Company Stories B-E

Stories that earlier appeared in Nelson's News

Bandgap (Columbia, SC)

Bandgap Technologies (Columbia, SC), a maker of SiC substrates, will be bought up by another private bandgap company INTRINSIC Semiconductor (Sterling VA) . Bangap was founded in 2000 and has had at least three Phase 2 SBIRs all funded by BMDO. Intrinsic had one BMDO Phase 1 in 2003. Bangap materials was recently highlighted in a new MDA Technology Applications report Through the Forbidden Band in which it was obvious that BMDO's only route to revolutionary technology is the SBIR program that existed before 2002.

Ballard Power Systems

Fuel Cell Future Moves Further Off. Ballard Power Systems is chopping 400 employees, or nearly 30% of its work force, cutting development spending and seeking buyers for parts of its business. Even by Ballard's own reckoning, profitability is still five years off, which means it has to conserve cash, develop other revenue streams and persuade investors to stay the course until its engine technology becomes commercially viable. [TAMSIN CARLISLE, Wall Street Journal, Dec 27] SBIR hopefuls with a commercialization story, take note. Your projections of commercial success are probably fantasy. The good news for getting the government money is that the government neither knows nor cares whether you are right or wrong. They get the technology whatever happens to you.

Barrier Therapeutics (Princeton, NJ)

The purchase of a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company that currently outsources all of its manufacturing could be good news for the Stiefel Laboratories (Coral Gables, FL) plant here in Greene County. Stiefel said Monday it is offering [$148 million] for Barrier Therapeutics (Princeton, NJ; no SBIR). [Eric Anderson, Albany Times-Union, Jun 24]

Beacon Power

Beacon Power received a commitment from an unnamed investor to raise $7.9 million through a private placement of stock and warrants under a previously filed a shelf registration. [Mass High Tech, Oct 10]

Beacon Power has been around for 10 years and has invested $150 million in the [flywheel] concept, with hardly any revenue to show for it so far. Now, the company is building its first large-scale commercial system, capable of storing and releasing 5 million watts of power. [Boston Globe, Sep 15]

Beacon Power wants to build a unique array of 200 flywheel batteries over several acres to store spare power from New York's electrical grid and zap it back as needed. ... to connect the 20-megawatt, short-term energy storage unit to New York's power grid in Stephentown, a rural community near the Massachusetts border. The company claims the matrix of batteries would make the grid more efficient and conserve energy, though they have some final hurdles to clear. [Boston Globe, Jun 14]

...the nation's first flywheel frequency regulation plant, in which an array of massive flywheels spinning at up to 16,000 revolutions per minute will help smooth the electrical grid. .... the $50 million flywheel plant by Beacon Power -- will regulate the grid without burning any fuel. Instead, 200 flywheels -- each a rotating disk standing 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide -- will spin using motors that draw excess energy from the grid when it is not needed. ... A 20-megawatt flywheel plant should prevent the release of up to 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, [says Beacon]. [Brian Nearing, Albany Times-Union, May 13, 08]

Beacon Power (Wilmington MA) got a commitment for $25M in new funding from three of the company's previous investors [Mass High Tech, Oct 26]

Beacon Power up 12% on news of completed tests of a key product.

Fuel from Soybeans. A Chicago-area company with visions of becoming a biodiesel producer plans to build its first plant near Seymour, based on a new technology from India.

Beeco

A spinoff from RTI International that aims to make circuit boards obsolete has raised $5 million.... Beeco's challenge is convincing the market to adopt a game-changing technology. .... A reconfigurable computer, [CEO John ]Goehrke said, is one "that changes its configuration to maximize performance based on the application it is addressing." They're used in applications where "intense computing power is needed," such as gene sequencing. Beeco's computer is expected to cost $70,000 to $75,000 and is planned to hit the market in the third quarter of 2009. ... Goehrke is the former chief operating officer of Luna Innovations, a publicly traded company based in Blacksburg, Va [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 10, 08]

Benefuel

Construction of the 10 million-gallon-a-year plant, which will cost under $20 million to build, could begin this year or early next, said Rob Tripp, chief executive of Benefuel, (Mt. Prospect, IL) which was formed last year. [Jeff Swiatek, Indianapolis Star, Oct 10] Benefuel's website claims the worlds most advanced, solid catalyst biodiesel refining platform ... and a business model of locating multiple, small refineries near the source of inputs and consumption. An economic note: the worldwide demand for fuel and food is driving up the price of both petroleum and crops. Eventually, the feedstock for such bio-source fuel plants will rise to make them unprofitable and a market shake-out will ensue. The tipping point is still unknown as the rush to produce ethanol and bio-diesel is still in full swing.

BetaBatt (Rochester, NY)

Start with a little tritium. The University of Rochester (NY) and a startup, BetaBatt< have cooked up a betavoltaics-based "nuclear" battery that can run for over a decade on the electrons generated by the natural decay of the radioactive isotope tritium. ... They've actually been tested in labs for 50 years -- but they generate so little power that a larger commercial role for them has yet to be found. So far, tritium-powered betavoltaics, which require minimal shielding and are unable to penetrate human skin, have been used to light exit signs and glow-in-the-dark watches. ... The fabrication techniques may be affordable, but the tritium itself -- a byproduct of nuclear power production -- is still more expensive than the lithium in your cell-phone battery. [Eric Brown, MIT Tech Review, Jun 16] Sounds straightforward until the question of where to get commercial tritium comes up. The quickest source would the nation's hydrogen bombs being destroyed. The Energy Department studies estimate the cost of a new tritium production for bombs would be several billions. But even if a commercially reasonable cost source could be found, the tritium is environmentally dangerous in groundwater, and the "no-more bomb" critics note that Using commercial reactors to produce tritium is unproven technology and thus poses unknown dangers.

BG Medicine (Waltham, MA)

BG Medicine (Waltham, MA; no SBIR) garnered $40 million in fourth-round funding for use in commercialization of its first two biomarker-based diagnostic tools. [Mass High Tech, Jul 17, 08]

BG Medicine (Waltham, MA; no SBIR) raised $40 million in its latest round of venture capital, in addition to $52 million it had previously raised. The company had originally tried to raise money through an initial public offering, but yanked the IPO filing in January citing market turmoil. No venture-backed companies have been able to go public so far this year in Massachusetts. BG, which has 39 employees, is trying to develop novel medical tests for congestive heart failure and other maladies based on proteins and other molecules found in the body. [Boston Globe, Jul 18]

Bind Bioscience (Cambridge MA)

Bind Bioscience (Cambridge MA; no prior SBIR) got a $150K NIH Phase 1 SBIR to advance a treatment for hormone refractory prostate cancer. ... was co-founded by MIT professor Robert Langer, has raised more than $2.5 million in VC seed capital [Mass High Tech, Oct 8, 07]

BioAdvanTek (Angola, IN)

BioAdvanTek (Angola, IN; founded in 2006) has developed an antimicrobial technology that can be incorporated into almost anything -- from grocery-cart handles to hospital supplies to children's toys. ... while not the first to tackle antimicrobial issues -- is the first that doesn't leach out of products and into the environment. ... not yet recorded any sales, but is working with a large manufacturer of an industrial-strength shrink- wrap-type product, as well as a "significant" orthopedic specialist. [Chuck Bowen, Indianapolis Star, Nov 20]

Bioanalytical Systems

Bioanalytical Systems down 11% [Sep 26, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems up 11% [Sep 23, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems down 11% [Sep 9, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems down 10% [Jun 30, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems up 13% [Jun 27, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems up 27% [Jun 10, 08]

Bioanalytical Systems down 10% [Jan 14, 08]

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (Birmingham AL)

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals up 12% [Jul 28, 08] after the company said an injectible version of its experimental seasonal flu drug met a midstage study goal of alleviating symptoms. [AP]

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals up 14% [Mar 31, 08]

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals up 11% [Mar 26, 08]

BioCryst Pharma down 12% [Mar 10, 08]

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals up 11% [Feb 4, 08]

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (Birmingham AL; $1M SBIR) down 32%, after an injectable formulation of a flu treatment failed to exhibit statistically significant improvement on placebo in a midstage clinical trial for the biopharmaceutical concern., Inc. is a biotechnology company that designs, optimizes and develops novel drugs that block key enzymes involved in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases and viral infections. [Wall Street Journal, Sep 21]

BioDelivery Sciences International

Biodelivery Sciences up 21% [Sep 19, 08]

BioDelivery Sciences International up 33% [Aug 29, 08]

Up 26% as U.S. regulators have laid the groundwork for approval of BioDelivery Sciences International�s first drug, the company said Thursday, though approval will take longer than the company would have liked. [Triangle Business Journal, Aug 28]

BioDelivery Sciences International up 17% [Jul 31, 08]

BioDelivery Science (Raleigh, NC; $1.5M SBIR) announced that its marketing partner has taken the first official step toward obtaining European Union approval of Bema Fentanyl, BioDelivery's experimental cancer pain drug. [Raleigh News&Observer, Apr, 3, 08]

BioDelivery Sciences up 24% [Dec 7, 07]

BioDelivery Sciences International lost 12% [Apr 18, 07]

BioDelivery Sciences International up 21% [Feb 22, 07] despite no news.

