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KC BioMediX ...KDH Defense Systems ... Keithley Instruments ... Kensey-Nash ... Kineta ... Komoku ... Kiva Systems ... Knopp Neurosciences ... Kolltan Pharmaceuticals ... Konarka ... Koning ... Kopin ... Koronis Pharmaceuticals Kosan Biosciences ... Kovio ... Kratos Defense & Security Solutions ... Kronos Advanced Technologies ... KVH ... Kylin Therapeutics ... Kyma Technologies ... Kyron Clinical Imaging ... LAAMScience ...LabNow ... Laborie Medical Technologies ... Landec ... LaserMotive .... Lawrie Technology ... LeCroy ... LED Lighting Fixtures ... Lexicon Genetics ... Lexicon Pharmaceuticals ... LifeCell ... Life Technologies ...Ligand Pharmaceuticals ... Lightpointe ... Light Sciences Oncology ... Lilliputian Systems ... Linares Management Associates ... Liquidia Technologies ... LiquidPiston ... Lithium Technology ... LiveData ... LS9 ... Luca Technologies ...Lumencor ... Lumera . ...Luminary Micro ... Luminex ... Luminus Devices ... Lumitex ... Luna Innovations ... Luna Technologies ... Luxtera ... Lynntech .. Macrochem ... Macrogenics ... MagneMotion ... Magnetek ... Magnolia Optical Technologies ... Mainstream Engineering ... Mako Surgical ... MapInfo ... Marcadia Biotech ... Marinus Pharmaceuticals ... Martek Biosciences ... Mascoma ... Mashery ... Mason Box .. Material Sciences ..Material Technologies ... MathStar ... Matouk Textiles ... Matritech ... Maxdem .., Maxygen ... Mechanical Technology ... Medarex ... MedicaMetrix ... MedImmune ... Medis ...Memjet ... Memry ... Memsic ... MEMS Optical... Mesocopic Devices .. . Metabasis ... Metabolix ... Metabolon ... MetroLaser .... MER .... Merge Technologies ... Meridian Bioscience ... Merkatum ... Mersana Therapeutics ...Micracor ..Micrel ... Microbia ... MicroCoating ... MicroIslet ... MicroMask .. Micronics .... MicroOptical (New Mexico) ..MicroOptical ... Microstaq ... Microvision ... Mid Valley Industries ... Minerva Biotechnologies ... Mirina .... Mirna Therapeutics ... Mirus Bio ... Mission Research .. Mithridion ... Mobile Robots ... Molecular Imprints ... Molecular Biometrics . ... Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals ... Molten Metal .. Momenta Pharmaceuticals...Monebo ... Morphormics ... Morris Innovative Research ... Motricity ... MPP Group ... Mudawar Thermal Systems ... Munksjo Paper .... Myocor ... Mystic Pharmaceuticals ... Myomo ... Myriad Genetics ... NABsys ... Nano-C ... Nanobiosym ... Nanocomp Technologies ... NanoCoolers ... Nanocopoeia ... NanoCor Therapeutics ... Nanodynamics (Buffalo) ... Nanodynamics (NYC) ... Nanogen ... NanoGram ... Nanomaterials Research ... NanoMatrix ... Nanomix ... Nanophase Technologies ... Nanoptek ... Nanosolar ... Nanosonic .... Nanosphere ... Nanosys ... NanoSystems ... Nano-Terra ... NanoTune Technologies ... Nanovation Technologies ... Nantero ... Nascentric ... Nastech Pharmaceutical ... NaturalNano ... Natus Medical ... Navini Networks ... Navmar Applied Sciences ... Neah Power ... Netezza ... NetLogics Microsystems ... Nektar Therapeutics ... Nekton Research ... NeoChord ... Nerites ... NetworkFab ... Neuro Amp ... Neurobiological Technologies ... Neurocrine Biosciences ... Neurogen ...Neuroges ... Neurognostics ... NeuroMetrix ... Neuron Systems ... Neuroptix ... New Era Technology ... Nextreme Thermal Solutions ... NimbleGen Systems ... Night Vision ... NextIO ...NitroMed .... Nitronex ... NKT Therapeutics ... nLight ... NMT Medical ... Noble Fiber ... Nomadics ...Novacea ... NovaScan ... Nonvolatile Electronics .. Northeast Photosciences .. Northstar Neuroscience ... Northstar Battery ... Northstar Photonics ... Northwest Biotherapeutics ... Novalux ... Novatek ... NovaTorque .... Novecon Technologies .. Novocell ... Novomer ... NP Photonics .. Nutrabiotix ... NuVant .. Nuventix ... Nuvera Biosciences ... Nuvera Fuel Cells .. NZ Applied Technologies ... Oasys ... ObjectVideo ... OBS Medical ... Ocean Power Technologies ... OCI ... Oculus ... Oddpost ... Oil Chem Technologies ... Omeros ... OmniGene Bioproducts ... OmniGuide ...OmniLyticsOmniSonics Medical Technologies ... Oncogenex ...Oncolytics Biotech ... Onyx Pharmaceuticals ... Open Silicon ...OpGen ... OPNET Technologies ... OptTek Systems ... Optelecom ... Optelecom-NKF ...Optical Concepts ... Optigain ... Optimal Technologies ... Optimer Pharmaceuticals ... Optivision... Opto Technology ... Orbital Technologies ... Orchid Cellmark ... Organogenesis ... OriginOil ... Orologic ...Ortel ... Orion Energy Systems ... Orion Genomics ... Oryx Technology ...Oscient Pharamceuticals ... Osiris Therapeutics
KC BioMediX (DeSoto, KS)The Kansas Bioscience Authority announced four grants totaling $4.85 million to help companies in the state. KC BioMediX of De Soto, VasoGenix Pharmaceuticals of Lenexa , Ventria Bioscience of Junction City ($500K SBIR), MGP Ingredients (public) of Atchison. [Kansas City Business Journal, Jul 15, 08] KDH Defense Systems (Johnstown PA)KDH Defense Systems (Johnstown PA; no SBIR) makes Navy body armor and Army elbow pads in a converted bra factory, and Mr. Murtha asked for a $2 million earmark to help the company improve its bulletproof vests. Another earmark would provide $3 million for KDH to develop a “waterways threat detection system.” The company’s lobbying firm is KSA Consulting, which employed Mr. Murtha’s younger brother, Kit, until 2006. The firm has contributed $4,000 to Mr. Murtha’s campaign since 2005. [Marilyn Thompson and Ron Nixon, New York Times, Nov 4] Keithley InstrumentsKeithley Instruments fell 16%. The Cleveland maker of measurement technology for electronics manufacturers warned of a fiscal second-quarter sales shortfall, citing a reluctance among customers to spend on capital equipment. [Wall Street Journal, Apr 14]
Kensey-NashKensey-Nash down 10% [Mar 5, 09] Kineta (Seattle, WA)Kineta (Seattle, WA; no SBIR) is trying a new approach. ... plans to fund its research step by step, relying on revenue-generating deals to undertake the next step in research. ... started the company last December but unveiled it publicly only this month. Their new venture quickly came after the $9 million sale of their previous company, Illumigen Biosciences ($2M SBIR)... If Illumigen's research and commercial potential fully pans out, its shareholders could get up to $330 million in additional payments from Cubist. ... Kineta has so far partnered with Cubist for early-stage work on a hepatitis C drug, and has received funding from the National Institutes of Health. But it is also pitching itself to investors. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Dec 23, 08]
Kiva Systems (Woburn MA)Walgreen's installed Kiva Systems (Woburn MA; no SBIR) robots in its warehouse. Kiva got $10M VC in 2005. [Mass High Tech, Nov 7, 07]
Knopp NeurosciencesInnovation Works, Hazelwood (PA) VC fund, in 2007 invested $6.1 M in technology companies, including its 100th investment. The specializes in giving a leg up to young technology companies cites three [no SBIR] success stories: Knopp Neurosciences, which is working on a drug therapy to slow the advance ALS ("Lou Gehrig's disease"). ... granted "orphan drug" status by the FDA ; Printed electronics manufacturer Plextronics, which attracted more than $20 M in new investment last year and set an efficiency record with its solar cells; Thorley Industries signed a $215 M deal with Hasbro for that company to manufacture and sell a new line of Thorley products [Elwin Greene, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 2].
