Articles

Local WellPoint unit eliminating 112 employees

National Government Services Inc., which processes Medicare and Medicaid claims for the federal government, attributed the job reductions to the loss of a government contract. The subsidiary will still have about 500 workers in Indianapolis.

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Q&A

Since its acquisition last year by Florida-based AssuredPartners Inc., the Indiana operations of Neace Lukens has been looking more aggressively to acquire smaller benefits brokers. In the past month, Neace Lukens has announced deals to buy Benefit Concepts, a six-person benefits consultancy in Indianapolis, and Matrix Benefits and Consulting Group, a one-person benefits shop in Fort Wayne. Eric Chelovitz, managing director of Neace Lukens’ 34-person Indianapolis office, said he expects more consolidation in the industry.

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IU Health will refund $280,000 to Medicare

Indiana University Health will refund the federal Medicare program $280,000 after an audit of almost 200 claims made by its downtown hospitals found nearly 18 percent of them had been billed improperly.

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Price pressures could ground Lilly’s growth

Most analysts agree with Eli Lilly and Co.’s prediction that, after tough years from 2012 to 2014, the drugmaker will begin growing sales and profits again. But in a new report, BMO Capital Markets predicts Lilly will get stuck at a reduced level of revenue and profit in 2014 and stay there for years.

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Activists plan to protest WellPoint political giving at meeting

A mix of union groups, activist investors and single-payer advocates will call for increased disclosure from WellPoint, and some investment funds will vote against WellPoint board members who they say have failed to exercise proper oversight of WellPoint’s political spending.

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Justices grill both sides in IU Health case

Much of the nearly 45 minutes of arguments and questioning on May 10 involved the justices and the lawyers for both parties trying unsuccessfully to apply various scenarios from the retail world of commerce to health care pricing.

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Indiana slips in life sciences funding

Indiana has taken “a giant step backward” in the availability of early-stage capital for life sciences companies, according to the Indiana Health Industry Forum—which also has a few ideas on how to reverse those developments.

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Cancer tools help Roche with Alzheimer’s drug

Treatments for central nervous system diseases have a huge potential payoff, analysts say. A hint of whether the gamble may pay off is due in the second half of this year, as Eli Lilly and Co. and Pfizer Inc. announce results for Alzheimer’s drugs that attack the same protein as Roche’s experimental drug.

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Roche scraps hoped-for cholesterol blockbuster

A second experimental cholesterol medicine in a once-promising class of drugs meant to replace blockbusters such as Lipitor has failed in testing, casting doubt on whether any of the drugs will ever make it to pharmacies. Eli Lilly is developing a similar drug.

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Lilly: Forget Alzheimer’s; think diabetes

For more than a year, Eli Lilly and Co. has been viewed by investors as a laggard stock with one, slim shot at producing a huge jackpot: its experimental Alzheimer’s drug. But now company leaders are trying to direct investor attention toward the drugmaker’s diabetes portfolio.

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