BioDelivery Sciences International rose 27% on report that the FDA approved human clinical testing of its Bioral drug delivery system.

Bioheart (Sunrise FL)

Bioheart (Sunrise, FL; no SBIR) that has tried to sell shares for more than four months made a surprise debut on the Nasdaq .. raised $5.8M by selling 1.1 million shares for $5.25 a share -- far below the $57M it had hoped to raise by selling 3.6 million shares [Wall Street Journal, Feb 20, 08]

Bioheart and Elixir Biopharm going public this week. Neither used SBIR. [Jan 08]

Bioheart, (Sunrise FL: no SBIR) an�adult� stem-cell company has slashed its IPO price range � essentially halving the company�s expected market value. David Hamilton, over at VentureBeat Life Sciences, says: "I told you so: Eat your Bioheart out." The company's treatment is supposed to reverse damage caused by heart attacks. However, none of Bioheart�s data so far seems to suggest the treat does what it is supposed to do, and the company can�t even offer a plausible theory as to why it should work. [Matt Marshall, Venture Beat, Oct 12] The company's website says Our lead product candidate is MyoCell, an innovative clinical therapy designed to populate regions of scar tissue within a patient�s heart with autologous muscle cells, or cells from the patient�s body, for the purpose of improving cardiac function in chronic heart failure patients. The core technology used in MyoCell has been the subject of human clinical trials conducted over the last six years involving 84 enrollees and 70 treated patients In 2007 it reported Although not statistically significant due, in part, to the limited number of patients treated, the lead investigator indicated in his presentation that the safety of MyoCell is strongly suggested and the preliminary efficacy data demonstrates a trend towards an improvement in scores for six-minute walk distance, or Six-Minute Walk Distance, and an improvement in quality of life, or Quality of Life. If Hamilton's criticism is true, or even just credible, both the FDA and all but the most dreamy-eyed IPO investors should be able to see the problem. It does have a large and varied Scientific Advisory Board and several VCs on its board of directors.

Biolex Therapeutics

Biolex Therapeutics (Pittsboro, NC; no SBIR) has withdrawn its IPO plans. [Raleigh News&Observer, Feb 4, 08]

Biolex Therapeutics (Pittsboro, NC; no SBIR) with plans for a Wall Street debut could soon face financial straits that would force it to slash spending or look for other sources of cash. Biolex and its Dutch partner, OctoPlus, planned to raise money from public and private investors to pay for operations and to continue testing of Locteron, the Hepatitis C treatment the two companies are working on. [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News& Observer, Dec 13, 07]

The hosiery mill is gone now, along with much of the Carolina textile industry ... But the old brick building ... is occupied by a biotechnology company, Biolex Therapeutics (no SBIR) ... the retooling of this old brick building on Credle Street underscores how, despite its oft-pronounced demise, American manufacturing is in many regards stronger than ever. ... The United States makes more manufactured goods today than at any time in history, as measured by the dollar value of production adjusted for inflation -- three times as much as in the mid-1950s, the supposed heyday of American industry.. [Peter Goodman, Washington Post, Sep 3]

BioLink Life Sciences (Cary,NC)

Pharmaceutical developer BioLink Life Sciences (Cary, NC; $200K SBIR) was awarded three patents for four novel drugs for the treatment of epilepsy, bipolar disorder and migraine headaches. [Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 24, 08]

Biologics (Raleigh NC)

Private investment continues to boost young Triangle companies. Biologics (Raleigh NC; no SBIR) oncology pharmacy, $20M; . Aldagen (Durham NC; no SBIR) biotech company, $9 M; HyperBranch Medical Technologies (Durham NC; one SBIR) medical device startup, $1.5M. [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 15] Those who can, do; those who can't or won't depend on government handouts.

BioMarin Pharmaceutical

Biomarin Pharma down 13% [Oct 27, 08]

BioMarin Pharma down 12% [Oct 23, 08]

BioMarin Pharma up 14% [Oct 13, 08]

Biomarin Pharma down 12% [Oct 10, 08]

Biomarin Pharma down 12% [Jun 23, 08]

BioMarin Pharmaceutical up 22% [Dec 14, 07] on news that the government approved its Kuvan treatment for use in slowing progression of an inherited disease called phenylketonuria. ... expects $35 -$70 M in revenue in 2008 from Kuvan

BioMedical Enterprises (San Antonio, TX)

Medical device company BioMedical Enterprises (San Antonio, TX, $0.5M SBIR). said that the company has launched a new implant on the market that is designed to approximate soft tissue that is anchored to bone. [San Antonio Business Journal, Jun 2]

BioMimetic Therapeutics

Biomimetic Thera up 15% [Oct 30, 08]

Biomimetic Thera down 18% [Oct 15, 08]

BioMimetic Therapeutics down 10% [Oct 6, 08]

Biomimetic Thera down 14% [Oct 9, 08]

BioMimetic Therapeutics up 12% [Apr 3, 08]

BioMimetic Therapeutics up 30% [Mar 28, 08] as Wall Street brushed off anxiety over Food and Drug Administration concerns linking a competitor's diabetic foot ulcer treatment to higher cancer risk. [AP]

BioMimetic Therapeutics down 56% [Mar 27, 08]

BioMimetic Therapeutics up 11 % after announcing a 30% earnings increase in the fourth quarter

BioMimetic Therapeutics announced a 30% earnings increase in the fourth quarter over a year ago ... "This past year has been an extraordinary one for BioMimetic; we advanced our lead orthopedic product candidate into pivotal clinical trials in the U.S., EU and Canada while efficiently raising capital, giving us nearly $100 million in cash," says Dr. Samuel Lynch, president and CEO [Nashville Business Journal, Mar 20, 08] but still fell 11%.

BioMimetic Therapeutics up 10% after the company said its system for fusing damaged bones had a 90% success rate

Biophan Technologies

Biophan Technologies (West Henrietta, NY; one SBIR) said a prepayment agreement would eliminate $2.3 million in senior debt, leaving the company with cash available for a year. .... calls itself a technology development and holding company focused on the creation and sale of novel patent-protected technologies and medical devices. [Rochester Business Journal, Sep 24, 08]

Biophan Technologies (West Henrietta, NY; one SBIR) said it has acquired the patent portfolio (more than 15 issued patents) of Nanoset LLC (no SBIR), a private company. ... Biophan�s stock was trading slightly above 3 cents a share, up nearly 3 percent. [Rochester Business Journal, May 13,08]

Biopure

Biopure reports that it has signed an agreement for a private placement of a package of common stock and warrants for up to $2.3 M, which the Cambridge-based maker of oxygen therapeutic blood replacement products says it will use for working capital and general corporate purposes. [Mass High Tech, Jul 3, 08]

Biopure lays off 50, needs cash to stay open past fall [Boston Globe, Jun 21]

Biopure, a developer of blood-replacement therapies, reports it has succeeded in defending its European patent for a purification process [Mass High Tech, May 19, 08]

Biopure reports the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) has landed $3.4 million from the DOD to develop its Hemopure product. [Mass High Tech, May 8] Even though it is all government money for government purposes, it still qualifies for commercialization because it is creating economic activity downstream of the SBIR.

Biopure regained its nominal stock price range by a 1:5 reverse split. [Oct 2, 07]

Biopure says that an FDA committee has recommended denial of the Navy's proposal to conduct a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial of the company's blood replacement product, Hemopure. The committee did recommend continuation of small scale experiments on the project to extract the goodies from cows' blood. [Mass High Tech, Dec 15] The stock took another 24% dive but is already below the buck and a far, far reach from its 2000 bubble high near 300 (adjusted for the 1:6 reverse split in 2005).

Biopure will raise $14M in stock and warrants. [Dec 06]

An independent safety board has cleared Biopure to continue a Phase 2 trial of its Hemopure blood-oxygen treatment after reviewing preliminary results from the study, according to company officials. [Mass High Tech, Nov 7, 06] The stock traders were not impressed.

Biopure says that NASDAQ is on the verge of delisting the stock for failng to maintain a buck price for 30 days. Days ago, the company said it was selling another $55M of securities. Biopure had a trickle of SBIR in the 1990s.

BioSystem

BioSystem Development (Madison WI, no SBIR) pulled in $600,000 in a second financing round ... George Mosher, a Silicon Pastures member and BioSystem investor. Mosher says he has put money into over 40 young companies since he sold Milwaukee-based National Business Furniture in 2006 to K+K America for $82 million. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Nov 2, 07]

"BioSystem has a very committed founder who is committed to making the company a success, has an incredible Rolodex and knows how to get his foot in the door at pharmaceutical companies. And he has a lot of credibility because he's worked in start-ups previously," said Teresa Esser, managing director of Silicon Pastures. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan 9] BioSystem got a $700K angel investment after a top prize in the Governor's Business Plan Contest in 2004.