Kolltan Pharmaceuticals (New Haven, CT) Kolltan Pharmaceuticals (New Haven, CT; no
SBIR) oncology therapeutics company, has raised
more than $35 million in Series A round of preferred
stock funding. [Mass High Tech, Jan 9, 09] KomokuA startup funded by [DARPA] is ready to emerge from stealth mode with hardware- and software-based technologies to fight therapid spread of malicious rootkits. Komoku, of College Park, Md., plans to ship a beta of Gamma, a new rootkit detection tool that builds on a prototype used by several sensitive U.S. government departments to find operating system abnormalities that may be linked to malicious rootkit activity. [Ryan Naraine, eWeek, Apr 24, 06] Konarka (Lowell, MA)Konarka Technologies landed $5 million in new state funding from the Emerging Technology Fund of Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust’s Business Expansion Initiative. [Mass High Tech, Feb 18, 09] Plastic Power. CEO Rick Hess unfurls a roll of brown plastic film attached to a small electric meter. "Three volts," he says, smiling. "And that's just from the light in this room. Imagine what this reads when we're outside." Hess, who runs solar upstart Konarka (Lowell, MA; $1M SBIR) , is showing off Power Plastic, a new lightweight, flexible, and cheap material that converts indoor and outdoor light into electricity. Think of it as a solar panel that rolls up like camera film. "Soon you may not even need batteries," Hess says, holding a prototype of a portable device that will recharge your cellphone in an hour. "We can put this stuff anywhere." ... impressed investors, have put $145 million into the closely held venture, including a recent $45 million in funding from French oil giant Total. [Barney Gimbel, Fortune, Feb 2, 09] technology is based on the work of the late Dr. Sukant Tripathy, an internationally known materials scientist and professor at UMASS Lowell, and Dr. Alan Heeger, a 2000 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. By 2006 it had partners in at least four Euro countries and first shipments to Army and AF. [company website] If the Navy's 2003 Phase 2 SBIR provided the previously lacking technical credibility for Hess's idea, SBIR did its intended job in launching an infant technology. Konarka Technologies launched a new $45 million R&D deal with Total Gas & Power Ltd., a UK-based oil and gas company. With the deal, Total will become the leading stakeholder in Konarka, with a slightly less than 20 percent share. ... Konarka’s thin-film technology allows for the colored printing and application of a polymer material that can convert light into energy. The technology, originally developed by the late Sukant Tripathy, a materials scientist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Alan Heeger, a 2000 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, has attracted a lot of attention since the company was founded in 2001, as well as more than $100 million in private funding from a number of investors. [Mass High Tech, Dec 15] Heeger did the chemistry of conductive plastics that became the bedrock of UNIAX that Heeger co-founded and got SBIR from BMDO in 1992. Konarka Technologies opened its first commercial scale, roll-to-roll solar manufacturing facility at the former home of the advanced printing technology division of Polaroid Corp. in New Bedford. [Mass High Tech, Oct 7, 08] Konarka claims the first-ever demonstration of inkjet printing manufacturing of solar cells of Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy. [press release, Mar 4, 08] Konarka Technologies (Lowell MA) got a $4.7M ATP award with Air Products and Chemicals ($21B market cap with $150M R&D) for R&D on transparent, flexible solar modules for windows and other building-related applications. Earlier this month, the company closed a $45M round of funding, bringing its total capital investment to more than $105M .[Mass High Tech, Oct 9] Where is the line between technology nurturing and corporate welfare? When is too much government? But we let our politicians use the same tired lines to get our votes when we and they know they have no hope of actually doing what they promise. The Arizona senator promised to rein in runaway federal spending, simplify the tax code, help U.S. industries become more competitive and control spiraling health care costs.... "I will not let the Democrats roll back the Bush tax cuts," while he offers no way to pay for the war he applauds. Another candidate Robin Hood offered: Every citizen could get a 401(k) retirement account and up to $1,000 in annual matching funds from the government. At least that candidate had a plan to pay for it - taxing rich estates. Have we learned anything in the last six years about free lunches and government getting out of control? Konarka entered into a development agreement with Tokyo-based Toppan Forms Co. Ltd., a maker of printable electronics and digital information technologies. [Mass High Tech, Sep 11] Konarka Technologies which has developed an organic plastic film that converts light into low levels of energy and can be used to power electronic devices, plans to raise another $40 million to add to the $80 million of venture capital it already has. The Lowell, Mass., firm is putting the finishing touches on commercial prototypes and expects to be in broader production by 2008. [J Schieber and Y Chernova, Wall Street Journal, Aug 27] Konarka and its flexible plastic solar cell strips are expecting a visit from Energy Secretary Bodman who will announce a grand award from Bush's Solar America Initiative. The six-year-old private company has attracted nearly $60M in venture capital funding. and nearly $10M in grant money from U.S. and European governments. [Mark Jewell, AP, Mar 8] Michael Grätzel, [Swiss] chemistry professor is most famous for inventing a new type of solar cell that could cost much less than conventional photovoltaics. Now, 15 years after the first prototypes, (the Grätzel cell) is in limited production by Konarka, a company based in Lowell, MA, and will soon be more widely available. [Kevin Bullis, MIT Tech Review, Sep 12] Still private Konarka had one Navy SBIR Phase II but apparently missed the Energy Dept train last year for a second. Konarka Technologies (Lowell, MA), a developer of Power Plastic photovoltaic products, got another $20M of VC which pushes total VC over $60M since 2001. [Mass High Tech] Konarka got a $1.6M Army contract light-activated power plastic. [Apr 05] The cheap nanomaterial photovoltaic by Konarka Technologies (Lowell, MA) raised $18M and expects to introduce its first products by New Year's before it even finishes its Navy Phase 2 SBIR. The Navy liked enough to invite the company for a show-and-tell at a recent big Navy conference “Naval Research in the 21st Century: Dilemmas and Solutions.” Konarka which has subsidiaries in Austria and Switzerland has as its technical leader Alan Heeger, Nobel laureate who was connected to SBIR at his earlier California company - UNIAX.
