BioCrossroads helping laid-off life sciences workers land safely
Indiana firms have dismissed more than 1,400 life science workers over the last two years. Now BioCrossroads has launched a website that aims to keep that talent in the state.
Indiana firms have dismissed more than 1,400 life science workers over the last two years. Now BioCrossroads has launched a website that aims to keep that talent in the state.
Wall Street analysts on Thursday demanded to know what new things Eli Lilly and Co. is planning since the company’s vaunted pipeline has failed to produce a drug that will boost revenue after a wave of patent expirations. The answer: Not much.
Stock in Eli Lilly and Co., Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Alkermes Inc. dropped after they were rebuffed a second time in a bid to gain U.S. approval of a once-weekly version of the diabetes drug Byetta.
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. will close its drug discovery center in Singapore, three years into a five-year, $150 million plan to expand it.
The site allows users to create and save sales proposals online. Those sending the proposals then can track who is viewing the documents, which parts they’re examining and for how long.
The case alleges the sporting goods firm broke Indiana law by requiring employees to work when they were on break and at other times they weren’t on the clock.
For the fourth consecutive year, Clarian Health’s Methodist Hospital made the list of the top-five hospitals that are part of U.S. academic medical centers. The University HealthSystem Consortium based its rankings on its annual Quality and Accountability Study, which includes 98 academic medical centers around the country. The study examines hospitals on such issues as safety, timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity and patient-centeredness. The other four hospitals honored this year were the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.; the University of Utah Hospitals in Salt Lake City; the University Medical Center in Tuscon, Ariz.; and the Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pa. Clarian Health is a joint venture of Methodist Hospital and the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Community Health Network will add three slots to its family medicine residency program and restructure the program’s curriculum around the medical home concept. The Indianapolis-based hospital system has received $2.4 million from three federal grants to fund the changes. Community will use $1.3 million over five years from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop the medical home concept, which attempts to let one family physician coordinate all the primary care needs of one patient, rather than having patients on their own go to numerous doctors for primary care. A second $960,000 grant will allow Community to expand yearly family residents from 21 to 24. The three extra slots will all be filled by doctors trained in osteopathic medicine. And a third grant of $213,000 will help Community buy needed equipment to support its program expansion. Community is the second local institution in a month to expand its family residency program. In late September, the Indiana University School of Medicine said it would use $1.9 million in stimulus funds to add two slots to its program in the Lafayette area.
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Wyoming have genetically engineered silkworms to produce artificial spider silk in quantities large enough to be commercially viable. The researchers are working with Michigan-based Kraig Biocraft Laboratories to commercialize the technology for medical, industrial and consumer applications. Spider silk has significantly higher tensile strength and elasticity than natural silkworm fibers. Notre Dame researchers claim the silk produced by their genetically engineered silkworms have qualities much closer to spider silk. In the medical arena, researchers hope artifical spider silk could be used to make suture materials, wound-healing bandages, or natural scaffolds for tendon and ligament repair or replacement. They think the artifical spider silk also could be used to make bulletproof vests, strong and lightweight fabrics for athletic clothing and improved automobile airbags.
Clarian Health named Dr. Philip Dulberger CEO and chief medical officer of its Clarian Saxony Medical Center, which is under construction in Fishers. Dulberger, an anesthesiologist, was hired by Clarian in 2006 to lead the development of the new hospital.
BioCrossroads has elected Darren Carroll, vice president of new ventures at Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., to the organization’s board of directors. Carroll oversees Lilly’s venture capital investments in the U.S. and Asia. He has previously chaired investment advisory committees for investment funds operated by BioCrossroads, an Indianapolis-based life sciences development group.
Eli Lilly and Co. named Jeffrey Winton its vice president of communications. Beginning Oct. 11, he will report to Bart Peterson, Lilly’s senior vice president of corporate affairs and communications. Winton has worked in communications roles for a variety of pharmaceutical firms, including Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals, Schering-Plough, Pharmacia, Hoffmann-La Roche and American Cyanamid.
Jessica Jochim, a physician assistant, has joined St. Francis Medical Group Vascular Surgeons. She did her medical training at Butler University.
A drug-coated stent from Indiana-based Cook Medical was more effective than standard therapy for patients with blockages in an upper-leg artery, a study found.
Dorothy Henckel, president of the Indianapolis International Film Festival, has accepted a job as director of acquisitions for The Documentary Channel.
Methodist Hospital is spending $27 million to renovate its neurosurgery suites as the centerpiece of a big expansion its owner, Clarian Health, hopes will create nearly 1,200 jobs over the next decade and vault Methodist into the top 10 neurosurgery sites in the nation.