BioTrove (Woburn, MA)

BioTrove (Woburn, MA; no SBIR) which makes systems used to analyze genetic information and chemical compounds, plans an initial public offering of common stock, [Boston Globe, Apr 1, 08]

Bitstream

Bitstream (no SBIR) fell 31% after reporting lower profits. It makes Internet browsers and special fonts for wireless devices

Black Sand (Austin TX)

Austin Ventures figures that Black Sand (Austin TX; no SBIR) will be one of those rare chip companies that doesn't need a huge infusion of money or people to achieve its first product design. Typically, it takes $20 M or more to develop a chip prototype. Black Sand just completed raising $8.2 M in its first investment round ... That's expected to be long enough for designs to be completed for chips that will change the way cell phones and other wireless devices amplify the signals for voice and data transmissions. Experts in the field call it one of the toughest design challenges in the wireless business. [Kirk Ladendorf, Austin American-Statesman, Oct 1]

Black Sand has its own tight team of brilliant engineers, most of whom formerly worked for Silicon Labs (no SBIR) ... another genius bet by Austin Ventures in 1996 when three brilliant chip engineers bolted from Cirrus Logic to start their own company. That startup turned out to be Silicon Laboratories ... the most successful home-grown chip company in Austin and one of the biggest investment payoffs for Austin Ventures. [Kirk Ladendorf, Austin American-Statesman, Oct 1]

BladeLogic

Automation-software firm BladeLogic Inc. outshined three other new stocks yesterday [Jul 25, 07] continuing the strong showing of IPOs from the technology sector. BladeLogic soared 47% on its first day of trading. [Wall Street Journal, Jul 26]

Battery Ventures, Waltham MA VC firm, has two IPOs in the next two weeks: Netezza (Framingham, MA) and BladeLogic (Waltham, MA). [Boston Globe, Jul 13] Neither did SBIR.

Bluefin Robotics (Cambridge MA)

Bluefin Robotics (Cambridge, MA; $2M SBIR) reports it has reeled in a contract for its spray glider autonomous underwater vehicle from Horizon Marine (Marion, MA; one 1991 SBIR). ... In February, the Navy exercised an option on a previously awarded contract, worth a potential $29 million, with Bluefin for its Bluefin-9 mine-detecting AUV. [Jul 08]

Bluefin Robotics (Cambridge MA; $2M SBIR) reports it has established worldwide distribution agreements for sales and support of its autonomous underwater vehicles, pressure-tolerant subsea lithium polymer batteries and related technologies [Mass High Tech, Nov 15]

BlueSky Batteries (Laramie, WY)

Blue Sky Batteries, A Nice Life
Blue Sky BatteriesBlue Sky Batteries was formed in 1998 with the close support of friend and mentor Professor Dan Buttry, at the University of Wyoming. I am a 1995 graduate in Chemistry and spent 1996 and 1997 working as assistant professor at the Tokyo University (a "see the world" and "eat interesting things" post). While BSBI was started in order to do contract research for a specific customer, intellectual property conflicts became a serious issue, so BSBI chose instead to shift to independent, product-oriented R&D . A BSBI SBIR proposal to NIH on rechargeable energy storage devices for circulatory support devices. Other technical activities at BSBI also have evolved, including catalyst work for electric vehicle fuel cells, materials work directed at Navy propulsion systems, and phosphor development for flat panel and other high-end display markets. It's starting to look like we need a more general name! The tools which BSBI uses to pursue those opportunities includes nano-engineering of materials to produce desired properties/behaviors, coupled in some cases with combinatorial (that is, very fast) materials development techniques. Also, BSBI is in ongoing negotiations with a Silicon Valley mezzanine-level company to acquire their unique technology. The financing strategy for BSBI has involved, first, pursuit of government funding sources followed by private sources. At the same time, BSBI plans to leverage available resources and minimize its burn rate, in order to avoid high capitalization requirements and consequent dilution of ownership. We think that these strategies will lead BSBI to success, and retain high ownership of the company in Wyoming. To date, BSBI has submitted 8 proposals for $739K for research on our unique innovations with $133K earmarked for subcontracts to UW. Financing disadvantages that BSBI has experienced due to being located in Wyoming have been offset somewhat by the national funding opportunities detailed and by $5,000 by the Wyoming Business Council. We think that program is a crucial tool for encouraging Wyoming participation in SBIR competitions, especially for boot-strap companies such as ours. However, BSBI's most important resource is its people and their diverse but complementary skills. For instance, a team approach (establishing lead writers, using weekly follow-up meetings, and having substantial Interaction and cooperation between team members) was crucial to achieving our December and January proposal submission goals. BSBI's team now includes John Ackerman, Dan Buttry, Linda Cahill (a San Francisco-based finance and business strategist), Kevin Gaw (a materials engineer recently relocated to Laramie to support BSBI, now living in my laundry room). Scott Paulson (an inorganic chemist based in Calgary) is also a key member of our team, as well as the Laramie High-Technology Incubator (LINC), UW (especially Bill Gern), and the WBC (especially Mike Petera), through their support efforts. Imminent additions to the team include the Western Research Institute and a public relations expert. Strong sponsors of our efforts so far include Keith Carron (supplied substantial SBIR and business advice, spotted BSBI rent money at LINC for over six months, and loaned a computer), Dean Roddick (donated an old modem), and Gene Watson (supplied free but valuable business advice). The principals of BSBI choose to be located in Wyoming, if at all possible. High-quality people, business and technology resources, transportation and information infrastructure, and start-up experience are all available here at very low cost, and the Rocky Mountain quality-of-life is unmatched in the U.S. Dr. John Pope, President Blue Sky Batteries, Inc. Laramie, WY, 307-755-6490/307-766-3041 FAX: 307-766-2807 Email: j1@csi.com
OK, it's a a heartwarming all-American story told in the pages of Wyoming Newsletter. Nice people in a nice place doing nice things. But, where is there a federal interest in handing them federal tax money for enjoy their life-style? Are you merely lowering your cost of capital at public expense? What is it about your "research" that warrants government intrusion into the competition for capital? Having an interesting tech idea is not enough. Good ideas with market potential find capital; bad ideas appeal for government support. There are some criteria for government intervention; which do you meet? Being a small company with smart scientists is not enough by itself. Thousands of such companies are out there without government support and doing just fine. Etc, etc. What are the SBIR promoters offering as the excuse for government support in Wyoming? In California? Soft squishy stuff about the virtue of small business without any hard economics to back the claims. As soon as the Congress dispenses with the impeachment diversion, it can start to consider SBIR reauthorization required before this Congress ends in Oct 2000. If Wyoming wants to gamble its money on attracting federal funds for life-style companies, that's Wyoming's business. But the federal government cannot be a party to it. Or at least federal fairness would demand so; actual federal politics will guarantee some less than fair approach encouraged by the free-market Republicans from the mythical rough-and-tumble West of federally supported ranchers.

Bluewater Bio International

DANIEL ISHAG, an entrepreneur who made tens of millions by selling his online advertising business, is to float a biological company with technology that can cleanse waste water. Bluewater Bio International is aiming to float on the Alternative Investment Market in the next few weeks, valuing the business at about �25m. ... Its technology uses bacteria found naturally in soil to cleanse waste water. It claims to remove 99% of biological contamination in waste water and to be more effective than other nitrogen and phosphate systems. [The Sunday Times, Nov 25]

Boston Dynamics (Cambridge MA)

Boston Dynamics (Cambridge MA; $2.5M SBIR) got a $10M DARPA contract for the development of a dog-like robot - run, maneuver and jump to avoid obstacles- with a shot at $40M in follow-on Navy contracts. [Mass High Tech, Aug 3] The company calls itself the leading provider of human simulation software, tools, and solutions

Boston Micromachines

Boston Micromachines ($2M SBIR) has paired with California-based Thorlabs (no SBIR) to develop a new Adaptive Optics (AO) toolkit aimed at making such technologies easier and cheaper for researchers, according to executives [Mass High Tech, Jan 21]

Boston Micromachines (Watertown MA) got a $600,000 Phase 2 SBIR from NASA. No record of prior SBIRs. [Mass High Tech, Nov 1, 06]

Boston-Power

next-generation lithium-ion battery [company website] Boston-Power (Westborough, MA; no SBIR) raised an additional $45M in funding from VC firms ... previously raised $24.7M. [Wall Street Journal, Jan 3] Frost & Sullivan 2007 technology innovation of the year award

Boundless (Boulder, CO)

NASA will test energized structures devised by Boundless ( Boulder, CO) wherein part of the spacecraft structure is a battery. At least some of the development came from MDA Phase 2 SBIR. Read the story from . Why, do you suppose, did NASA never fund an SBIR for the technology? Too much risk? If not to take technical risks, what does NASA do with its SBIR? Add incremental bricks to its temple of knowledge?

Brashear

Brashear, a big old little company with at least two recent MDA Phase 2 SBIRs is being bought by biggie L-3 Communications for $36M hard cash. The abstracts for the two MDA awards suggests the $1.4M went for relatively advanced engineering of militarily useful mirrors. The press release describes Brashear as a leading developer and supplier of complex electro-optical systems for military and international customers, as well as prime aerospace contractors. In operation for over 120 years, the company designs and manufactures electro optical systems including, laser ranging and tracking systems, test range instrumentation, telescope systems, naval fire control systems and laser beam directors. Hardly the struggling entrepreneur that needs a nursery stage boost to jump start a new technology.