Koning (Rochester, NY)NIH Commercialization Assistance Program participant Koning's (Rochester, NY; $2.7M SBIR) technology platform, Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) affords accurate 3-D imaging of breast tissue with an innovative cone beam X-ray source, a detector that captures high resolution data as it circles the breast, and patented software that generates 3-D images of the tissue. The potential of the technology has been recognized by the scientific and business communities. Currently, funding for the development of CBCT has reached nearly $11 million dollars, including a $2.5 million SBIR grant from NIH awarded in 2005. [LARTA Vox Oct 16]
Kopin Corp (Taunton, MA)Kopin up 12%
[Dec 16, 08] Kopin up 12%
[Dec 12, 08] Kopin won a $600,000 NASA contract for nanostructured solar cells made of indium gallium phosphide (InGaP) materials. [Mass High Tech, Dec 10] .... the second NASA contract awarded to Kopin in 2008 for the development of nanostructured solar cell technology, the company noted; in May, Kopin received a two-year, $600,000 award for the development of indium nitride-based solar cells. [Boston Globe, Dec 10] Let NASA and the SBIR advocates explain why a company with $92M cash, which just announced plans to buy $15 M worth of the company’s common stock, should get a government subsidy from a seed program for R&D with commercial prospects. Because the government disdains the seed mission of SBIR, and uses it only for the R&D it would have bought anyway if SBIR never existed. And if it had real commercial prospects, the company would not be handing over the patent rights to the government for a mere $600K when it has $92M available cash for investment. And also the SBIR advocates only want a piece of the government spending pie for their member companies. If the SBTC and the other pleaders had any care about SBIR's mission, it would be advocating some way to steer the handouts to companies and ideas that have technically risky high-potential ideas and no other way to raise the capital to start their development. Note that stock buybacks are purely financial engineering with no potential for any economic growth. As in all government handout programs, there's no interest like a vested interest. Kopin has initiated a stock repurchase program, aimed at retrieving $15 million worth of the company’s common stock. ... boasts $92 million in cash and equivalents on hand. [Mass High Tech, Dec 9, 08] Kopin reports it has landed $3.1 million from the U.S. military for displays used in weapon sights. ... In 2007, Kopin reported a $6.6 million net loss on $98 million in revenue. [Mass High Tech, Dec 3] Kopin up 17% [Sep 18, 08] Kopin down 10% [Sep 17, 08] Kopin up 10% [Sep 16, 08] Kopin down 10% [Jul 14, 08] Kopin got a $600K NASA contract to participate in a solar-cell development program for future space exploration missions. [Boston Globe, May 2, 08] If you can't make a big profit in the real marketplace, you can make a small profit and cover some overhead with government R&D contracts. Still SBIRing. Public for nearly two decades with a large cumulative net loss, Kopin won a NASA STTR Phase 2 InN-Based Quantum Dot Solar Cells with VaTech. Hey, it's riskless and free revenue, even though it comes from an investor with no concern for the company's fortunes. Kopin up 24% [Mar 28, 08] Kopin up 18% [Mar 18, 08] Kopin said that Fujifilm will put Kopin's electronic viewfinder in a new ultra high-zoom digital camera [Nov 07] Kopin reports it will supply [maybe 150,000 of] its CyberDisplay liquid crystal display to the U.S. Army's new thermal weapon sight program, the TWS Bridge. [Mass High Tech, Nov 6, 07] Kopin got a delisting warning from NASDAQ. [Aug 3, 07] More, More, the Army Wants More of Kopin's display system hardware, the war-time demand for which contributed nicely to Kopin's $12M profit for 2005. Kopin got hit 14% when it reported a little less revenue and a huge percent dip in profit, although big profit never has been a Kopin hallmark. [May06] Kopin got a production sub-contract from ITT Industries Night Vision (ITT) which wants Kopin's micro-displays for its potential $560M contract to supply the Army’s Enhanced Night Vision Goggles. [Mass High Tech, Nov 29, 05]Kopin cut two deals at the ElectronicAsia Show in Hong Kong: a HK semiconductor company will sell Kopin’s plug-and-play Binocular Display Module for mobile video eyewear in China , and a Taiwan company is putting Kopin’s BDM into a Theatre system it has just started shipping worldwide. [Mass High Tech, Oct 13] Kopin rose 12% for reporting a profit, any profit. [Aug 05] Kopin got a $3.2M contract to develop ultra-high resolution color postage-stamp size head mounted microdisplays for the Army's Future Force Warrior. It will be an enhanced full-color version of Kopin's monochrome CyberDisplay 1280 AMLCD. [Mass High Tech, Mar 3, 04] Now if Kopin could also make a profit. In its decade of being public, it has lost a big pile. Still CEO John Fan keeps smiling in public, We begin the new year well-positioned with compelling technologies, differentiable products, tier-one customers and solid financial resources. Bright ideas. [Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe, 8/25/03] Kopin (among many) wants to replace all these crazy light bulbs with LEDs. .Kopin has been poaching engineers from other local chip companies, and investing heavily in a new production line in Taunton to produce LEDs. The company shipped 20 million LEDs in the second quarter, most of which will be used to illuminate the displays and keypads of cellphones. John Fan, Kopin founder-CEO, has had such dreams in the past about GaAs and teeny TVs but has never been able to turn any idea into a cash and profit cow. Kopin now is talking about being an LED company, having already been a GaAs company and then a mini-display company. What it has never been is a consistent money-making company as reflected in its stock price being about 8% of its Y2K bubble price. Kopin "spokesman" Tim Monroe told the Wall Street Journal (Dec 19) about how much energy would be saved for the nation. Companies should stop talking such nonsense since consumer behavior in the face of a lower cost per unit of energy may actually use more energy. SBIR companies know nothing about the complex markets where consumers operate. But then talking up your product is part of capitalism. SBIR proposers probably needn't worry about talking nonsense since all the evidence points to the government's wanting to hear the nonsense so they can repeat it in self-serving tech transfer stories. [Jan 03] Although the quarterly profit was as flat as the Kopin's flat panel mini-displays, the traders pounded the stock price down 29% Friday when the company issued a gloomy forecast of a 25% cut in revenue (which is typically optimistic). For a decade now Koipn has been a consumer of capital without any return of profit From a peak of $50 a share back to its 1992 IPO price. Kopin of course is not alone as all the semiconductor companies suffer the present down-cycle in their boom-bust industry. (Oct 28, 02) Announce an advance; lose 10%. Kopin lost 10% on a day that it announced milestone performance results for GaAs-based GaInAsN (GAIN) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT). With an operating voltage more than 150 mV lower than conventional GaAs-based HBTs. Could it be that the market wants to see profits more than it wants more technical advances? Kopin reported soggy earnings. Quarterly revenue down 25% and a net loss of $6.8M, compared with $2.3M profit last year's quarter.Kopin's market cap slipped below $500M (which ain't terrible for an SBIR stock) from its highs a year ago in the $3B range. Kopin fell 26% when it reported a fourth-quarter loss because of restructuring costs and said it would post a loss in the first quarter, too, due to a softer consumer electronics market and other issues. The company press release highlighted the 81% growth in revenue. The market didn't think that the verbiage about re-structuring sufficiently explained the failure to be a high profit growth company after a decade of capital consumption as dream company.Kopin's stock price is down 80% from its high a year ago. Benchmarking Not Much Help. Even though Kopin was named to the S&P Small Cap 600 Index, it has fallen 80% from its spring high after another 7% cut yesterday. Kopin claims to be the leading provider of gallium arsenide (GaAs) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) for advanced telecommunications, and miniature flat panel displays for digital imaging applications. Kopin, the leading U.S. manufacturer of miniature flat-panel displays for the consumer electronics market, has shipped its one-millionth CyberDisplay(TM) 320. CyberDisplay is an integrated system that uses Kopin's proprietary single-crystal silicon on glass display technology to offer superior image quality and low-power consumption in an ultra-compact size. Kopin sold its one-millionth display slightly more than one year after launching the product. The first CyberDisplay was introduced in Victor Company of Japan (JVC) camcorders in July 1999. