Indiana life sciences sector copes with shrinking VC pool
Venture funds nationwide crested at $100 billion in 2000, but that number last year had drooped to $18 billion.
Health Care & Life Sciences
Articles
Eli Lilly will have to beat odds to meet drug-rollout goals
Eli Lilly and Co. executives have said repeatedly that the company’s bulging pipeline will produce two new drugs per year, beginning in 2013. But only three times in the past six decades has Lilly been able to launch two or more new drugs in back-to-back years.
Carmel couple donating $45M to University of Maryland
An Indiana couple is making a $45 million donation to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which will use the money to establish a research center to study autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Zimmer quarterly profit jumps on lower costs
Warsaw-based Orthopedic implant maker Zimmer Holdings Inc. reported net income of $191.1 million, or 96 cents per share. Sales fell 1 percent to $965 million from $975.6 million.
Dow Agro sales climb, but profit suffers
Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences improved revenue during the third quarter thanks to a 26-percent increase in volume, but it still recorded a loss for the period.
Former IU tech-transfer chief: State isn’t competitive enough
Mark Long was president of the Indiana University Research & Technology Corp., which was responsible for the university’s tech transfer, before launching a consulting firm, Long Performance Advisors, in 2008.
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.
LEADING QUESTIONS: Home-health guru banks on empathy
Jan Roberts pairs numbers and nurturing—further fueled by a fight with breast cancer —to power the city's fifth largest woman-owned business.
After disagreement, Lewis leaves WellPoint with $3.2M
Dijuana Lewis will get nearly $3.2 million on her way out the door at WellPoint Inc. after what sources described as a dispute with CEO Angela Braly over a change in duties.
Employee ire forces IU to pull wellness survey
Indiana University will no longer ask employees to fill out an online health risk assessment after more than 550 people—many anonymous—attached names to an online petition that said the plan would cause “widespread anger and disillusionment.”
New estimate drops health plan’s cost to Indiana
A new estimate has lowered the expected cost of the federal health care overhaul to Indiana’s state government to perhaps $2.6 billion over the next decade.
Analysts: Lilly setbacks might spur shopping spree
CEO John Lechleiter claims Eli Lilly and Co. isn’t interested in big acquisitions to bolster its flagging drug pipeline, but its recently devalued partner Amylin Pharmaceuticals might be the right fit, industry analysts say.
Analysts grill Lilly execs on strategy after setbacks
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.
Home Health Depot acquires Arcadia subsidiary
The division purchased by Home Health Depot markets and sells home health related items via mail and online. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Lilly raises forecast after beating third-quarter profit estimates
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker reported a profit of $1.3 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30, up 38 percent compared with last year. Excluding extraordinary items from a year ago, Lilly’s profit was up 2 percent.
Lilly suspends clinical trials after diabetes treatment fails
Eli Lilly and Co. and its development partner said an experimental diabetes treatment failed to help patients in a late-stage study, the second setback for a Lilly diabetes drug candidate in two days.
Indianapolis-area experts see bright spots amid ongoing real estate weakness
Health care shows signs of life, and multi-family buildings continue to hold their own, experts said during a recent IBJ Power Breakfast.
Principal Financial shift to result in local layoffs
Financial giant Principal Financial Group Inc. is exiting the health insurance business, a move that will cost 60 Indianapolis workers their jobs.
Q&A
Amy Zucker is president of Indianapolis-based Synergy Marketing Group. Her firm was recently hired by Indianapolis-based ImmuneWorks Inc. to use a new website and search engine optimization to help recruit patients for a Phase 1 trial of ImmuneWorks experimental medicine idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The Web strategy is a new wrinkle on patient recruitment—in addition to the traditional partnerships with disease specialists at academic medical centers—that Zucker hopes leads to lower costs and faster clinical trials. Phase 1 clinical trials cost nearly $16,000 per patient.
Some Lilly-paid docs sport spotty records
Eli Lilly and Co. paid more than $102 million last year and early this year to physicians for talking up Lilly drugs to other doctors. Yet 88 of the doctors Lilly pays have been sanctioned by state medical boards.