popular 1970 song by R. Dean Taylor went by the title of "Indiana Wants Me." That song was about anything but economic development, but its title could aptly describe the state's major push to grow its diverse life sciences sector. The Hoosier State is in the midst of a string of successes in the industry, where investors run the gamut from A to Z – as in Arcadia HealthCare to Zimmer.    Arcadia HealthCare, a national provider of alternate-site health-care services and products, is moving its headquarters from Southfield, Mich., to Indianapolis. The company is investing US$3 million in the move and is in the process of hiring managers, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and sales staff. Plans call for creation of more than 400 jobs by 2010.
   Marvin Richardson, Arcadia's president and CEO, says Indiana's central location in the U.S. is a big draw. The move comes as Arcadia readies the national launch of its DailyMed product, a retail drug packaging system.
   "We do a lot of mail order business, particularly on the pharmacy side of the business and particularly with DailyMed," Richardson says. "Having a FedEx hub helps us in terms of distribution of our product."
   Richardson also praises Indiana's work force and work ethic. Arcadia will be hiring pharmacists and pharmacist technicians. Two strong pharmaceutical schools in the state at Purdue University and Butler University are a plus.
   "Purdue and Butler are both highly rated and produce good kids," Richardson says. "That helps in our recruiting efforts."
   Richardson says Arcadia also looked at sites in its home state of Michigan and in Minnesota.
   "The bottom line was that I was driving from Minneapolis to Rochester and the phone rang and it was Governor Mitch Daniels," Richardson recalls. "He took personal interest in our business and took time to understand our needs. We talked at least three times and met twice. He has a solid grasp of the types of businesses he wants to draw. We developed a relationship that transcended anything we were doing."
   Arcadia has already moved its corporate headquarters functions to Indianapolis and is building a central fill mail-order pharmacy for its DailyMed product, as well as a call center.
   "If you listen to Indiana state officials, they will tell you that in many cases the state trains and educates a lot of health-care-related employees, but most leave the state because there is not an adequate number of jobs," says Richardson. "They are trying to do something about that. There isn't a lot of competition now for these jobs, but it's getting greater by the day with all of these announcements. If we had gone to Minnesota, competition would have been much higher for the same type of employee we are hiring."
   Medco, the largest U.S. mail-order pharmacy, also likes Indiana's central location and the pharmacy school graduates it produces. That helped lead the company to pick central Indiana as the site for its new 318,000-sq.-ft. (29,542-sq.-m.) facility. Medco expected to name a site in one of three counties south of Indianapolis – Bloom, Hendrix or Johnson – by the end of 2007. Medco plans to open the mammoth, $140-million facility in early 2009 and create 1,300 jobs by 2012. Indiana was chosen after a search that covered 48 states. The mail-order facility will employ pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, engineering technology, pharmacy support and management positions, and will dispense more than one million prescriptions a week. The company currently has mail-order facilities in Las Vegas and in New Jersey.
   "Indiana's pharmacy schools at Butler and Purdue, its favorable business environment and Gov. Daniels' willingness to work with Medco were all factors," says company spokesman Lowell Weiner.
   Medco's clients include health-care companies serving large corporations and government agencies. Weiner says about one in five Americans have Medco as their prescription drug manager.    Another health-care company with big plans is OBS Medical, a spinout of the U.K.'s Oxford University. OBS is a high-tech medical company with two promising product lines, says its president and CEO, Frank Cheng. The journey from Oxford to the Indianapolis area began about three years ago, he says.
   "We were introduced to a major hospital system in downtown Indianapolis, Clarion Health, the largest health-care system in Indiana, which is associated with the Indiana University medical school," says Cheng. "We started working on a project in 2004. When I joined the company as CEO, I was looking for a location to expand our business not just in the States, but possibly as a worldwide headquarters as well."
   Major factors Cheng considered included a need for efficient transportation for employees and customers, available economic incentives and the availability of industry-related infrastructure. He says OBS considered sites in Boston, North Carolina, New Jersey, Chicago, Milwaukee, the San Francisco Bay area and Seattle, before deciding on Indiana.
   "We compared several spots and we always came back to Indiana and Indianapolis as an attractive place to operate," Cheng says.
   OBS is currently operating in a leased facility with 15 employees in the suburb of Carmel. Cheng anticipates his growing business will grow that job force to more than 100 within the next couple of years.
   OBS develops, validates and installs software that goes into Viscensia, a device that gives medical personnel an accurate assessment of a patient's condition. Viscensia evaluates heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, oxygen saturation and blood pressure, and combines this data into a measurable index called the Viscensia Index.
   The product received FDA clearance in 2006 and is currently being used in a clinical trial at Clarion Health's Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and other hospitals in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
   Cheng says OBS will be hiring software developers, technical service and customer service employees and marketers as it ramps up its business. In the near term, he says, the critical need is in the technical disciplines. He also expects OBS to branch into other innovative health-care products in the coming years. He believes Indiana is fast becoming a major force in the sector, and he gives a lot of credit to Gov. Daniels.
   "Governor Mitch Daniels has systematically tried to build up the life sciences industry in Indiana," Cheng says. "My personal observation is that Indiana has tripled the number of life sciences companies operating in the state compared to a couple of years ago."    One of the biggest job-promises projects with a health-care connection was unveiled in November in Jeffersonville. Connextions, a Florida-based business process outsourcing firm, plans to create 750 jobs by the end of 2008 as it develops a customer-care facility. While Connextions serves a number of business sectors, its forte is in health care. The company is now developing a shell building of about 70,000 sq. ft. (6,500 sq. m.).
   "The biggest piece of our decision was the people in the community," says Mike Tripp, Connextions' executive vice president, operations. "The Jeffersonville area has folks with the right talent and skill sets. We were very encouraged with the community and what we saw in the state and the surrounding area."
   The Jeffersonville decision came after Connextions examined sites across the nation, including Phoenix and several East Coast locations.
   "We like the neutral accent we get out of the Midwest," Tripp says.
   The new jobs will include standard customer service agents all the way up to registered nurses and licensed insurance agents, Tripp says. About half of the operation will be devoted to the health-care sector. He says Indiana's growing reputation in that sector was among the factors Connextions considered.
   "None of our searches are very easy," Tripp says. "We actually had been in Kentucky at one point during a previous search and we got a tip that we needed to look over at the Indiana side. We ended up coming back and looking at the whole general area."
   Once the Jeffersonville center ramps up, look for Connextions to launch a search for its next site.
   "We estimate we will start the process over again after we open in Jeffersonville," Tripp says. "We might go for an exclusive health-care play or a commercial play. It really depends on what the market brings."    Indiana boasts an $8 billion orthopedic industry. That sector will grow with the addition of CSpine Inc., an orthopedics development and consulting group that plans to locate its new R&D prototype manufacturing operation in Plymouth, creating up to 49 jobs by 2012. The firm, which specializes in the development and manufacturing of FDA-approved orthopedic and dental devices, will invest more than $3 million to build and equip its new 4,000-sq.-ft. (371-sq.-m.) facility, with plans to complete construction in mid-2008.