Idec Pharmaceuticals to Build Billion-Dollar Oceanside Facility
UltraLink, Costa Mesa, an iBenefits company, is hoping to expand an Internet-based group health insurance purchasing program it developed beyond a just-completed test with American Airlines. UltraLink officials claim the pilot e-commerce exchange helped American Airlines save 2.2% on its HMO premiums in California and Texas.
Santa Ana-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., Kaiser Permanente, Health Net and Maxicare were among the HMOs that participated in the exchange. It worked like this: A Web site was created for participating HMOs to go to to download bid documents, complete required information and upload the documents back through the site for consideration by American Airlines’ benefits administrators.
UltraLink’s site also allowed the HMOs to see their bids’ rankings against those of other firms and change their bid proposals at the last minute. Bid dollar amounts were not posted, but the plans’ respective rankings were posted. UltraLink said participating carriers could,and did,change their bids up until the exchange was completed.
“The UltraLink product clearly merges technology with human interaction,” said Gayla Coffelt, American Airlines’ benefit plans manager, in a news release. Coffelt said her company was comfortable with UltraLink’s approach to the negotiation and bidding process.
“Procurement is laborious and lengthy. It takes about seven to eight months. (With this), you can shrink the time to four months. You bring efficiencies to the process,” said Mike Rivera, an UltraLink vice president, adding that getting away from a paper-based system could help employers reduce health premiums.
Several national benefit studies have forecast HMOs’ premiums to increase by double digits, primarily because of higher pharmaceutical and technology costs.
“Employers are desperate to reduce their premiums,” Rivera said.
Some observers have said that technology could reduce the role of brokers in the health-insurance distribution system. Rivera, however, said that UltraLink’s product would “absolutely (have a) role for the broker. The broker can utilize it as a distributor.”
UltraLink has been based in Costa Mesa for around 10 years. It just completed a merger with iBenefits Inc., an El Segundo-based application service provider to the employee benefits industry that offers Web-based enrollment and administration tools to mid-size and large employers, benefits brokers, third-party administrators and insurance carriers.
Idec Adds Research Site
Idec Pharmaceuticals Corp., La Jolla, is building a $1.3 billion, campus-style drug manufacturing and research center in Oceanside. The Oceanside City Council voted this month to approve an incentive package to persuade the publicly traded company to build its center on a 60-acre site in the Ocean Ranch Corporate Centre, a project of Stirling Development of Irvine.
Documents from Oceanside’s Economic Development Department show Idec’s facility is projected to provide up to 2,427 manufacturing and R & D; jobs with average wage rates of $45,000 to $60,000 a year. Idec, which had sales of $118 million last year, developed a pharmaceutical called Rituxan that is used to treat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It has other drugs under development.
Bits and Pieces:
I-Flow Corp., Lake Forest, said the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration has accepted its ON-Q pain management system under Medicare’s new prospective payment system Endologix Inc., Irvine, said it received Food and Drug Administration approval to start its Phase 2 clinical trials studying the safety and effectiveness of its PowerLink system in treating abdominal aortic aneurysms. Endologix also was issued two U.S. patents for its technology Micro Therapeutics Inc., Irvine, was cleared by the FDA to market an addition to its Rebar microcatheters and the Mirage Guidewire, a device for reaching arteriovenous malformations in the brain National Data Corp. signed a contract with MedCom USA Inc., Irvine. The pact provides MedCom and its paperless claims processing system additional connectivity through National Data’s health information network, allowing for additional processing of government payer claims Coastal Fertility Medical Center, Irvine, said it would introduce a genetic testing tool known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis this fall. The test allows for detection of abnormalities in 3-day-old embryos via DNA probes; such abnormalities are considered a principal reason for in-vitro fertilization failures … Kaiser Permanente gave a $20,000 community-service grant to AIDS Services Foundation, Irvine. The money will be used to provide transportation for people who are HIV-positive or have full-blown AIDS Doctors at Talbert Medical Group, Costa Mesa, endorsed having their patients use new personal immediate response systems for monitoring their conditions.