Through Oct. 31
Indiana State Museum
A “coral” reef—consisting of the work of volunteer crocheters from around the state—is displayed through the end of October. But don’t expect it to look exactly the same each time you stop in. Visitors can bring their own pieces—or pick up a handy beginners kit at the Museum—to add to the work, which is an offshore offshoot of “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project” created for the Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles. Details here.
Roche Diagnostics agreed to pay $100 million to acquire California-based BioImagene Inc., a maker of tissue-based
cancer diagnostic equipment, according to Reuters. Such diagnostic tools are becoming increasingly important to identify the
small groups of patients who are the targets of new cancer drugs aimed at specific genetic profiles. Switzerland-based Roche
also has a pharmaceutical business and is the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs. The company’s U.S. diagnostic
business is headquartered in Indianapolis, though its tissue diagnostics is concentrated in Arizona.
Drug developer Endocyte Inc. has raised more than $100 million in private investment and grant funding,
so it’s now going to test the public markets. The company, headquartered at Purdue University Park in West Lafayette,
filed last week for an initial public offering. Endocyte has a pipeline of drugs in development for the treatment of various
cancers and inflammatory diseases, including six drugs in clinical trials. Endocyte’s IPO is the third announced so
far this year in Indiana. Fort Wayne-based Vera Bradley Inc., a handbag maker, filed plans last month to raise $175 million.
Evansville-based UCI International, a supplier of replacement parts for the light- and heavy-duty vehicle aftermarket, said
in July it plans to raise $200 million. Nationally, the IPO market looks to be improving. So far this year 170 have been filed,
topping the 119 filed in 2009 and the 153 in 2008.
Indiana is getting a $1 million federal grant to improve monitoring of health insurance premiums and develop a website to
help consumers, according to the Associated Press. The grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is
part of the federal health reform bill. The Indiana Department of Insurance will use the money to hire actuaries to help it
review proposed premium increases. It also will develop a website on which consumers can review rate filings and post comments.
Filings currently are only available in paper form upon request.
The Pirates, the Major League parent club of the Indianapolis Indians, made nearly $29.4 million in 2007 and 2008, according
to team financial documents, years that were part of a streak of futility that has now reached 18 straight losing seasons.
Leaders tackle issues ranging from research to cold storage to the future of Eli Lilly and Co.
With Eli Lilly, Roche Diagnostics and other large life sciences companies shedding jobs, Indiana needs small
life sciences startups to fill the void. To help such companies, two former Lilly employees are starting an institutional
review board that will help small companies launch clinical trials of their innovative technologies. Pearl IRB,
based in Indianapolis, is run by Lilly alumnae Diana Caldwell and Gretchen Miller Bowker. It is, according to the Indiana
Health Industry Forum, the first commercial institutional review board in the state. That’s significant because such
boards must approve clinical trials before such research on humans can begin. Typically, universities and large hospitals
have institutional review boards, but they are not normally available for researchers not affiliated in some way with those
institutions.
Iraq war veteran Nate Richardson is now using his battlefield experience to launch his own business. His company, Anderson-based
Coeus Technology, developed an antimicrobial liquid it says can be added to military uniforms and equipment
to make them resistant to germs for longer periods of time than current products. The U.S. Army Material Command is currently
testing Coeus’ MonoFoil Technology for its use. But Coeus is also pursuing sales of MonoFoil to civilian users, such
as hospitals and schools. Coeus opened a year ago in Anderson’s Flagship Enterprise Center. It plans to add packing,
filling and research facilities in the next two years, creating 30 to 50 jobs by 2012.
A team of researchers at Purdue University say they’ve found a new marker for prostate cancer that
could replace the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) that is now the leading indicator for the disease. Purdue chemist Graham
Cooks and Purdue oncologist Timothy Ratliff led the team, which found that the compound cholesterol sulfate occurs in prostate
cancer tumors but not in healthy prostate tissue. That stark difference could prove better than PSA, which sometimes appears
at elevated levels in prostates that are inflamed or enlarged, but not cancerous.
The California-based Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded $364,000 to more than double Indiana University’s
repository of fruit flies, which have served as the basis of most genetic research for the past century. The Bloomington Drosophila
Stock Center houses 30,000 fruit fly strains and helps develop scientific tools that are used to design new fly strains. The
new grant will allow the stock center to expand to as many as 70,000 fruit fly variants. When the stock center moved from
the California Institute of Technology to Indiana University 25 year ago, it was home to only 1,675 strains.
Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences posted a profit of $196 million, up from $140 million in the same quarter
last year, according to Bloomberg News. Second-quarter revenue increased 4 percent, to $1.3 billion, for the unit of Michigan-based
Dow Chemical Co. Company officials credited increased sales for Dow AgroSciences’ herbicides, including some new products,
in spite of weather-related delays.
Eli Lilly and Co. is launching a diagnostics division to produce tests that can winnow out the patients most likely to benefit
from a Lilly drug.