Bioscience Infrastructure was key to landing Medco

Artilce by John Ketzenberger of the Indianapolis Star

Corporate executives work hard to say little, especially at big public announcements.

That's why local economic development officials beamed when Medco President Kenneth Klepper contrasted Indianapolis and Louisville, the finalist cities for a $150 million "flagship" distribution center.

"It's the work force, of course, but it's the city," Klepper said of why Medco chose Indianapolis.

"We're going to be bringing a lot of people into the city, through our facility. This is a place we know they're going to be very welcome and eager to come to."

This wasn't always the case for the burgeoning bioscience industry. Just ask John Mills, who started BioStorage Technologies in 2002.

"I would say, there was limited interest in what we wanted to do," Mills said. His company of 40 employees stores and ships biological samples for about 60 client companies. He has plenty of interest now, including $8.3 million in venture capital.

Medco, BioStorage and many other life-sciences companies aren't here by accident. They're investing here because the 50 CEOs who populate the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership realize it makes sense to play off the region's strengths.

"An event like this connects the dots for many people," said David Johnson, president of BioCrossroads, the first of CICP's efforts.

The area's work force, which Johnson said "has been trained, grown up and works in a (Food and Drug Administration)- compliant world," is an obvious dot.

Getting that work force to a position that passed muster with Medco was less apparent. Medco diced data so fine that the company knows where clusters of pharmacists live in the area.
Indiana has a deeper pool of pharmacists than most places because it has two of the nation's 100 pharmacy schools.

Medco was impressed to learn Lilly Endowment pumped $50 million into those schools last year, ensuring a pipeline of potential employees.

Remember, it was a pharmacist who created Eli Lilly and Co., the engine for much of the area's life-sciences assets, including medical devices and a large services industry.

Full text Indy Star article click here

Medco Sold on Indianapolis Region's Workforce

When Medco Health Solutions began scouting the country last year for a site to build a massive pharmacy the size of six football fields, the New Jersey company had one ironclad requirement.

The winning region had to have enough skilled workers — pharmacists, technicians and engineering experts — to staff an enormous, mail-order operation that could dispense more than 1 million prescriptions a week.

Medco officials considered 21 cities, using computer models to analyze the work-force pools before deciding it liked what it saw in Central Indiana: two pharmacy schools at Purdue and Butler universities that together turn out about 300 graduates a year, along with a technical program at Ivy Tech that could provide plenty of technical and distribution workers to operate a highly automated facility.

Medco, one of the nation’s largest pharmacy distribution companies, announced Monday that it would invest $150.million in a new facility that will employ 1,300 people by 2012.
About 120 positions will be pharmacists, with the rest consisting of pharmacy technicians, engineers, information technology specialists and managers.

Workers will make from $40,000 to $100,000 a year. The company will pump an annual payroll of about $60 million into the region.

Full text article courtesy of the Indy Star

Business Incubator Planned for Hancock County

An economic development and workforce strategies firm is establishing a business incubator in Hancock County. Thomas P. Miller and Associates says the incubator will focus on small businesses in early stage growth. The company says it will provide services including, business coaching and technology transfer to the companies.

Innovation and entrepreneurism are a vital part of a community’s economic development effort. “We are announcing today the establishment of an incubator at the Thomas P. Miller and Associates (TPMA) building off of I-70 and Mt. Comfort Road in Mount Comfort, Indiana” stated Tom Miller, President, of Thomas P. Miller and Associates, a nationally recognized firm specializing in economic development and workforce strategies. “This incubator is focused on launching and assisting small businesses in their early growth” said Miller.

For more information regarding the Indianapolis region, please visit www.indypartnership.com.

Chase to Add 125 Former Nelnet Employees to Indianapolis Operations

Chase continues to expand its Student Lending business with two key investments in staff and technology.

The investments are:

• Hiring about 125 experienced staffers made available through atransaction with an industry
  competitor
• Opening a state-of-the art loan servicing center in Mississippi

“Chase continues to expand our student lending business so we can help more students and their families access higher education,” said Danny Ray, president of Chase’s student loan business, part of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM). “With more people and new technology, we can do a better job for all of our customers.”