Brewer Science (Rolla, MO)

Brewer Science (Rolla, MO) won an ATP grant to develop Contact Planarization for IC manufacturers to flatten the layers produced in making an integrated circuit chip. Brewer says the dominant method to achieve such planarization in use today is chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), expensive, but also wasteful of materials, energy and environmental resources. Contact Planarization will facilitate true independence from feature size and density effects. also a reduction in cost of ownership as well as environmental impact, a smaller clean room footprint, improved throughput and planarization performance. .. it will cost one half what CMP costs to process a wafer. If trends in wafer production continue, at an annual growth rate of 10%, the savings could reach nearly half a billion dollars ($470M) per year by the end of 2003 and close in on $1B shortly thereafter. The CPT has been licensed from Agere Systems. Brewer has had about $5M in SBIR Phase 2s from BMDO, AF, and NSF, although the chances of BMDO's getting any more BMDO funding for such indirect technology will have to wait for another BMDO change of attitude toward innovation.

Bright View (Morrisville, NC)

Bright View (Morrisville, NC; no SBIR) that has devoted five years to developing a line of components used in TV screens and computer monitors has raised $11 to launch its first products. ... co-founded in 2003 by Ed Fadel and David Reed, based on technology licensed from Duke University. ... To date the company has raised $30 million in financing. [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 15, 08]

Brimrose Corp of America (Baltimore, MD)

Australia, Canada, Germany. Korea, Japan, UK, Israel, Italy, Poland. Not a world tour: the places where Brimrose Corp of America has reps for its acousto-optic products that started with a BMDO SBIR in 1986. Add Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Malaysia, Holland, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Taiwan for the spectroscopic products. With that lineup, founder Ron Rosemeier must know a lot about airplanes.

New and Improved Bleaches With the Luminar 2000 by Brimrose Corp of America bleach makers can (and at least one is) control hypochlorite concentration during manufacture. Hypochlorite carries the oxygen that does the bleaching. The 2000 derived from Acousto-Optic Tunable Filters developed for SDIO (remember?) as anti-missile discriminators in the nose of interceptors. The AOTFs though have made a nice commercial living for both fast-exploiting Brimrose and Ciencia (East Hartford, CT). For hypochlorite inspection, see the Application Note by Brimrose.

Brock Rogers Surgical (Waltham, MA)

Fast Track Surgery Funded by grant money from DARPA's telemedicine program, closed a first-round private placement in July 97 from private investors and Seaflower Associates. Total capital raised $1.1M. Prerevenue. Says The Red Herring about Brock Rogers Surgical (Waltham, MA). The DARPA money was a Fast Track SBIR for a two-armed robot for surgery with lots of fancy software. Wonderful story for seven-employee firm? Did the government just substitute for market financing and do nothing more than lower the cost of capital (not a legitimate government function)? Don't expect any SBIR advocate or beneficiary to admit it even if it's true. They think any government money is good. One competitor is MicroDexterity Systems which got NASA and NIH funding. A third competitor Intuitive Surgical Systems had to go to bed without a government bone.

Bruker Daltonics

DHS gave Bruker Daltonics (no DHS SBIRs), a subsidiary of Bruker BioSciences ($436M in 2006 revenue) a $1.3 M a Phase 3, three-year research contract for its chemical detection technology. [Mass High Tech, Sep 14]

C9 (Saratoga NY)

C9 will make a new generation of silicon carbide chips at the Saratoga (NY) Technology & Energy Park. .... with help from the state's $1.75M ... C9's products now are made at the facilities of FALA and Nanodynamics (New York City; $6M SBIR) and the firms already have invested $11M into silicon carbide research. [Alan Wechsler, Albany Times-Union, Jul 28]

Calient (San Jose, CA)

CALIENT READY FOR MONSTER FUNDING Calient Networks (San Jose, CA), a startup that makes all-optical switches based on MEMS technology, is several days away from closing on a third round of financing in excess of $150 million. It's a monster round.After asking for a $1.5B pre-money, the company settled for a $750M pre-money. MEMS technology, which uses a compact array of tiny mirrors to switch beams of light, is one of several possible approaches to building large, all-optical switches. Calient officials claim its product,expected to enter customer trials in the next few weeks, can pack a complete 1,000 by 1,000 port optical switch into a box the size of a kitchen drawer. After asking for a $1.5B pre-money, the company settled for a $750M pre-money. MEMS technology, which uses a compact array of tiny mirrors to switch beams of light, is one of several possible approaches to building large, all-optical switches. Calient officials claim its product, expected to enter customer trials in the next few weeks, can pack a complete 1,000 by 1,000 port optical switch into a box the size of a kitchen drawer. [R. Scott Raynovich, Light Reading, rayno@lightreading.com] See the full story . How much SBIR did Calient need to get started? Hah!

Caliper Life Sciences

Caliper Life Sciences (Hopkinton, MA; one SBIR) which makes software used for drug development, today said it will cross-license technology with AntiCancer (San Diego, CA; no SBIR) in order to settle a patent lawsuit. Caliper gains the rights to sublicense AntiCancer�s protein optical imaging patents to third parties. San Diego-based AntiCancer obtains rights to license Caliper�s fluorescent protein imaging patents to a specified number of third parties. That figure was not disclosed. [Boston Globe, Feb 28]

CaliSolar (Sunnyvale, CA)

solar-power startups in particular have seen a three-year surge, from a low of no venture investment in the third quarter of 2005 to a high of more than half a billion dollars in the second quarter of this year. CaliSolar (Sunnyvale, CA; no SBIR) $13M; Wakonda Technologies (Fairport, NY; $200K SBIR) $9M; Prism Solar Technologies (Lake Katrine, NY; no SBIR) $9M. [Dean Takahashi, MIT Tech Review, S/O 08]

Caltech Metals (San Diego CA)

Caltech Metals (San Diego CA; no SBIR) is making more durable sheet metal that resembles corrugated cardboard. On the outside are thin steel layers. Sandwiched in between is a rippled layer created by crinkling steel into waves. The resulting product is the same thickness as sheet metal, but half the weight and more than three times as strong. It could be cheaper and better than aluminum in automobile hoods, fenders, and other parts, says CellTech CEO Doug Cox. [Business Week, Oct 22, 07]

Cambridge Heart (Bedford, MA)

Cambridge Heart (Bedford, MA; no SBIR) got bad news that a diagnostic test intended to identify patients who should receive heart defibrillators did not produce conclusive data [Boston Globe, Nov 7, 07]

Candela

Candela up 10% [Feb 25, 08]

Candela down 15% [Jan 30, 08]

Candela up 10% [Jan 29, 08]

Candela Laser jumped 26% after announcing a big profit gain. [Oct 26, 06]

Candela Laser was down 29% for the week after reporting lower profits. [Aug, 06]

Candela Laser took a 32% whack when it reported earnings below expectations. CEO Puorro laid much of the blame on "aggressive pricing" of a new product and forecast healthier revenue for the next quarter.. [spring 04]

Candela paid the price for a poor profit report as traders knocked a third of the price in a day. Make bigger profit or get your PE knocked down to low numbers, Candela now trading at nine times earnings. Just two weeks ago a pundit opined that "Candela's revenues and earnings are growing at a fantastic pace. The growth Candela is experiencing may be sustainable," said Jack Ellis, founder of The Savvy Analyst, an interactive, online equities research firm.

Candela, a user of SBIR a decade ago, bought the assets of Applied Optronics, a subsidiary of Schwartz Electro-Optics, a long-time and continuing beneficiary of SBIR, for $1.2M. [Mass High Tech, Jan 9.03]

Capnia (Palo Alto, CA)

Capnia (Palo Alto, CA), which delivers carbon dioxide through a patient's nose to treat maladies like migraines and rhinitis, has raised $16 M of a potential $19 M round of funding. [Venture Beat: San Jose Mercury News, Apr 30]

Cara Therapeutics (Shelton, CT)

Cara Therapeutics (Shelton, CT; no SBIR) received the largest single investment, $12 million in fourth-round financing. [Hartford Courant, Oct 18,08]

Cara Therapeutics (Shelton, CT; no SBIR) closed on $12.3 million of additional funding to a Series C financing. ...received a US patent for CR845, which is being developed as a treatment for acute and chronic pain of visceral, inflammatory and neuropathic origin, and treatment for itching associated with several diseases and conditions. [Mass High Tech, Jul 25, 08]

Carbon Design Systems (Waltham, MA)

Carbon Design Systems (Waltham, MA; no SBIR) reports closing a $6M Series E round of funding, increasing the total amount of venture capital raised by the company to $34M , officials said. ... develops tools to create virtual hardware models [Mass High Tech, Jan 11, 08]

Cardiac Concepts

Medical devices start-ups powered Minnesota to the best quarterly VC performance in eight years just as a sagging economy curbed venture spending across the country. ... Seven medical device firms captured $130 million, led by CVRx (Brooklyn Park, MN; no SBIR) that makes a device that treats high blood pressure, raised $84 million on top of the $200 million investors have already poured into the company. Cardiac Concepts (no SBIR) first-round financing totaled a hefty $21 million. ... Other notable deals: Proto Labs (Maple Plain, MN; no SBIR) -based maker of injection molded products, attracted $67.2 million. Sage Electrochromics (Faribault, MN; $2M SBIR) raised $13.3 million, which makes glass that influences building temperatures, previously won $16 million in venture financing. [[Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oct 26, 08]

Cardiac Dimensions (Kirkland, WA)

Cardiac Dimensions (Kirkland, WA; no SBIR) raised $35.5 M VC ... builds devices designed for treating heart-related conditions [Seattle Times, Dec 19, 07]

Cardica (Redwood City, CA)

Cardica up 17% [Oct 16, 08]

Cardica down 15% [Oct 6, 08]

Cardica up 26% [Sep 9, 08] after the FDA approved the surgical system maker's PAS-Port system for use in cardiac bypass surgery [AP]

Cardica up 14% [Jul 23, 08] . Motley Fool's group grope - CAPS investor intelligence database - called it ready to roar after a 20% rise in the second quarter.

