes of eventually developing treatments to prevent it. Schneider has received three previous awards from the foundation.
Community Health Network opened a Community Spine Center in Greenwood, similar to the original spine center at Community North Hospital in Castleton. The south-side center will be led by Dr. Joshua Salyer, a graduate of Midwestern University-Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Even in today’s tight economy, the trend of organizing off-site team-building exercises for employees is still going strong.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard temporarily calls off plans to rename the historic street to instead focus on a project that would line it with 30 monuments saluting famous Hoosiers.
In the last of eight installments of Who’s Who, we profile leaders in education. More than 100 individuals were nominated, representing public and private schools, secondary and post-secondary education, educational think-tanks, legislators and other organizations active in the sphere.
Eli Lilly and Co., the world’s biggest maker of psychiatric drugs, is in talks with Mustafa Nevzat Ilac Sanayii AS to sell the Turkish company’s treatments in 26 countries, said Mustafa Nevzat’s CEO.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. doesn’t plan to buy Pfizer Inc.’s $3.58 billion animal-health business, CEO John Lechleiter said Wednesday.
Certainly, sports figures need to be included among the 30 honored on whatever they end up calling Georgia St.
By 2013, Lilly hopes to reduce water intake another 5 percent, while reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills an additional 20 percent.
The local not-for-profit is launching a program this month that will dole out million-dollar grants to teams of education entrepreneurs to help them start local chains of charters.
Cialis, Lilly’s blockbuster erectile dysfunction drug, now can be taken to treat enlarged prostate. FDA approval means men who suffer from both disorders can take one medication.
Eli Lilly and Co. got called out in a recent report on companies that took advantage of the 2004 tax holiday on foreign profits and have since slashed jobs.
Executives at Bloomington-based Cook Group never have had kind words for the 2.3-percent excise tax that the 2010 health reform placed on medical-device makers. But now the maker of catheters, stents and other medical implants is trotting out specific numbers on just how much the tax is costing Cook. Company President Kem Hawkins told Fox Business the excise tax will cost Cook Group about $17 million in 2011. By comparison, Cook spent $12 million to open a plant in Canton, Ill., which now employs 300 people. “If people don’t think companies are being forced to leave our shores, they need to take a look around at what’s happening,” Hawkins told Fox Business. “Our government shouldn’t be placing obstacles in the path of companies that employ Americans.” In October 2009, the late founder of Cook Group, Bill Cook, said the tax could force the company to trim 1,000 jobs.
The planned merger of Indiana University Health and Kokomo’s Howard Regional Health System is now dead, the two hospitals announced Oct. 3. The integration of the two not-for-profit hospital systems was approved by Howard Regional's board in late May. At the time, Howard Regional officials said they needed the economies of scale of a larger system because of deteriorating demographics in its trade area and the threat of lower reimbursement from the 2010 health reform law. But now Howard CEO Jim Alender is citing the uncertainty of health reform as the reason for cutting off discussions with IU Health. “We know change is coming, but we do not know the form of these changes given the ongoing debates in Washington and the litigation over health care reform,” Alender said in a prepared statement. IU Health CEO Dan Evans said the two hospitals will continue to work in partnership.
Performance weakened at Warsaw-based Biomet Inc. during the three months ended Aug. 31. The maker of orthopedic implants said sales in the quarter were flat, when factoring out the benefit of foreign exchange rates. And the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell nearly 2 percent, or $3.9 million, to $202.5 million. Officially, Biomet recorded a loss of $39.2 million, more than twice as large as its loss during the same quarter a year ago. Sales, including the benefit of foreign exchange rates, rose nearly 4 percent to $664.6 million. "Biomet's results indicated continued weakness in its core (knees and hips) as well as spine and trauma markets,” wrote Barclays analyst Adam Feinstein in a research report. He added, “the flat growth in core recon and declines in spine and trauma point to continued weakness in ortho market fundamentals.”
WellPoint Inc. subsidiary National Government Services Inc. won a five-year Medicare contract worth up to $273 million. Under the agreement, WellPoint will process Medicare claims from Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Wisconsin and Washington. WellPoint has been trying to grow its business as a contractor for Medicare and Medicaid programs, which are predicted to grow in coming years even as WellPoint’s employer-sponsored health insurance business stagnates.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co. doesn’t plan to buy Pfizer Inc.’s $3.6 billion animal-health business, CEO John Lechleiter told Bloomberg Oct. 5. In July, Lilly Chief Financial Officer Derica Rice said Lilly was interested in some Pfizer assets, but Pfizer said it wouldn’t break the business into smaller pieces to sell. “We don’t think we have to make a large acquisition,” Lilly’s Lechleiter said. “In our animal-health business, we’ve got a pretty good mix of organic growth and growth from smaller acquisitions. I think that’s the approach we’re going to take.” Lilly's Elanco animal-health business, which is based in Greenfield and has 2,400 employees, is expected to rack up sales this year of $1.7 billion.
