Night Read (Minnesota): Bad economy forces Elk Run developer to alter biotech plans

Here are some news/notes from a day in MedCity, Minnesota:

A senior executive with Tower Investments told Finance & Commerce in Minneapolis that a weak economy has forced the developer to build a more commercially viable 50,000 square biotech manufacturing facility first outside Pine Island and then proceed to a 40,000 square foot research facility. Much of the space in the latter building was designed for incubator and lab work to help researchers conduct experiments related to bioscience. That was what Tower billed as the nonprofit Biotechnology Center at Elk Run (BCER) research, development and manufacturing facility in June 2008.

Shares in UnitedHealth Group Inc. in Minnetonka and WellPoint rose sharply Monday, following news late Friday that the federal government will not implement expected cuts in reimbursements for insurers offering Medicare coverage, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.

Kurt Zellers doesn’t act like a man with a new job herding cats. But as the new House minority leader, the Maple Grove Republican is charged with doing almost exactly that, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. And after Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Thursday vetoed an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill rescuing a health care program aimed at the poorest Minnesotans, Zellers quickly vowed to keep his members in line and sustain the veto.

A Plymouth-based start-up called BridgePoint Medical has developed a device-based technology to treat patients with totally clogged arteries, according to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. The company has initiated a 149-patient clinical trial at 18 hospitals nationwide, which includes 16 cases at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis so far.