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Inc. (Panasonic) and Samsung Electronics followed JVC with the introduction of CyberDisplay-enabled camcorders earlier this year. Kopin got a $2.3M engineering contract from the Army to develop the production model of its CyberDsiplay1280. Normally, such a contract precedes a good size production run (if the Army can get the big money from the fractious Congress.) Still Kopin's stock is down by half from its spring high but 500 times its negligible earnings. Kopin starts shipping Kopin caps a killer quarter with wonderful wafer deal. A lot can happen in three months. For Kopin Corp quite a lot did. The Taunton company announced the multi-million dollar sale of its transistor wafers to Mitsubishi Electric Corp; demand for its products outstripped the rate at which Kopin could manufacture its technology. And Kopin’s share price on NASDAQ rose about 162 percent, settling around $78 a share last week and spiking the company’s market valuation to $1.2B. This all occurred despite Kopin reporting a net loss of $354K in the third quarter. For a company created by visionaries from MIT’s Lincoln Lab, which has been long on technology and short on commercial application and sales, things are looking up. Analysts who thought the company was on the brink of an upturn several times during the past few years say that this time, it’s for real. Sales in 1998 increased 64% to $27M. The consensus of brokers surveyed by Zacks Investors rate Kopin a strong buy, driving up its share price. [Kate Munro Mass High Tech, 27 Dec 99] Kopin RisingQuiet Kopin's technology set to make noise at last, say Steven Syre and Charles Stein in the Boston Globe Nov 16]. Kopin is a small technology company with no profits and a stock that has tripled in price since June. An Internet company, right? Wrong. Internet companies are born hot. Kopin, which is based in Taunton, has been plugging away for 15 years, mostly in obscurity. It has taken that long for the company's scientists to find real-world applications for their Buck Rogers technology. ''I think our technology was ahead of the market,'' says John Fan, Kopin's patient founder and chief executive. Fan and a handful of others left MIT's Lincoln Laboratories in 1984 to start Kopin. Their goal was to make semiconductors using a technique with parallels to genetic engineering. Like their counterparts in biotechnology, they found the task more difficult than they imagined. The company went public in 1992 and didn't come out with its first product until 1995; its second product debuted in 1997. Kopin has never had a profitable year. But that may be about to change. The small group of analysts who follow Kopin's fortunes predict the firm will mark the millennium with its first-ever profit. Kopin Wins in Japan Kopin Wins in Japan Kopin Expands Again Profit or Loss for Kopin? Sound Vision today announced an agreement to develop production-ready digital camera designs that incorporate Kopin's color CyberDisplay. The first design resulting from this partnership, the 1301 Reference Design, is for digital imaging manufacturers that desire to build a low power VGA camera at the most competitive cost possible. CyberDisplay will function as the camera's viewfinder and as the display used to review previously stored photographs. The CyberDisplay will also allow OEMs to build very small, lightweight cameras and other imaging devices for entirely new markets. The 1301 Reference Design, now being made available to camera OEMs, combinesSound Vision's new Clarity 2.0 digital imaging technology with the color CyberDisplay. [Business Wire, Dec 17] Kopin Sliding If you bought the secondary issue of Kopin at 19 a few weeks ago, you would be minus 25% while the Dow-Jones is making new highs. The problem probably runs deeper than the Chinese reference to peace in Kopin's name. Kopin has bled capital since its beginning in the 80s, but always with optimistic investors ever to be found anew. Kopin-POC combine technologies. Kopin's world's smallest active-matrix LCD was helped by SBIR-junkie (oops, expert) Physical Optics Corp (Torrance, CA), says December Photonics Spectra. POC contributed a holographic light shaping diffuser. Making a going concern of the product, though, depends on consumer acceptance - a chancy proposition especially for small companies. For when the acceptance is purely economic, both sides can estimate the chances of success. But when consumer psychology enters, anything could happen. What, for example, is the economic value of the ability to view your e-mail in your cellular phone? If you are proposing such technology to SBIR, you will have a problem convincing any government skeptic of the market value of something that does not exist today. If Kopin is lucky, the market will accept the product before the capital finally runs out. Eventually, all that capital poured into Kopin will end and Kopin may be forced back to SBIR on a much smaller scale that its past five years of burning capital. Meanwhile, Kopin plans to sell another $2M shares to the public half of which goes to Kopin and the other half to cash-out of earlier investors. Quarter-Inch Screen Quarter-Inch Screen Kopin Rolls Out Wafer Kopin Rolls Out Wafer Kopin-Siemens Deal Kopin Corp (Taunton, MA) saw its stock jump up when it announced a licensing deal with Siemens. The tiny camera of Kopin Corp (Apr 8 story) made Business Week, Apr 21. Tiny Video Display Buy for $60 a CyberDisplay, a monochrome 20-inch computer display from Kopin (Taunton, MA). Color version to be priced later. It's Kopin's newest product with which it hopes to reverse the annual losses, $21.6M last year, that are eating the capital and the capitalists' convictions. Still, the stock price reflects a lot more confidence than does the price of SI Diamond Technology, a competitor for future displays. Up Capacity for GaAs Kopin Corp (Taunton, MA) will triple its capacity for GaAs wafers to meet skyrocketing demand for semiconductors for wireless and fiber optics. Kopin claims to supply 90% of the market for heterojunction bipolar transistor GaAs wafers. The capital was obviously available for the purchase despite Kopin's losing money in big hunks in its quest for the flat panel display market. Kopin used SBIR for some of its early R&D in GaAs but survived on private capital for flat panel displays. Kopin Takes a Bath Kopin Corp (Taunton, MA) got soaked in a $6.2M quarterly loss leading to a $21.6M loss for the year. $8.9M was a write-down which in principle happens only once. Revenues were down for the quarter but up for the year. The flat panel display industry has a lot of wounded soldiers. Kopin's Results: Growth 23%
Koronis Pharmaceuticals (Redmond, WA)Koronis Pharmaceuticals (Redmond, WA, one SBIR) got $20M VC. [Seattle Times, Jun 29] No apparent connection to SBIR winner Koronis Biomedical in Minnesota.