Cardica up 35% [Jun 10, 08]

Cardica up 11% [Apr 21, 08] on results from a six-month economic analysis comparing the cost of off-pump, "beating heart" coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures, which were performed using the C-Port� Distal Anastomosis Systems, with the cost of traditional on-pump CABG surgery. The study showed that beating heart CABG saved $1,684 per procedure, inclusive of the cost of the C-Port systems in the beating heart cases, compared to traditional bypass surgery. [company press release]

Cardica down 12% [Apr 14, 08]

Cardica up 14% [Mar 24, 08]

Cardica up 17% [Mar 11, 08]

Cardica down 10% [Mar 10, 08]

Cardica down 11% [Mar 7, 08]

Cardica down 12% [Jan 25, 08]

Cardica down 15% [Dec 11, 07]

Cardica down 13% [Nov 12, 07]

Cardica down 10% [Nov 9, 07] after pricing a secondary at just over half its 12-month high.

Cardica down 14% [Oct 26, 07]

Cardica up 11% [Oct 8, 07]

Cardica up 16% as European regulators approved a new variation of a device used in heart surgery.

Cardica (Redwood City, CA; one Phase 1 SBIR) tumbled 15% after a broker cut its rating on shares of the developer of technological surgery aids to sell, saying exuberance about closed-chest heart-bypass surgery products was premature. [Wall Street Journal, Sep 11]

CardioFocus (Marlborough, MA)

CardioFocus (Marlborough, MA; one Phase 1 SBIR) raised $9 million in a Series C round, and appears to still be in development of a product to treat a common cardiac arrhythmia. [Mass High Tech,Jun 20,08]

CardioMag (Schenectady, NY)

A Little Short. CardioMag Imaging (Schenectady, NY; $700K SBIR) preliminary results, due June 25, will show it lost $5 million last year and has just $600,000 in cash ... Carl Rosner, CardioMag's president and chief executive officer, is providing $2M in bridge financing in a loan to the company that carries 8% interest and is convertible to common stock. The company, meanwhile, plans a replacement for Rosner. [Eric Anderson, Albany Times-Union, Jun 19] The stock dove 90% on the London Exchange.

CardioMag Imaging (Schnenectady NY) says there's nothing else in the world like its heart-health scanner. But until insurance companies recognize the value of its early detection of heart problems, hospitals and other potential customers have been hesitant to purchase the machines, which can cost $550,000 ... CardioMag got a boost earlier this month when the machine was a runner-up in the medical devices category of The Wall Street Journal's annual technology innovation awards competition. [Eric Anderson, Albany Times Union, Oct 17] CardioMag has had at least one Phase 2 SBIR for its magento wonder machine.

Cardiosolutions (Stoughton, MA)

Cardiosolutions (Stoughton, MA) raised $7M in VC. It is one of a family of start-ups by STD Med Inc., a developer and manufacturer of medical devices. Other firms so founded are Agiolink, Arthrosurface, and Spirus Medical. None have a record of SBIR. [Mass High Tech, Sep 26, 07]

CardioSpectra (San Antonio, TX)

CardioSpectra (San Antonio, TX; no SBIR) one of the first companies to receive money from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, has become the first to be acquired. ... $1.35M from the state fund in mid-2006, part of the approximately $5 million in investment it has received. ...to be acquired for $25M in cash by Volcano (Rancho Cordova, CA; no SBIR), a medical devices company. [Austin American-Statesman, Dec 12]

CardioTech (Wilmington, MA)

CardioTech (Woburn, MA; $1M+ SBIR) sold its Catheter and Disposables Technology Inc. subsidiary in Minnesota to Tacpro Inc. for $1.2 million in cash. [Mass High Tech, Apr 1, 08]

CardioTech (Wilmington, MA; $1.2M SBIR) hired an investment banker that will help it evaluate strategic alternatives for its Catheter and Disposables Technology (CDT) business, which is based in Plymouth, Minn. CDT designs and provides contract manufacturing services for medical devices. [Mass High Tech, Feb 22, 08]

Carigent Therapeutics (New Haven, CT)

Carigent Therapeutics (New Haven, CT; no SBIR) reports it has closed on the second tranche of a $2 M ... from Saint Simeon Marketing and Investments Lda of Portugal ... Carigent's products are based on nanotechnology that was licensed in 2006 from Yale University . [Mass High Tech, Dec 11]

Cascade Microtech (Beaverton, OR)

Cascade Micotech up 13% [Oct 29, 08]

Cascade Microtech down 20% [Oct 24, 08]

Cascade Microtech up 20% [Oct 20, 08]

Cascade Microtech up 13% [Oct 15, 08]

Cascade Microtech up 10% [Oct 13, 08]

Cascade Microtech down 22% [Oct 10, 08]

Cascade Microtech down 13% [Sep 29, 08]

Cascade Microtech down 21% [Sep 22, 08]

Cascade Microtech up 23% [Sep 19, 08]

Cascade Microtech up 12% [Jun 13, 08]

Cascade Microtech (Beaverton, OR; $800K SBIR) unveiled two new Pyramid parametric probe cards that allow single-pass high performance DC and RF measurements and reduce the cost of parametric production test for semiconductors with advanced processes nodes at 65 nm, 45 nm and beyond [Erin McCarty, The Oregonian, Feb 8]

Celadon

Peers Not Always Your Friend. Celadon won a GAO protest that NIH used evaluators with conflicts of interest and denied a Phase 1 award. Then, when NIH said that all the SBIR funds for the year had been used up, GAO recommended that NIH reimburse Celadon for all its costs, including the proposal preparation. What a sad evasion of responsibility by NIH. If the proposal was unfairly denied, NIH should have had it reviewed by a fair panel and award it if the panel rates it in the range of proposals accepted that year. There is no such thing as NIH is out of money. NIH is the USG which would have gained complete and unrestricted use of Celadon's technology if it had won the contract. The whole USG, not just NIH. At SDIO/BMDO in the few cases where a company could show me that it had not been evaluated fairly (usually because the evaluators didn't understand the proposal's argument(s)), I got a new evaluation and then, if I would have given them the award with the resulting new evaluation, I gave them the Phase 1 without regard to year of the money. Fairness first. I had plenty of money for the really good stuff and no regrets about rejected proposals at the margin of competitiveness. And all the agencies have the same plenty of money for the really good projects, and a boatload of marginal proposals from which they use up the mandated money.

Celldex Therapeutics

AVANT Immunotherapeutics, announced that, pursuant to a previously announced shareholder vote, the company will change its name to Celldex Therapeutics effective October 1, 2008. [Boston Globe, Sep 30]

Cell Genesys (South San Francisco, CA)

Cell Genesys, a 20-year-old Bay Area biotechnology company that has yet to win its first drug approval, said that it is firing most of its employees and considering a sale or merger after canceling work on its lead product. ... halting a second late-stage clinical trial of its experimental therapy GVAX in prostate cancer because an independent committee of experts concluded it was unlikely to deliver positive results. .... among a long line of companies that have tried in vain to produce successful cancer immunotherapies, which are also called cancer vaccines. [San Francisco Chronicle, Oct 17, 08]

Cell Genesys (South San Francisco, CA; no SBIR) developer of an immune-system booster tested against prostate cancer, lost nearly three-fourths of its value in Nasdaq trading Wednesday after reporting that more people died on combination therapy that included the drug. [San Jose Mercury News, Aug 27]

Shares in Cell Genesys (South San Francisco, CA; no SBIR) shot up 20% [Feb 15, 08] after the company released a favorable analysis of its experimental prostate cancer vaccine GVAX. [SF Chronicle, Feb 16]

Celunol

Diversa (San Diego, CA) and Celunol (Cambridge, MA, aka BC International; 3 SBIRs) completed their merger to form Verenium. [Mass High-Tech, Jun 21]

Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA)

Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA; $3M SBIR) announced the continuation of a research agreement with drug company Bristol-Myers Squibb for kinase inhibitor profiling. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Feb 5]

Cell Therapeutics (Seattle, WA)

Cell Therapeutics said it will need to raise money soon because its available cash won't last beyond September. [Seattle Times, Aug 19, 08]

Cell Therapeutics said in a regulatory filing that without a capital infusion "we will have insufficient funds to continue operations through the end of the current fiscal quarter." [Seattle Times, Jul 21, 08] After $800M invested over 16 years, including one SBIR after $70M and its IPO. Stock price down 99.7% from its Y2K high.

