News and notes from the day in MedCity, Ohio:
A new tax on medical device manufacturers in the U.S. Senate’s health insurance reform bill may force Elyria-based Invacare Corp., which employs 1,300 people in Northeast Ohio, to shift jobs to China or Mexico to remain in business, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Under the bill, Invacare would pay taxes exceeding all of the company’s domestic earnings, research and development budget, Ohio GOP Sen. George Voinovich said in a Monday night Senate floor speech that attacked the tax proposal. The company may send jobs abroad if the tax is implemented.
Independent broker and investment research firm WBBÂ Securities LLC has raised its rating on Athersys Inc. stock to “buy” from “speculative buy,” with a price target of $8, according to Briefing.com. On Monday, Athersys announced a development and commercialization deal with Pfizer Regenerative Medicine that could generate as much as $111 million in revenue. The Pfizer unit will use Athersys’ adult stem cell therapy MultiStem to develop a treatment for sufferers of inflammatory bowel disease. After gaining 141 percent on Monday, Athersys shares rose another 131 percent, or $3.15, to $5.55 today.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus recently was awarded an initial $5.5 million contract from the National Cancer Institute to serve as a biospecimen core resource for the Cancer Genome Atlas, a program co-managed by the cancer institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute, both part of the National Institutes of Health, according to a Nationwide Children’s press release. Following a three-year pilot phase, the Cancer Genome Atlas plans to create a catalog of the genomic changes involved in more than 20 common types of cancer. This effort is being carried out by a network of more than 100 researchers at organizations across the nation.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Avon Democrat, didn’t get the government-run insurance option he badly wanted included in the Senate health-care bill, but neither did the Ohio Democrat win a passel of pork in exchange for his vote, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Some of Brown’s counterparts won special favors for their states. That’s because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, needed all 58 Senate Democrats and two independents who vote with Democrats to overcome a GOP filibuster of a bill expected to pass on Christmas Eve.
Construction of the Cleveland Clinic facility on Just Imagine Drive is set to begin in the spring, according to the Lorain Morning Journal. City Council OK’d project management firm URS Corp. to begin for construction on the $98 million facility. URS Director of Facilities and Design David Dickinson said the roughly 181,000-square-foot building will have a four-story family health center, and a two-story ambulatory surgery center with a 24-hour emergency room and helicopter pad.
Meanwhile, Oliver “Pudge” Henkel, the Clinic’s chief government relations officer, has been appointed to the Ohio Health Care Coverage and Quality Council, according to the Sun Press. The council, which was formed in July, advises the governor, general assembly and consumers on ways to expand affordable health insurance coverage, and to improve the cost and quality of the state’s insurance system.