Kosan BiosciencesKosan Biosciences more than tripled in Nasdaq trading after Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to buy the company for $235 M. Bristol-Myers, bracing for the loss of $3 billion when its top-selling blood thinner Plavix faces generic competition in four years, is slashing costs and searching for new products. The purchase gives it Kosan's anti-cancer compounds, now in human testing. [San Jose Mercury News, May 29, 08] Kosan Biosciences down 10% [Feb 14, 08] Kosan Biosciences up 13% [Feb 13, 08] Kosan Biosciences up 11% [Feb 11, 08] Kosan Biosciences up 12% [Jan 24, 08] Kosan Biosciences up 15% [Jan 23, 08] Kosan Biosciences down 11% [Jan 17, 08]. Kosan Biosciences up 12% [Dec 19, 07] Kosan Biosciences down 43% [Dec 10, 07] on bad news from its blood-cancer patients. Kosan Biosciences up 11% [Nov 13, 07] Kosan Biosciences up 10% [Sep 18, 07] Kosan Biosciences up 14% [Aug 16,07] Kosan Biosciences up 11% after broker's upgrade. [Feb 07] KovioPrinting Chips on the Cheap. Silicon Valley startup Kovio (Sunnyvale, CA; no SBIR) says it has refined a process that uses regular printing-press technology to create low-power chips [which] could represent a step forward in developing cheap, mass-produced radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. ... will use a process that could drop the price of the tiny radio chips, which help companies keep track of products they ship, from 15 cents per tag to 5 cents by late 2008. ... uses long-established graphics printing techniques, but instead of color inks it sprays what it calls "silicon ink"--consisting of silicon electronics and thin-film transistors--onto stainless steel foil that is paired with a tiny radio antenna. Silicon ink devices can be made using cheaper equipment than that used to make regular chips. [Cliff Edwards , Business Week, Dec 10] Kovio, a Sunnyvale developer of semiconductor products using thin-film technologies, or "printed electronics," has raised $19.5 million in the first part of a fourth (series D) round; Sunnyvale-based [Matt Marshall, Venture Beat, Sep 5]
Kronos Advanced Technologies (Belmont, MA)Kronos Advanced Technologies (Belmont, MA; no SBIR), a maker of air movement and purification technologies, has “curtailed operations and reduced its workforce to the fullest extent,” in response to the receipt of a notice of default by investor AirWorks Funding LLLP. .... The company was initially founded in 2000 and funded by the U.S. military to develop electrostatic air movers. Eventually the company moved into the consumer air purification business. [Mass High Tech, Oct 10]
KVH Industries (Middletown, RI)KVH up 12% [May 5, 09] KVH Industries $3.8 million in new orders for its precision fiber-optic gyro system. The bulk of the orders -- $2.9 million -- comes from an unnamed remote weapons station manufacturer [Mass High Tech, Apr 7, 09] KVH down 10% [Mar 2, 09] KVH up 10% [Jan 21, 09] KVH up 12% [Jan 2, 09]
KVH Industries up 10%
[Dec 19, 08]
KVH down 16% [Nov 24, 08] KVH up 61% [Nov 21, 08] KVH up 12% [Nov 3, 08] KVH down 13% [Oct 10, 08] KVH down 11% [Oct 3, 08] KVH Industries reports it has landed $1.3 million to deliver military navigation systems from an unnamed southeast Asian customer. [Mass High Tech, Sep 17, 08] KVH Industries down 15% [Jul 22, 08] KVH Industries up 11% [Jul 21, 08] KVH Industries, a maker of in-motion satellite TV and communications systems, has landed a new contract with an undisclosed in-flight entertainment provider valued at $20M [Mass High Tech, Feb 22, 08] KVH Industries received two orders from a US defense contractor for the purchase of components and upgrades for KVH's TACNAV vehicle navigation systems for use on U.S. military combat vehicles. KVH up 10% [Jan 16, 08] KVH Industries got an up-to-$6M new contract from a European defense contractor for the purchase of KVH's TACNAV® II fiber optic gyro (FOG)-based vehicle navigation systems and displays for use on new infantry fighting vehicles. [Business Wire, Apr 17, 07] KVH down 11% on news of lower profit. (Oct 19,06) even though revenue was up 15% and that Business Week named two of KVH's live mobile media solutions among its eight "Coolest Car Gadgets for 2007." [Providence Business News, Oct 20, 06] KVH made #20 on the NASDAQ short interest ratio list at 29 days to cover. [Oct05] Doubters. KVH ranked #11 on the NASDAQ short interest ratio at 43 days. SatCon ranked # 5 on percentage increase in sextupling the short interest. {sep05] “Sandstorm” and “H1ghlander” by Carnegie Mellon will have fiber optic gyros (FOGs) by KVH for the $2M winner-take-all DARPA robot vehicle race across the Mojave. Out of 118 applicants, 20 finalists will race. Last year nobody even got far from the start point. KVH Industries leapt into 37th place on NASDAQ short-interest ratios with 3.3M shares, 22 days worth of average daily trading volume. ViaSat was on the list of largest (58%) percent increase, as was Emcore. [spring 05] Now Cellphones, ThenTV. KVH got. a U.S. patent for a key component in the hybrid phased-array antenna used in KVH’s in-motion TracVision A5 satellite TV system for automobiles. ... A report by industry analyst Frost & Sullivan projects that by 2011 more than 36 million automobiles in the United States will be equipped with video systems and of these, more than 3 million will receive mobile satellite TV programming. [Mass High-Tech, Mar 8] KVH Industries reports a $2.8M order from an unnamed foreign defense client through an equally unnamed US defense contractor for its TacNav vehicle navigation systems and the smarts to install and operate them. [Mass High Tech, Dec 28, 04] .KVH took home $48M from a public offering at $18.75 per share after all the hands in the pockets got their piece of the action. Prep Ended Too Soon. KVH Industries took a two-day hit of 17% as it reported 20% higher revenues leading to a big loss. Said the CEO, While both the fourth quarter and full-year revenues were record highs, they were lower than we had expected primarily as a result of the absence of an anticipated large order from an existing U.S. military customer. Seems the 2002 profits, although not all that big, came from the military buying spree before the Iraq invasion. Live by the sword, ... KVH Industries navigation system to be standard for German army vehicles. KVH Industries Inc., of Middletown, R.I., announced today that the German Army has named the KVH M100 Ground Mobility Enhanced Navigation System (GMENS) a standard product in the German Army procurement system. [Mass High Tech, Nov7] After quadrupling from its low of last autumn, KVH stock took a breather yesterday with a 14% drop (that would have been 50% of that low). Gene Marcial's Business Week column (Jun 16) touted KVH Industries as a big winner in the Iraq war sales derby to Defense and predicts KVH will introduce a satellite dish for cars. Unlike most SBIR firms' stock, KVH has tripled since last fall. TV in every car? So the driver can peek while talking on a cell phone? What better argument for smart highways? KVH Rides Defense Wave. KVH won a $3.6M Army contract as part of a multi-year $10M deal its TACNAV vehicle navigation system. The company claims our revenues grew 9% over 2000 to $32.7 million, driven by the fifth consecutive year of growth in our satellite communications business.def Navigation is 20% of KVH's business. KVH was founded in 1982 and went public in 1996, has a market cap of $67.1M, and has lost about $4M over five years on steadily rising sales. Its nine 9 Phase 2 SBIR were mostly Navy for engineering of well-controlled development projects.