In a bid to once again become a biotech company with marketed products, Cell Therapeutics said it completed its purchase of U.S. rights to the cancer drug Zevalin for $10M. ... Cell Therapeutics has had no commercial products since it sold off Trisenox in 2005. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Dec 28, 07]

Cell Therapeutics (Seattle, WA; one SBIR) up 10% as it announced it would file an application to sell its cancer-fighting therapy Xyotax in the European Union ahead of schedule. [Seattle Times, Dec 19, 07]

Finger Pointing Back. The government now contends that a whistle-blower within Cell Therapeutics (Seattle WA; one SBIR) was the mastermind of a much bigger scheme than the ones on which he reported. ... In April, the company agreed to pay $10.5 million to the government to settle the charges. ... But the Justice Department has had a change of heart about Mr. Marchese and is asking a federal judge to award him nothing. [Barry Meier, New York Times, Oct 25, 07]

Cell Therapeutics (Seattle, WA; one SBIR) agreed to acquire cancer-therapy developer Systems Medicine (Tucson, AZ; no SBIR) for $20M in stock. ... Earlier this year, Miami-based Dor BioPharma rebuffed an unsolicited bid from Cell Therapeutics ... Cell Therapeutics, which hasn't turned a profit since it was founded in 1991, doesn't have any drugs on the market. It sold off Trisenox, a leukemia treatment, in 2005. Its flagship drug, Xyotax, has failed several major trials, but the company still hopes to get it on the market. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Jul 26]

Cell Therapeutics executives will do a whirlwind tour of Milan where tits research is based in the suburb of Bresso since it acquired local biotech Novuspharma in 2003. ... Italian-speaking shareholders can check the company's Web site in Dante's language. [Seattle Times, Jul 3, 07]

Cell Therapeutics (Seattle, WA; one SBIR) wooed physicians with expensive dinners, cocktail parties at resort facilities and payments of up to $1,500 to get them to prescribe its cancer drug for unapproved uses, according to a lawsuit unsealed yesterday by the U.S. Attorney's Office. The company, without admitting any wrongdoing, has agreed to pay $10.5M to settle the government's claims.[Seattle Times, Apr 18]

CellTraffix (Pittsford, NY)

CellTraffix (Pittsford, NY, no SBIR) is commercializing a technology by Michael King, a chemical engineer at the University of Rochester who's developing the cell-capture devices wherein bioengineers have developed an implantable device that captures very pure samples of stem cells circulating in the blood. The device, a length of plastic tubing coated with proteins, could lead to better bone-marrow transplants and stem-cell therapies, and it also shows promise as a way to capture and reprogram cancer cells roaming the bloodstream. [Katherine Bourzac, MIT Tech Review, Feb 13]

CellCyte Genetics

The SEC has upgraded its probe of CellCyte to a formal investigation ... The Seattle Times reported in December that the stock was being promoted by a wave of brochures and unsolicited faxes paid for by a major company shareholder who has been sanctioned by regulatory authorities in Canada. [Seattle Times, May 16, 08]

CellCyte Genetics, briefly one of the Seattle area's most valuable biotechs by market capitalization, is running short of cash for its ongoing operations, according to regulatory documents filed Monday. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Apr 15, 08]

The SEC initiated an inquiry into CellCyte Genetics, the Bothell biotech whose stock has fallen 93% since December, according to a letter written by a lawyer representing the company. ... German securities regulators are also investigating recent stock-promotion efforts related to the company, The Seattle Times has learned. CellCyte's market value soared to $440 million last fall as it was hyped by anonymous faxes and colorful brochures paid for by third parties with links to a well-known British Columbia stock promoter. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Apr 5]

a shareholder lawsuit against CellCyte Genetics, accusing the biotech company and its officers of artificially inflating its stock price and defrauding investors with misleading claims. The lawsuit seeks class-action status. The lead plaintiff is a San Diego-area stockholder who bought and sold several thousand CellCyte shares in the past three months, [Seattle Times, Jan 16]

Who Is He? fledgling biotechnology company CellCyte Genetics (no SBIR), whose market value soared to more than $400M last fall after being hyped by offshore shareholders, plunged 55% Monday and Tuesday in heavy selling. The sharp drop coincided with changes made on the company's Web site after The Seattle Times inquired late last week about the accuracy of statements in the biography of CellCyte chief executive and co-founder Gary Reys. [Angel Gonzales, Seattle Times, Jan 9]

Cellular Bioengineering

Grab Your Politician for Plus-Up. Smaller and more transparent earmarks of federal funds for favored domestic projects are returning after a one-year moratorium on the controversial practice. ... a bit less than 1% of total R&D appropriations (3% for DOD) ... The Senate Top 10, are mostly smaller states with senators in key committee chairmanships�Mississippi, New Mexico and Tennessee are at the top. ... search AAAS's new database of 2008 earmarks [AAAS Newsletter, Sep 07] But for small business, even 1% is a big honey pot. In the list (August version): Electro Energy (CT; SBIR), Ocean Power Technologies (OR, SBIR in NJ), DBS Energy CT, Eikos (MA; $8M+ SBIR), Cellular Bioengineering HI, Cerematec (UT; SBIR), Ramgen WA, Advanced Radar Technologies WY, Compact Membrane Systems (DE; $20M SBIR), SD Catalyst Group SD. Your story is that high-tech small business will create jobs, and they don't know whether your claim is valid or just wishful thinking. Like the federal mission agencies who then have to award and supervise the contract, they don't seem much to care.

CellzDirect (Pittsboro, NC)

CellzDirect, (Pittsboro, NC; no SBIR) a biotechnology company, has agreed to be bought for $57M cash by [Invitrogen (Carlsbad, CA; $4M SBIR), 4,700 worldwide employees with annual revenue over $1B] that supplies nearly every drug research laboratory worldwide. [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News&Observer, Jan 12]

Cempra Pharmaceuticals (Chapel Hill, NC)

Cempra Pharmaceuticals (Chapel Hill, NC; no SBIR) raised [another] $10M in new financing, ... previously raised $22M VC. [Raleigh News&Observer, Jan 11, 08] founded in January 2006 to develop medicines to meet the increasing need for treating drug-resistant bacterial infections in the community and hospital. .. focused on capturing near-term value from market opportunities in anti-infectives [company website]

Centice

Centice (Morrisville NC; one SBIR) is within one year of marketing its first major product, company officials said, after raising $11.3M in private financing [Raleigh News&Observer, Nov 16]

Three Triangle technology firms raised $10.5M last month to hire workers, invest in research and market new products Medical-implants maker Sicel Technologies raised $7M; Biotech startup Entegrion raised $2M (first VC); Centice Corp. raised $1.5M. [Raleigh News and Observer, Nov 10] Sicel and Centice have had SBIRs.

Centrose (Madison, WI)

A revolutionary drug development engine that enhances drugs by specifically adding novel sugars will now benefit from [another] $150K. Centrose (Madison WI; maybe SBIR) and the University of Wisconsin received notice that the NSF will fund a joint effort aimed at optimizing a proprietary drug discovery method. Specifically, Centrose will use the funds to expand the sugar chemistry while the University will use their share to optimize the biochemistry behind the sugar attachment process. ... Earlier this year, Centrose exclusively licensed a set of drug enhancement technologies from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) that use sugars to lower toxic effects and increase drug potency. Since then, the Company has raised over $1 M in private funding and received another $500K in federal funding [company press release, Nov 20]

Three Madison technology companies have been qualified to receive investor tax credits under the state's angel investor and venture fund tax credit programs. The companies are: Windlift LLC, which is developing a wind-powered pump that has a patent pending; Centrose LLC, which is trying to use sugar chemistry to make a variety of existing and failed drugs less toxic and more effective; and Symbiont Web Inc., which is developing software to create a relationship between network, Web and mobile space to promote faster data flows and more stable Internet connections. The tax credit program provides a dollar-for-dollar reduction for state income taxes owed to investors in qualified companies. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Nov 3, 07] No SBIR for the firms.