The former Nelnet employees in Indianapolis agreed to join Chase by Dec. 1.

In addition, Chase will sublease most of Nelnet’s office space in Indianapolis, which adds a second Student Lending originations facility in the city.
The additional employees will accelerate Chase’s plans to expand its loan-origination staff.
“This is a terrific opportunity to add experienced, knowledgeable loan originators to our staff,” Ray said.

Late last month, Chase celebrated the opening of a multimillion-dollar call center and student loan-processing facility for 275 employees in Madison, a suburb of Jackson, Miss.

For more information on the finance and insurance industries in the Indianapolis region please visit: http://www.indypartnership.com/.

Study Shows Indiana College Towns are Affordable

The importance of having a strong education system cannot be overstated enough in economic development and the Indianapolis region is lucky to have one of the nation's best. With nearly 60,000 total degrees awarded by public and private institutions from 2005-2006, the Indianapolis region is primed to support significant jobs growth the region has seen of the past year, with more than 9,000 new jobs coming to the area.

Further, the Indianapolis region is projected to award over 18,000 Five-Year Public Graduate Business School degrees over the next four years.

Indiana College towns are not only full of eager, skilled students, but also full of affordable lifestyles. According to a study released by Coldwell Banker, found that Muncie, home of Ball State University, is the nation's most affordable college town.

The average price in Muncie for a four-bedroom, two-bath home with a two-car garage is $150,000, according to Coldwell Banker's College Home Price Comparison Index.

A similar house in Palo Alto, Calif., home of Stanford University, the most expensive college town, costs about $1.68 million.Other Indiana college towns also showed well on the list.

Purdue University and Indiana University had the most affordable housing markets in the Big Ten. Homes in West Lafayette averaged $184,333, while the Bloomington average was $198,000.

And the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, led independents, with an average home price of $180,500.

For more information on the higher education environment found in the Indianapolis region please visit the Indy Partnership web site.

Indy ranked high on data center list

By Matt Stansberry, Site editor, SearchDataCenter.com

What are the three most important considerations when building a successful data center? Location, location, location.

To that end, Princeton, N.J., location consultants, The Boyd Company Inc., recently published its list of the top data center cities in the U.S. The study compares the cost of operating a data center in 35 U.S. cities -- including 25 of the nation's largest financial centers as well as 10 other locations -- ranked by estimated annual operating costs, scaled to a data center employing 75 workers and occupying 125,000 sq. ft. of new space.

Sioux Falls, S.D. $9,684,282
Winston-Salem, N.C. $9,799,928
San Antonio, Texas $10,314,249
Birmingham, Ala. $10,340,534
Ames, Iowa $10,378,916
Charlotte, N.C. $10,440,123
Indianapolis, Ind. $10,451,796
Tulsa, Okla. $10,452,228
Des Moines, Iowa $10,480,298
Columbus, Ohio $10,499,091

The Indianapolis market is the only large midwestern city on the list.

To read full story click here or for more information on the Indianapolis region please visit www.indypartnership.com.

Indiana Workplace Injuries Decline

Workplace injuries and illnesses in Indiana declined more than 5 percent from 2005 to 2006 even with an increase in the number of Hoosier workers, according to the 2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Survey of Occupational Injuries (BLS SOII).

There were 8,000 more workers in the state in 2006, but the injury and illness rate declined from 5.8 per 100 workers in 2005 to 5.4 in 2006, a 5.2 percent decline, the report said.

Indiana is home to the second lowest workers' compensation rate in the country, leading many employers to choose the Indianapolis region as a place to expand or start their manufacturing facility. As an employer within advanced manufacturing operations, having a team that knows how to put safety first is vital in today's environment. Just one injury can cost a company tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity and health care bills. This gives Indiana a competitive advantage and is a major reason why our manufacturing workforce is considered among the best in the country.

For more information on the Indianapolis region's manufacturing enviroment please visit our web site.