Kylin Therapeutics (West Lafayette, IN)Kylin Therapeutics (West Lafayette, IN; no SBIR), a small life-sciences firm based in Purdue Research Park, has received a $1.2 million state grant to develop a technology it says could allow physicians to target drug delivery for treatment of diseases. The company, with seven employees, said it is in the preclinical stage of commercializing a technology to directly target and turn off disease-causing genes. The company said the research shows promise in treating prostate cancer, ovarian cancer and other diseases. The company received a $250,000 grant from the state in 2007. [Indianapolis Star, Jan 9, 09] Kylin Therapeutics (West Lafayette, IN; no SBIR) , a six-employee developer of cancer and disease-fighting biotechnology, has doubled its work force and outside investment in its operations at Purdue's Research Park in West Lafayette, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. said. The company used a $250,000 grant to help commercialize Purdue technology that allows doctors to target drug delivery for treatment of diseases that include AIDS and cancer. [Indianapolis Star, Feb 22] Kyma Technologies (Raleigh, NC)Thirteen NC companies will split $1 M from a new state fund intended to help businesses create environmentally friendly technologies. In the Triangle area: Ecocurrent of Raleigh received $100,000 to convert hog manure into electric power; Kyma Technologies of Raleigh received $60,000 to work with N.C. State University on a more efficient, cheaper electric switch.; 3F LLC of Raleigh received $100,000 to develop a natural fiber-reinforced concrete formula.; Piedmont Biofuels of Pittsboro received $75,000 to work on a reactor that more efficiently creates biodiesel.; Nextreme Thermal Solutions of Durham received $57,319 to manufacture a generator that converts waste heat into electricity.; Rain Water Solutions of Raleigh received $18,000 to develop a new rain barrel manufacturing process. [Raleigh News & Observer, Jul 1] Kyma Technologies (Raleigh, NC) $2.6M VC money in a first round and says it plans a second round next year to begin production of semiconductor substrates of GaN and AlN. Kyma was co-founded by Jerry Cuomo, a research professor in NCSU, and Mark Williams, a former graduate student of Cuomo. As for Cuomo, he worked at IBM for 30 years before joining NCSU and is the holder of 115 patents. With technology licensed from NCSU, the firm started in 1998 with about $550K from angel investors and more than $2M in federal grants. Spell that SBIR [facts from Lee Weisbecker, Raleigh Business Journal, Sep 24] Kyron Clinical Imaging (Wauwatosa WI)Kyron Clinical Imaging (Wauwatosa WI; one SBIR) got a $200K NIH SBIR. Kyron has a software application that allows doctors to look at different kinds of magnetic resonance images to better diagnose, treat and manage brain tumors and other neurological disorders. ... founded in 2004 by three Medical College of Wisconsin radiology professors. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Oct 17] It got FDA clearance in December for its BrainViewRx Viewer and a 2006 $1.5M investment from a local hospital. [company website]
LAAMScience (RTP, NC)About a decade ago, Steve Michielsen was like a lot of inventors. He had a great idea, no money and only a vague plan for how to unleash his genius on the world. This week, a specially treated fabric is rolling off machines that will be used to make face masks that Michielsen thinks will kill virtually any human or animal virus on contact. ... lofty goals for LAAMScience (RTP, NC; no SBIR) ... He is eager to send the research and test runs to the FDA this spring and hopes to have approval as soon as this fall -- just in time for the flu season. [Tim Simmons, Raleigh News & Observer, Apr 19] LabNowLabNow (Austin TX) (Austin TX; no SBIR) biotech company that has developed a portable device that will help treat AIDS patients in Africa and Asia, has secured an investment of $20M. ... on a shoestring budget only seven months ago after spending its initial $14M investment, now has a "chance to do everything we had hoped with this money," CEO Rick Hawkins said. [Lily Rockwell, Austin American-Statesman, Nov 12]
Laborie Medical Technologies (Williston, VT)Laborie Medical Technologies (Williston, VT, no SBIR, founded 1967) reports it has garnered [FDA] market clearance for its diagnostic system for urological disorders ... The -based firm's "Tetra" near infrared spectroscopy system uses non-invasive lasers to analyze bladder obstruction and other urinary functions, company officials say. Studies are under way to find further uses of the technology. Laborie develops and markets diagnostics for urology, computerized and physical modeling tools for the bladder, as well as educational products. The privately held company employs more than 150 workers, [Mass High Tech, Mar 10, 08]
LandecLandec up 15% [Mar 6, 09] Landec up 10% [Jan 21, 09] Landec down 20% [Jan 7, 09] Landec down 13% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Landec up 10% [Nov 13, 08] Landec up 11% [Oct 10, 08] Landec down 11% [Oct 9, 08] Landec down 16% [Jan 4, 08] Landec jumped 11% after announcing two deals with Monsanto that could be worth $70 million. [Dec 4, 06] Landec makes polymers used in food and agricultural products. It had about $1.5M SBIR 1987-2003.
LaserMotive (Kent, WA)LaserMotive (Kent, WA; no SBIR) is going after a $2 million prize in the power-beaming challenge of the NASA-sponsored Space Elevator Games. .... Six partners and 10 employees .... "We don't have a lot of competition," he said, then perhaps obviously adding, "there are not a lot of companies that have this type of background and experience." [Charles Berman, Seattle Times, Jul 28]
Lawrie Technology (Girard, PA)Lawrie Technology (Girard, PA), has embedded fibers within an elastomeric matrix, creating a new material whose properties differ wildly from "normal" isotropic materials. Founder/boss Duncan Lawrie says his process runs from $40 to $80 per pound while competing processes cost as much as $400 per pound. The curse of all new materials is their cost. Two Phase 2 SBIRs in the mid-1990s. story from MDA Update http://www.mdatechnology.net/update_article.asp?id=5102 Lawrie has no apparent website, not a healthy sign of commercial success.
LeCroy (Chestnut Ridge, NY)LeCroy up 11% [May 29, 09] LeCroy up 24% [May 6, 09] LeCroy up 16% [Apr 16, 09] LeCroy up 16% [Apr 9, 09] LeCroy up 23% [Mar 23, 09] LeCroy down 18% [Jan 26, 09] LeCroy up 12%
[Dec 29, 08] LeCroy up 10%
[Dec 26, 08] LeCroy down 12%
[Dec 22, 08] LeCroy up 11%
[Dec 12, 08] LeCroy down 11% [Dec 11, 08] LeCroy up 10% [Dec 10, 08] LeCroy down 13% [Dec 3, 08] LeCroy up 13% [Nov 28, 08] LeCroy up 12% [Nov 17, 08] Lecroy up 12% [Nov 13, 08] Lecroy up 11% [Oct 30, 08] Lecroy down 13% [Oct 15, 08] Lecroy up 11% [Mar 18, 08] LeCroy (Chestnut Ridge, NY; one Phase 2 SBIR a decade ago) up 19% on good profit news. [Oct 17, 07]
LED Lighting Fixtures [Morrisville, NC]Cree is increasing its bet on the burgeoning market for energy-efficient lights [saying] it will buy LED Lighting Fixtures (Morrisville NC) for up to $100M+. LED Lighting is run by F. Neal Hunter, who 20 years ago co-founded Cree. ... Buying LED Lighting will add $1 M to Cree's revenue for the current quarter and $30M in revenue during the fiscal year that starts in June. Cree reported $394M in revenue in its last fiscal year. [Alan Wolf and David Ranii, Raleigh News&Observer, Feb 9, 08] LED Lighting Fixtures (Morrisville NC) claims a technology breakthrough that will dramatically lower the cost of lighting homes and offices with LEDs ... uses 5.8 watts of power, compared with 60 watts for an equally bright incandescent bulb [Frank Norton, Raleigh News& Observer, Nov 28] LED Lighting Fixtures (Morrisville NC; no SBIR) raised $16.5M in private equity to expand its line of power-efficient lighting products and accelerate research and development. LLF is among the first companies in the world to design and manufacture general-purpose fixtures that hold light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. ...The cash infusion is the company's second since being co-founded in 2005 by current chairman Neil Hunter, one of the founders of Cree. LLF, which raised $6.5 million last year, uses Cree LEDs in some of its products. [Frank Norton, Raleigh News&Observer, Nov 3, 07] LED Lighting Fixtures [Morrisville, NC] signed the first customer for its energy-efficient light fixtures. The startup, led by Cree co-founder Neal Hunter, will supply recessed light fixtures to Loyd Builders, a custom home builder. [Raleigh News and Observer, Mar 21]
Lexicon GeneticsLexicon Genetics up 10%. [Apr 13, 07] Lexicon Genetics up 11% [Feb 22, 07] after a broker's upgrade.