Centrose (Madison WI; no SBIR) wants to raise $3M ,the biotech start-up has already gotten commitments for $875,000 ... headed by James Prudent, who was previously chief scientific officer and a board member at EraGen Biosciences in Madison. The company has exclusive rights to 12 patents from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for what it says is a proprietary technology that uses sugar molecules to make drugs less toxic and more effective. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sep 21]

Sweet Hope. Centrose LLC (Madison, WI) is hoping to build a drug discovery franchise that leverages its chemistry expertise and its proprietary technology that uses sugar molecules to make drugs less toxic and more effective. It has exclusive rights to 12 patents from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and is getting a $200K SBIR NIH grant. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 23]

Cephalon (Fraser, PA)

Cephalon (Fraser, PA, $0.5M SBIR) and its wholly owned subsidiary Cima Labs Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit Tuesday against Watson Laboratories , which wants to make a generic version of Cephalon's Fentora drug for cancer pain. [Philadelphia Business Journal, Jun 3, 08]

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA)

Cepheid down 10% [Oct 15, 08]

Cepheid up 22% [Oct 13, 08]

Cepheid down 35% after the company reported a widened second quarter loss. [San Jose Mercury, Jul 25, 08]

Cepheid up 12% [Mar 3, 08]

Cepheid up 10% [Jan 10, 08]

Cepheid up 11% [Dec 5, 07]

Cepheid up 10% [Oct 30, 07]

Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA; $3M SBIR) first made its name with anthrax-detection tests to guard the nation's post offices from bioterrorism attacks back in 2001. Now, [its] gene-based testing system is becoming part of an escalating nationwide defense against the deadly "superbug" called MRSA, which is often innocently spread by well-meaning health care workers. Cepheid won FDA approval in April for its test for a life-threatening, antibiotic-resistant form of the common staph bacterium, a strain that now kills more people in the United States each year than the AIDS virus. [Bernadette Tansey, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct 28]

Ceradyne

Ceradyne down 26% [Oct 28, 08] as its third-quarter net income decreased 41% on charges and losses from auction-rate securities. The armor maker further cut its 2008 earnings and revenue outlooks. [WSJ, Oct 29]

Ceradyne up 10% [Oct 16, 08]

Ceradyne down 13% [Oct 15, 08]

Ceradyne up 10% [Oct 13, 08]

Ceradyne up 13% [Sep 18, 08]

SemEquip (Billerica, MA; no SBIR) has been acquired by Ceradyne (Costa Mesa, CA; $4M SBIR) for about $25 M cash. [Mass High Tech, Jul 9]

One Wall Street (Hough) wag finds contrarian value in Ceradyne which he says is down 60% over the past six months and has a forward PE ration of only 6 with good growth prospects.

After Ceradyne cut its 2008 outlook for revenue and earnings and 11% of its workforce, the market cut its stock price 24% [Feb 26, 08] On the bright side, Ceradyne is expanding its solar business and plans to add 200,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity near its existing plant in China. The company sees shipments of its ceramic crucibles, which are used to melt silicon for use in solar panels, increasing. [David Bogoslaw, Business Week, Feb 26]

Ceradyne is Forbes's third fastest growing high tech company with a 75% compounded sales growth rate for three years, thanks to IEDs in Iraq.

Jack Hough touts Ceradyne as a capital efficient company with low PE ratio and high sales growth. [Wall Street Journal, Jan 10] What Hough didn't say was that Ceradyne was a great beneficiary of IEDs and Army demand for the best cost-irrelevant defense - NOW. Not a repeatable market.

Ceradyne up 10% [AP, Nov 28, 07] after the company said it will receive additional funding to produce bulletproof vests, and is likely to receive a $400 million body armor contract.

Ceradyne got $436M in government contracts in 2006, says fedspending.org's database. Physical Optics $21M.

Forbes's annual list of the best 200 small companies had several SBIR awardees: Ceradyne #12, Flir Systems 37, II-IV 58, ATMI 69, ViaSat 90, Surmodics 105, Micrel 149, OPNET Tech 167.

War Was Great for Business. Ceradyne lost 6% and at least one broker said that demand for body armor will fall as the US shrinks the number of US military bodies in Iraq. [Jan 07]

Armored Profits. The market loved the war business at Ceradyne which reported nearly tripled profits. Stock up 14% [Nov 1, 06]

Motley Fool notes that bulls outnumber bears 191-3 for Ceradyne in what it admits is an unscientific survey. Contrarian note: If everybody is bullish, few must be buying. [Oct 06]

Ceradyne has been winning contracts as a result of the government's strong demand for the firm's ceramic body armor. Higher revenue combined with Ceradyne's relatively efficient manufacturing has allowed for significant profit margin improvement [Reuter's, Sep 11]

Ceradyne got a five-year open end contract for potentially $600+M to supply armor shields for Army vehicles as the Army finds there is no good substitute for a shield, even though it adds a lot of weight, in an ambush world. Here is one great ROI story for SBIR where tons of profits flowed from four Phase 2 SBIRs. Unfortunately, it would not have happened without a war of nasty surprises. But one formula for business success is to be in position to exploit a sudden market opening.

Among Business Week's 100 hot growth companies were Ceradyne and II-VI. [Jun06]

Ceradyne has been in a strong uptrend since the summer, and this rally has taken its shares from $20 to its current price of about $47. More recently, though, the stock dropped amid an offering of more shares. Despite the recent fall, CRDN continues to appear to be a solid company. Its superior profit margins helped it land recently on the Reuters Select Quality-category screen for Strong Operating Margins. [Reuters, Dec 8, 05]

War Profits Someone. Reuters also likes Ceradyne which has posted impressive Operating Profit Margins for the last five-year ... Over the last five years, the company's revenue expanded at an average annual rate of 47.98%, easily outpacing the Industry's 8.63% .. Demand for the company's body armor has also remained strong, and the company has worked to meet that demand. As a result, its market share has climbed significantly. The US government continues to spend in this area, [Mar 05]

Ceradyne took a 9% hit after it announced the opening of a new armor plant (in DOD-speak: vehicle armor design and armored vehicle prototype facility).

Ceradyne jumped 18% on news that it got a $461M Army contract for ceramic body armor. With the press's continual harping on lack of armor for bodies and Humvees in Iraq, the Army is moving as fast as its bureaucratic legs allow to buy more, more, more. Especially to have a decent story by the fall election. Earlier this year Ceradyne said it was buying Germany's ESK Ceramics for $136M. The success grows it right out of future SBIR competition. Unfortunately, war is good for business as long as the war in some other country.

Armored Jeeps. Ceradyne got some useful press [R Cheng, Wall Street Journal, Mar 17] for its attempts to sell the Army even more armor for Humvees beyond the hard seats. Perhaps the handful of Phase 2 SBIRs will help Ceradyne take on the gorilla in the armor business - Armor Holdings. On the SBIR scale Ceradyne is a publicly-traded giant at 430 employees and which was already big when it got its first SBIR in 1998. Maybe Irvine Sensors a few blocks away could learn a few lessons on making a profit and having SBIR.

Ceramatec (Salt Lake, UT)

Cermet (Atlanta, GA)

BMDO SBIR company Cermet (Atlanta, GA) says it has got Wafer Technology,UK. to market Cermet's bulk semiconductor substrates (including ZnO, GaN and AlN) to key customers in Europe. Cermet president Jeff Nause said Cermet is very pleased ... Cermet's products include ZnO substrates for blue LEDs, blue laser diodes, and high frequency microwave devices. Interestingly, Cermet's advisory board includes Dr. Ian Ferguson, Director of Research for EMCORE, another BMDO SBIR winner although BMDO does not claim much of EMCORE's public market success. Some of Cermet's story can be read in last spring's Atlanta Business Chronicle.

A Bright Blue Laser Company (Dec 16). Cermet (Atlanta, GA) got a BMDO Phase 2 STTR to develop GaN crystals that could eventually make digital video disc (DVD) more affordable and commercially viable. ... The company is also developing crystals for a number of corporate clients, who asked not to be identified. ... The company is focused on a patent-pending process of growing crystals synthesizing gallium nitride (GaN) powder which in turn is used to grow high-purity single crystals of GaN from a liquid. The idea came from president Jeff Nause in 1993 while still a Georgia Tech student. Nause hopes to begin selling the crystals within six months. .. Potential customers include Hewlett-Packard which would develop the laser to sell to Sony or Hitachi. SDL, Xerox, CREE Research, Northrop Grumman, and Dow Chemical have also showed interest This puts Cermet at the beginning of the DVD development chain, and it is one of the few companies to be doing such sophisticated crystal research and development outside of Boston or California. It has seven employees, three Tech graduates and four co-op students. Cermet (cermetinc@juno.com) was incorporated by a Tech professor in 1991, but began focusing on crystal growth when Nause joined the company in 1995. Nause hopes to add between four and eight employees next year to do research and marketing. The basic skull melting process had a BMDO Phase 1 in 1994 for a different nitride. [facts from Evelina Shmukler, Atlanta Business Journal, Dec 14, and the public SBIR databases] Why BMDO? Why not? Who else takes chances on new technology in a one-man company with no PhD? And who else would reject a go-nowhere Phase 2 proposal for over-fantasizing about commercialization and battle GAO to preserve the idea that SBIR without aggressive after-market action is a waste of taxpayer's money?

