U.S. Senator Charles Grassley asked 16 drugmakers, including Eli Lilly & Co., Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc, to reveal
how they treat whistleblowers who file complaints under the False Claims Act.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. said Wednesday that its California subsidiary will dial down rate hikes that drew national outrage earlier this year and helped spark a final push for health care reform.
Caregivers anticipates coping with declining Medicare reimbursements while having to offer insurance to its employees.
CNO Financial Group Inc. has finalized plans to set up a $10 million fund to settle a multistate investigation into increases
in policy costs.
As doctors threaten to drop Medicare patients, Congress delays cuts for another six months.
A day after doctors were alerted to a black-box warning that could slow sales of Effient’s main competitor,
Plavix,
a medical journal published research showing that patients suffered 43-percent more cancer tumors on Effient than on Plavix.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. says it notified 470,000 individual insurance customers about an online security breach
that may have exposed medical records, credit card numbers and other sensitive information.
The two companies will jointly develop a short-acting glucagon drug, which they hope proves more convenient than Lilly’s
current Glucagon for patients with severe hypoglycemia.
U.S. health insurers are “moving towards an oligopoly,” a process that this year’s health-care overhaul
will accelerate, the investor-relations chief at WellPoint Inc. said Thursday.
One key change would grant patents to the first inventor to file an application, not the first who can prove to have made
the invention first.
McCready and Keene Inc. is the fifth-largest employee benefits firm in the Indianapolis area. It employs 95 people nationally, 82 of them in Indianapolis, according to IBJ research.
Key Indianapolis Museum of Art fundraiser Kathy Nagler has been hired as the first development director for Health Foundation
of Greater Indianapolis.
David Stocum is the director of the Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine at the IUPUI School of Science.
He and his team are studying how amphibians regenerate parts of their bodies to see if there are ways to induce humans to
regenerate tissue that is lost or damaged. The center has about 20 researchers and funding of about $14 million to fuel its
quest.
Hospitals continued to be a stable and slightly growing source of jobs and wages in Indiana—for better and for worse.
The sector paid $7.3 billion to 127,000 Hoosiers in 2008, according to the latest data from the American Hospital Association.
Physician offices will begin receiving payments from the Medicare that are 21.3-percent below
what they’ve been getting so far this year. Doctors still expect Congress to reverse the payment cuts, but physicians
and the Medicare program will have to reprocess claims, costing both extra money.
Roche Holding AG’s decision to postpone its experimental diabetes drug is helping boost shares in Amylin Pharmaceuticals
Inc. and drug partner Eli Lilly and Co.
The giant drugmaker is in the process of trimming 35 percent—or about 19 people—from its 55-person communications
staff. Most of that staff is based in Indianapolis.
The Indiana Family and Social Services told Area Agencies on Aging that a 15-percent cut in funding for the program known
as CHOICE will save about $7.3 million from the program’s $48.8 million annual budget.
When WellPoint Inc. named Angela Braly its CEO three years ago, it touted her experience dealing with politicians and government
regulators. But WellPoint is now the poster child for health insurer bad behavior—credited in Washington with reviving a
dead health reform bill the company opposed.
Wellpoint has stuck to the $6-per-share forecast since January even after reporting that first-quarter net income jumped 51
percent, easily topping Wall Street expectations.