Lexicon PharmaceuticalsTwo financing infusions [$200-500M] announced this week will help Lexicon Pharmaceuticals complete its shift from a genetic research company to a biopharmaceutical firm on its own terms, analysts said. [Purva Patel, Houston Chronicle, Jun 19]
LifeCell (Branchburg,NJ)LifeCell (Branchburg, NJ; $4M SBIR) up 17% after agreeing to be bought by Kinetic Concepts for $1.7 B cash. [company press release]
Life TechnologiesVisiGen Biotechnologies (Houston, TX; $200K SBIR), a company created by University of Houston researchers, was acquired for $20 million by Invitrogen Corp., which recently merged with Applied Biosystems to form Life Technologies. The company is working on a new process to sequence individual human genomes. [Houston Chronicle, Dec 11, 08]
Ligand Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA)Ligand Pharmaceuticals (one small SBIR 1994) is another early-stage drug company with a new drug application pending before the FDA. Ligand technology was used in the development of Fablyn, which can treat osteoporosis, and was developed in collaboration with Pfizer. An FDA panel gave the chances for approval a boost in early September 2008, when it said the drug might prove more beneficial to patients given the risks. Ligand had only $9.7 million in revenues the first six months of 2008. The company is not solely dependent on Fablyn, as it has collaborations with other large drug companies including Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline. A decision is expected sometime before the end of 2008 and if approved Ligand will receive royalty payments and cash. [Eric Fox, Investopedia, Oct 16] Ligand Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA; one SBIR) fell 36% after the FDA said Promacta, a treatment Ligand is developing for patients affected by chronic thrombocytopenic purpura, or ITP, in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, was unable to significantly reduce bleeding when compared with a placebo. [Wall St Journal, May 29] LightpointeLightPointe,which started life on an MDA SBIR in 1999, got another $17M VC money. That was after one Phase 2 SBIR and $45M earlier rounds. The optical telecom bubble did not collapse for everyone; the company claims 2,000-plus installations in more than 60 countries. That's the kind of ROI that SBIR should seek in all the agencies. Thanks to MDA's tech commercialization page for the info. Those WO guys do a great job of tracking the good things that happen outside MDA from MDA's tech spending. They don't spend their energy in "success stories" with minor league, economically empty success.
Light Sciences Oncologythings are looking better: the research-oriented startups seem poised to survive the downturn, and long-awaited clinical results could propel larger companies like Dendreon to stardom. ... despite the financial crisis, the Accelerator, a local incubator based in Seattle's Eastlake neighborhood, created three firms last year - Recodagen, GPC-Rx and Mirina (none had SBIR) ... "Seattle is really a town of development-stage biotechs," Miller said. ... Light Sciences Oncology (no SBIR), a firm that canceled its initial public offering last February, managed to raise $10 million from venture capitalists in July. Private investors provided Redmond-based Healionics (no SBIR) — which manufactures material for implants — with a $2.6 million boost in December. In a deal that could yield big results, Bothell-based Acucela (no SBIR), which is developing therapies to treat blindness, signed a partnership deal in September with Japanese firm Otsuka Pharmaceutical that could potentially bring it $258 million. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Jan 25, 09]Lilliputian Systems (Wilmington, MA)Lilliputian Systems (Wilmington, MA; no SBIR), a secretive company that has been developing tiny fuel cells aimed at powering small consumer devices, has secured $28 million in new funding from new and existing investors. ... has raised approximately $90 million since its inception in 2001. ... plan eventually to offer a suite of products revolving around the butane-powered fuel cell technology [Mass High Tech, Apr 2, 09] Linares Management Associates (Medfield, MA)The face staring through a porthole on page 100 is Bob Linares, one of many CVD diamond dreamers in the late 80s and early 90s. Josh Davis Wired (Sep 2003) tells the story of two competing companies developing mass-produced diamonds. The DOD database shows eight Phase 1 and two Phase 2 SBIRs in the 90s - all from SDIO/BMDO (the original names of MDA) for Linares Management. The Wired story tells how Linares made a bundle selling a gallium arsenide company and building a "secret diamond research lab" to probe for the "sweet spot" of making single crystal diamond. In that quest he was one of many that SDIO/BMDO funded in what turned out, at least so far, to be a too elegant and expensive process. Crystallume and SI Diamond were two companies that went public and then broke with diamond. Linares present company, Apollo Diamond, run by his son, is competing with Gemesis. Diamond would be in great demand as a heat conductor as electronic chips shrink into pure heaters. Cheap diamond would, however, ruin the diamond jewelry industry that for centuries relied on scarcity. If the commerce works out, BMDO can claim another nurturing of a really innovative idea that did what SBIR is supposed to do - get real innovators going. Single Crystal Diamond. Photonics Spectra (Mar 98) reports a proprietary CVD process for single crystal diamond by Linares Management Associates (Medfield, MA). Nice. Who will make money from it? Two companies had a lot of SBIR, went public and then bust trying - Crystallume and SI Diamond. Linares has had SBIR from BMDO for both diamond and GaN. If you want to try, government is a sucker for nice science with the dreamy promise of a huge future market. Emphasize your science with lots of references to the literature, impressive credentials of investigators, lots of chemistry-speak, and an estimate of at least $2B market (no, you don't have to prove it).
Liquidia Technologies (Durham, NC)Liquidia (Durham, NC; no SBIR), co-founded in 2004 by Triangle scientist Joseph DeSimone, will work with Abbott on a new type of cancer treatment known as short interfering RNA, or siRNA. [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 8] Optimism. Neal Fowler quit his job as head of a multibillion-dollar Johnson & Johnson subsidiary based on the big promise of a young Durham nanotechnology company. For the past 20 years, Fowler worked for large pharmaceutical companies ... he took a pay cut to join Liquidia Technologies (no SBIR), which employs 35 ... The object of everybody's desire is a clear, nonstick material, called Fluorocur. Developed by UNC-CH chemistry professors Joe DeSimone and Ed Samulski and three of their students, Fluorocur is liquid at room temperature and hardens when exposed to ultraviolet light. What makes Liquidia's technology attractive is its scale. Fluorocur creeps into crevices so small they can only be seen with the most powerful microscopes. [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News&Observer, Mar 14] Since it won't be going back and back to SBIR for endless externally funded R&D, it must find a profitable app, one is enough when capital and patience are limited, on which to base a growing enterprise.
LiquidPiston (West Hartford, CT)LiquidPiston (Bloomfield, CT; a little SBIR) which develops specialized internal combustion engines, received $700,000 in second-round financing. [Hartford Courant, Oct 18,08] LiquidPiston (West Hartford, CT; one SBIR), a recent runner-up in MIT's $100K business plan competition, has secured its first round of venture funding, adding $1.25M.