Cerus

Cerus up 17% [Oct 20, 08]

Cerus up 17% [Oct 17, 08]

Cerus down 26% [Oct 10, 08]

Cerus down 10% [Oct 6, 08]

Cerus up 14% [Sep 18, 08]

Cerus down 10% [Jul 29, 08]

Cerus down 12% [May 2, 08]

Cerus up 11% [Apr 1, 08]

Cerus up 11% [Mar 26, 08]

Chapman Innovations (Salt Lake City, UT)

Chapman Innovations (Salt Lake City, UT; no SBIR) has developed a heat- and fire-resistant fabric, CarbonX, that will be featured tonight on the Discovery Channel's "Smash Lab" show. The program examines new technologies in experimental applications. The fabric was developed by company founder Mike Chapman, who previously worked in motorsports and wanted to create a fabric that would protect race-car drivers from fire-related injuries. The result was a fabric made of oxidized polyacrylonitrile, a nonconductive carbon-based material and a strengthening fiber. The company says the product can withstand temperatures of more than 3,000 degrees. [Brianna Lange, Salt Lake Tribune, Feb 19]

ChaCha

Most folks in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel know Scott Jones as "the guy who invented voicemail." In the early '90s Jones made about $50 M on his company, which created the predominate form of voicemail, and he "retired" at age 31. Over the past two decades this driven inventor has been generating ideas for new products and companies - some were successful, others hit the scrap heap - at a pace that would make Thomas Edison's head spin.
Jones's latest company, ChaCha, is developing a potential rival to Google - a search engine assisted by human experts who will help you find your answer. [CNNmoney.com, Nov 5]

Charles River Lab

Charles River Lab down 18% [Oct 23, 08]

Chemir Analytical Services

Star Entrepreneur. For the ninth year in a row, Chemir Analytical Services has been awarded recognition for rapid growth and contributions to the greater St. Louis area. [company website] This year it was chosen by Ernst & Young as �entrepreneur of the year� in technology for the central Midwest. [St Louis Post Dispatch] CEO Shri Thanedar started as an 18-year-old Bachelor�s chemist in India, and has grown the firm to $24M/yr in revenues. No SBIR.

Chemat

Chemat Technology Named a Top Ten Nano-Firm Considered survivors of government-funded research and development, Chemat became a profitable business in 2000 (half of that attributed to customer sales), a decade since the sol-gel solution company was founded. Prior to that, Chemat's R&D Division was successful in completing nearly one hundred contracts for government agencies and industry clients. Its mission is the creation and commercialization of sol-gel based advanced materials and technologies, for its own use and to provide its clients with technologies they can use to create leading-edge products using advanced materials. [LARTA, Jul 16]

Chlorogen (Creve Coeur, MO)

Chlorogen (Creve Coeur, MO, one Phase 1 SBIR), once one of the region's most promising plant science startups, has ceased research operations and is selling off its technology ... sold to Dow AgroSciences LLC exclusive rights to its biotech crop technology for use in developing animal vaccines. [Rachel Melcer, St Louis Post Dispatch, Sep 11]

Chorum Technologies

Chorum Technologies announced a wide passband multiplexer capable of handling 40 Gbps at a broad 100 GHz spacing, thus filtering many fewer lambdas than is possible using the company�s current line of commercial multiplexers.Chorum has had one Phase 2 from DARPA and one from BMDO. NP Photonic has had 10 Phase 1s and two Phase 2s since 1998, all but one Phase 1 from BMDO. BMDO loves lively photonics entrepreneurs.

The Occasional IPO
Although the IPO market has taken a dive faster than you can say falling NASDAQ, and although the government doesn't back many such firms anyway with its SBIR, one has filed for IPO. Chorum Technologies , first known to the government as Macro-Vision Communications hopes to raise $140M on the basis of its first $3M sales last quarter and its prospects in various optical hardware - Mux & Demux, routers, switchers, and processors. Founder and CTO Jian-Yu Liu who founded the company in 1997, and went straight to the SBIR well, right after his PhD from U Colorado, still owns about 10%. Macro-Vis had two SBIRs from DARPA and BMDO for $2.3M ($1.9M from BMDO which gives bigger than normal money for bigger than normal market prospects).

Ciena (Landover, MD)

Ciena Bought for $7B (Jun 4) Ciena, the startup that didn't need SBIR, was bought for $7B. The highest market cap for companies for whom SBIR was a big help is fluctuating around $300M. That's ATMI whose cap has plummeted from $600M a few months ago. Also Cree Research just under $200M.

Ciencia (East Hartford, CT)

Jeff Bond tells me that Sal Fernandez died; Sal founded Ciencia (East Hartford CT). Nov 06

Why Pay $100K (Mar 19) Why pay $100K for a fluorescence lifetime sensor when Oriel Instruments will sell you the best for $18K? Oriel is displaying its new instrument at Pittcon '97, the annual conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy. (Anyone remember mechanical chemical balances and splashed nitric acid in wet analytical chemistry?) The instrument's heart comes from Ciencia (East Hartford, CT) who developed it with two SBIR awards from BMDO (one while the crew was still at Scientific Research Associates, a huge SBIR user with little commercialization to show for it). The instrument's proximate source is an ONR SBIR. I used to say in public that when you had finished a BMDO Phase 2, you were ready for a Navy Phase 1. Question for the anti-immigration ideologues: would Ciencia and Oriel have this advance on the market if Ciencia's founder-president Sal Fernandez had not been allowed to enter from Cuba?Return to Index

Cilion

ethanol company Cilion raising the largest venture round ever -- $200 million -- for an alternative energy company [VentureBeat.com, Sep 1]

Clark-MXR (Ann Armor, MI)

Photonics Spectra Jan 2000 says Clark-MXR (Ann Arbor, MI) makes the mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser that produces the femto-second pulses for Lucent's demonstration of zillion wavelengths on one fiber. Don't look for it yet in stores because it hasn't yet showed the commercial requirements for lifetime, temperature and vibration insensitivity. Clark-MXR is a combo of Clark Instruments (Rochester, NY) and start-up MXR that got going with a BMDO SBIR that the experts panned in reviewing the Phase 1 proposal.

Clean Diesel Technologies (Stamford, CT)

Clean Diesel Technologies (no SBIR). has taken its emissions technology to the water, landing as a client Burlington, Vermont-based ferry company Lake Champlain Transportation Co. [Mass High Tech, Feb 14,08]

Clean Diesel Technologies (Stamford, CT; 13 employees, no SBIR) may become a big player in emissions control. The tiny outfit, specializing in cutting nitrogen oxide and particles in the exhaust from diesel cars and trucks, has licensed its technology to two makers of emission-control products, Tenneco and Germany's Robert Bosch. [Gene Marcial, Business Week, Dec 3, 07]

Cleveland BioLabs

Cleveland BioLabs down 13% [Oct 7, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs down 11% [Oct 6, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs down 11% [Sep 18, 08]

A new $13.3 million federal grant is helping push Cleveland BioLabs one step closer to FDA approval for its drug to treat the gastrointenstinal effects of acute radiation syndrome. [First Business of Buffalo, Sep 16, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs received approval for the first of 20 patents sought for Protectan CBLB502, a compound used in a drug to treat acute radiation syndrome. [Business First of Buffalo, Jul 8, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs up 23% [Apr 14, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs up 17% [Apr 11, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs up 12% [Mar 3, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs up 20% [Jan 25, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs up 13% [Jan 24, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs up 10% [Jan 23, 08]

Cleveland BioLabs down 59% [Jan 4, 08] as DOD picks Osiris, up 10%, for $225M contract for stem cell therapy.

Cleveland BioLabs down 12% [Dec 11, 07]

CleverSet

The Exit. Art Technology Group (Cambridge, MA; no SBIR) plans to acquire CleverSet (Seattle, WA; $1.5M SBIR) for $10M [Boston Business Journal, Jan 22, 08] CleverSet, the leading provider of personalized recommendations for eCommerce companies, was named the winner in the "Most Innovative Company" category in the 2007 American Business Awards [eMedia Wire, Jun 12, 07] in Oct 07 in the Web 2.0 Summit Launch Pad competition, named "Best in Show" and "Most Likely to Exit First." ... its MDA SBIR promised to develop representations and algorithms for distributed inference and control over a network of heterogeneous sensors and weapons connected by a communication network. The approach will be evaluated within CleverSet Modeler, CleverSet's relational Bayesian modeling environment using CleverSet's patent-pending synthetic variable language.

Cobalt Biofuels (Mountain View, CA)

Cobalt Biofuels a startup based in Mountain View, CA, has developed a cheap way to make butanol from biomass. Last week, the company announced that it had raised $25 million to expand from a small laboratory-scale production to a pilot-scale plant that can produce about 35,000 gallons of fuel per year. [MIT Tech Review, Oct 27, 08]

Cocrystal Discovery (Seattle, WA)

Cocrystal Discovery (Seattle, WA: no SBIR) said it�s raised $10 million to help it develop new anti-viral drugs..... its focus is on the discovery and development of anti-viral compounds that target replication enzymes and will target hepatitis and influenza diseases. [Puget Sound Business Journal, Sep 19]

Cognex

Cognex (no SBIR) up 19%, the maker of machine vision sensors that inspect factory product lines, posted third-quarter earnings that beat analysts' estimates.

Cognitive Code

A new company called