Employers slow to act on health reform
Even though employers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down at least some of the 2010 health reform law later this month, few are actually doing any contingency planning.
Health Care
Articles
Orthopedic startups attracting big money
The Warsaw area is well-known as the home of gigantic orthopedic implant companies and their suppliers. But now a handful of startups have been able to raise nearly $25 million in equity investments despite the recession—putting a bit more fuel into a fairly stagnant entrepreneurial sector.
Domestic-partner benefits proposal introduced
Health-care benefits would be offered to the domestic partners of Indianapolis city workers under a proposal introduced Monday night to the City-County Council.
WellPoint buying 1-800 Contacts for about $900M
The Indianapolis-based health insurer said 1-800 Contacts is attractive partly because it has bigger profit margins than its core insurance business, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Area company rolls out inventive wellness benefit
EMC Precision Machining in Sheridan will give each of its 93 employees a new bicycle Friday for exceeding company cost-cutting goals.
Mainstreet signs operator for new health care properties
A Cicero-based developer has signed a national senior-living company to operate four new properties it plans for Indiana.
Price hikes offset slower health care use
Newly available data from private health insurance plans show that price hikes by hospitals, doctors and drug companies have kept employer spending rising recently even as their employees and dependents have moderated their consumption of health care services.
Fort Wayne health IT firm looks to Indianapolis for talent
By the end of 2012, Medical Informatics Engineering anticipates that its six-person Indianapolis workforce will have doubled to 12, then to as many as 25 over the following year or so.
Physician buyouts bruising hospitals
As St. Vincent Health has nearly doubled the number of physicians it employs over the past two years, the losses on those practices have mounted. And the same thing is happening at all the major Indianapolis hospital systems, as all have spent the past four years aggressively acquiring physician practices.
FDA’s $6.4B drug review fee plan passes Senate
The U.S. Senate voted to let regulators collect on a $6.4 billion fee agreement struck with Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co., Medtronic Inc. and other companies to fund reviews of new drugs and medical devices through 2017.
Howard officials OK hospital merger with Community
The merger of Kokomo’s Howard Regional Health System into Indianapolis-based Community Health Network received final approval Tuesday night.
Good cholesterol may not lower heart risk, study suggests
Raising good cholesterol, a goal pursued by Eli Lilly and Co. as the next milestone in cardiac care, may not cut heart-attack risk, says a study that challenges the development of drugs that may someday generate billions of dollars in sales.
U.S. losing drug-research jobs to other countries
Eli Lilly and other big pharmaceutical companies are creating thousands of research jobs overseas as countries led by Singapore, Ireland and South Africa boost incentives.
Lilly unlikely to gain from Plavix patent loss, analyst says
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. and London-based AstraZeneca Plc aren't expected to have an easier time gaining more of the market for blood thinners dominated by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Plavix after the drug loses U.S. patent protection Thursday.
WellPoint protestors harass Braly as political disclosure proposal fails
The proposal, which sought twice-yearly reports on all the health insurer’s donations used for political campaigns or lobbying, was overwhelmingly voted down by WellPoint shareholders.
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.
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.
Purdue looks to new clinic to cut health costs
Purdue University's trustees approved plans Friday for a new campus medical clinic that administrators expect eventually will cut the school's health care costs for employees and their families.
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.
State’s high court to weigh hospital bills
The Indiana Supreme Court this week will consider whether hospital billing practices should be put on trial. The state’s highest court will hear oral arguments Thursday in a case in which two uninsured patients have sued Indiana University Health for charging them much higher prices than it would have charged insured patients.