The bill that President Donald Trump signed Monday night to reopen the federal government included a two-year delay in implementing a tax on medical devices, bringing praise from Indiana-based Cook Group.
Medical-device maker Cook Group expects to start work in December on an expansion project as it takes over a former General Electric refrigerator factory in Bloomington.
Nearly 3,000 people have sued the Bloomington-based device maker, claiming the filters malfunctioned, sometimes piercing organs.
Cook officials cast the sale of Cook Pharmica and the purchase of what once was the world’s largest refrigerator factory as good news for Bloomington.
The first case against Bloomington-based Cook Group from patients who say the company’s blood-clot filters malfunctioned is headed for trial this fall in Indianapolis.
For years, medical-device makers in Indiana and around the nation have insisted that the 2.3 percent tax on sales to help fund the Affordable Care Act has hurt business and slowed innovation.
The company said the expansion would help it retain 68 employees in Marion County who make an average of $28.85 per hour and hire 82 making similar wages over the next five years.
The lawsuits against Cook Medical began four years ago with a trickle but have since turned into a gusher, now surpassing 500.
It’s the largest recall in recent years for Cook, which previously had issued four recalls covering more than 400,000 catheters and pressuring monitoring sets in the past two years.
William S. Gibbons Jr., Cook's vice president of of global engineering, and his 15-year-old daughter, Abbey, were killed when the plane crashed into Buffalo Mountain in eastern Tennessee.
Cook Pharmica, a subsidiary of Bloomington-based medical device maker Cook Group, currently employs 575 workers who manufacture and package drugs for use in clinical trials or for sale on the market.
Patients from around the country have filed 100 lawsuits against Bloomington-based Cook, alleging that some of its blood-clot filters have broken apart, moved or poked through the blood vessel where they are implanted.
Kem Hawkins, who has been president of Cook Group Inc. since 2001, will retire on July 1. He will be replaced by Pete Yonkman, who since 2013 has been president of Cook Medical, the Cook subsidiary that makes medical devices.
Cook Group Inc. CEO Carl Cook is the richest person in Indiana with a net worth of $6.5 billion, according to calculations released Monday by Forbes magazine.
Slowing domestic growth pushes executives to brighter markets.
Cook Group Inc. CEO Carl Cook is among four Hoosiers on Forbes’ annual list of the 400 richest people in America.
Bloomington-based Cook Medical Inc. recently launched two new products and expects to launch eight to 10 more over the next year.
For leaders of a company looking back on 50 years of existence, Cook Group President Kem Hawkins and Chairman Steve Ferguson spend a lot of time talking about the future.
While Bloomington-based medical-device maker won approval for new bile duct stent, it has recalled its hot-selling arterial stent from all global markets.
The effort to launch the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute got $25 million from the Legislature, but the life sciences institutions backing the effort have set their funding sights much higher.