Lithium Technology (Plymouth Meeting, PA)Lithium-ion battery maker Lithium Technology (Plymouth Meeting, PA; three SBIRs) is discontinuing flat cell production at the company's headquarters in . "This step is necessary to allow the company to focus all its efforts on cylindrical cells that are its core competency," Lithium said. "The company will expand its present manufacturing capability in Germany." [Philadelphia Business Journal, Jun 27, 08] LiveData (Cambridge, MA)LiveData (Cambridge, MA; $800K SBIR) made a research and development partnership with Idaho National Laboratory . to test the security of LiveData's ICCP Protocol Server for the electric power industry. [Mass High Tech, Apr 4] Logical Therapeutics (Waltham , MA)Logical Therapeutics (Waltham , MA; no SBIR) expanded its Series B round by $2.7 million from inside investors to increase its manufacturing operations and add a new product. In 2007, the developer of anti-inflammatory therapies raised about $30 million for its Series B round. [Mass High Tech, Dec 8, 08] LS9 (San Carlos, CA)Biofuel Valley. More than fifteen hundred miles away from the Midwest's corn belt, several California-based, venture-backed startups founded by pioneers in the fledging field of synthetic biology are creating new microörganisms designed to make biofuels other than ethanol. .... planning to produce novel hydrocarbons ... At LS9 in San Carlos, CA, researchers are turning E. coli into a hydrocarbon producer by reëngineering its fatty-acid metabolism (see "Better Biofuels," Forward, July/August 2007) [David Rotman, MIT Tech Review, Dec 20] Ethanol is an expensive fuel that requires special handling; only government subsidy keeps it alive. While much of the focus is on ethanol, LS9 (San Carlos, CA; no SBIR) is using relatively new "synthetic biology" techniques to engineer bacteria that can make - secrete - hydrocarbons for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. ... Overall, LS9 says, its process would consume 65% less energy than ethanol production. The company hopes to bring hydrocarbon biofuels to market in four or five years. [Neil Savage, MIT Tech Review, J/A07]
Luca Technologies (Golden, CO)Luca Technologies (Golden, CO; no SBIR) has raised $76 million to scale up a process that uses coal-digesting microorganisms to convert coal into methane. The process is designed to operate underground, inside coal mines. ... Scott, working at the University of Texas in the mid-1990s, helped show that a significant fraction of natural gas is constantly being produced by microorganisms that feed on coal. First, one type of microbe breaks the long hydrocarbon molecules found in coal into shorter molecules. Other microbes convert these molecules into organic acids and alcohols. Finally, microbes called methanogens feed on these and produce methane. [Kevin Bullis, MIT Tech Review, Jan 8]
Lucigen (Middleton,WI)Lucigen (Middleton,WI; $5M SBIR), that has discovered new heat-stable enzymes in boiling hot springs, said Tuesday it has won two new federal grants.... $100,000 to further develop the enzyme, which it says has properties that might be useful in cancer diagnosis and infectious disease detection. ... also will share in an award of $300,000 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to work with Abhay Vats at the University of Pittsburgh on tests they are developing for respiratory viruses. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 5, 09] founded in 1998, is a privately held company manufacturing and selling products worldwide for gene cloning and genomics. [company website] Lumencor (Beaverton, OR)Lumencor (Beaverton, OR) Formed December 2006 . The product: Specialized high-performance lights for biotechnology, called light engines. They are used for basic and applied research in life sciences, including drug research, blood analysis and DNA sequencing. Prototypes are being tested; the plan is to have units for sale in six months. The founders: Steven Jaffe, 46, president and chief executive, is a physicist who has developed optical displays. He founded Quantum Vision (one Phase 2 SBIR), a California startup that folded in 2006. ... Arlie Conner, 53, vice president for engineering, is an inventor, optical engineer and mathematician who has designed projectors and LED lighting systems and worked at InFocus, a Wilsonville maker of digital projectors. He started Lightware (Beaverton, OR; no SBIR) which was purchased by 3M. [The Oregonian, Mar 8,08]
LumeraLumera which is merging with GigOptix of California, reported that it trimmed its third-quarter loss to $1.5 million, [Puget Sound Business Journal, Oct 21, 08] Light Over Life. Lumera, (Bothell, WA; one SBIR) optic-communications company, scrapped its life-science-tools subsidiary and announced a merger agreement with GigOptix. Lumera's board determined that it does not have enough cash to continue running Plexera Bioscience and is focusing instead on its optics business. [Ben Romano, Seattle Times, Mar 28] Lumera down 14% [Feb 21, 08] Lumera up 10% [Feb 20, 08] Lumera up 38% [Jan 29, 08] Lumera up 12% [Oct 15, 07] after announcing the release of its 40 Gbps electro-optic polymer modulator for optical transmission systems. [press release] Lumera up 29%. [Aug 8, 07] Lumera up 13% [May 18, 07] Lumera up 24% [Mar 12, 07] on a Lockheed purchase order for polymer materials with the possibility of a licensing deal. Lumera lost 20% after reporting a bigger loss. [Mar 9, 07] Lumera still rolling, up another 18% [Nov 6, 06] Lumera up 10% on no more news; that's up about 25% for the week. [Nov 3, 06] Lumera, which once had a Phase 1 SBIR, rocketed 38% after it said that Harvard Medical School researchers are building discovery and diagnostics methods with Lumera's ProteomicProcessor biosensor. [Wall Street Journal, Nov 1] Luminary Micro (Austin TX)Startup Luminary Micro (Austin, TX; no SBIR) is beginning to hit its stride, expecting this year to sell millions of microcontrollers, which are tiny low-cost brains that run everything from industrial equipment to household appliances. The company has raised $44 million in venture backing, expects to become profitable next year and, if all goes well, will shoot for a public stock offering in 2010. Not bad for a company that was conceived less than four years ago over fish, chips and beers at Mother Egan's Irish Pub. .... 62 employees, many of them highly skilled veteran chip designers, and has launched 132 new chips. Some indeed sell for a buck apiece, while others go for several dollars more. [Austin American-Statesman, Jul 28, 08] Luminary Micro a three-year-old Austin chip startup (no SBIR) , raised another $25 M in venture capital, the company's third venture round since it was started. [Austin American-Statesman, Aug 23] Luminex (Austin TX)Luminex (Austin TX; no SBIR, 300 employees), the worldwide leader in multiplexed solutions, today announced that it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its xTAG(TM) Respiratory Viral Panel (RVP). xTAG RVP is the first FDA-cleared assay to simultaneously detect and identify 12 viruses and viral subtypes that together are responsible for more than 85 percent of respiratory viral infections. [company press release]
Luminus Devices (Billerica, MA)LED maker Luminus Devices (Billerica, MA; no SBIR) closed $72M in new funding, bringing the company's total raised to nearly $140M since its photonic lattice technology was spun out of MIT in 2002 [Mass High Tech, Mar 17]
Lumitex (Strongsville,OH)Faster than SBIR. the Air Force Research Lab [was] approached in 2004 and asked to develop such a system. Working with Lumitex (Strongsville,OH; no SBIR) the effort was part of a rapid-reaction program where researchers were given up to $100,000 and one year to come up with a product. ... The group produced 108 prototypes in six months [James Hannah, AP, Feb 20 reprint by Albany Times-Union] The product is a LED - fiber-optic strip that emits in the IR to mark friendly forces on the ground.
Luna InnovationsLuna Innovations up 13% [Nov 4, 08] Luna Innovations down 11% [Oct 6, 08] Luna Innovations down 17% [Oct 3, 08] Luna Innovations down 18% [Sep 29, 08] Luna Innovations down 11% [Sep 8, 08] Luna Innovations up 10% [Jul 18, 08] Luna Innovations rebounded 20% [Jun 30, 08] Luna Innovations down 21% [Jun 27, 08] Luna Innovations down 18% [Jun 26, 08] Luna Innovations up 16% [Mar 27, 08] Luna Innovations up 16% [Mar 25, 08] Luna Innovations down 17% [Mar 6, 08] Luna Innovations up 11% [Feb 13, 08] Luna Innovations down 14% [Jan 9, 08] Luna Innovations up 10% [Dec 28, 07] Luna Innovations up 13% [Nov 14, 07] on near doubling of profit. Luna Innovations down 15% after reporting another loss. [Nov 9, 07] Luna Innovations up 11% [Oct 30, 07] Luna Innovations up 14% [Oct 24, 07] Luna Innovations up 24% on news of a deal with Intuitive Surgical (the global technology leader in robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery) wherein Luna will develop and supply fiber optic-based shape sensing and position tracking system. [Jun 14, 07] Luna Innovations gave back 14% which is about 20 of the 68 percentage point gain the day before. Luna Innovations rocketed 68% on news that its company's blood circuit monitor used in cardiac surgery won clearance from U.S. health regulators. [Reuters, May 21] But still below its post-IPO trading price. Luna Innovations took a 27% tumble and an inverstment downgrade after forecasting lower revenue for next quarter. [Sep 06] Luna Innovations went public at $6 a share, half its week-ago target of $12. There it closed its short first trading day. Luna's technologies got a big helping hand from the government with $25M of SBIR in the last five years, plus another $10M before that as Fiber & Sensor Technologies. It claims to be a researcher and developer (and commercializer) of molecular technology and sensing solutions. Its home is Roanoke VA, the same home as Pixel Optics. Parts of the company had already been bought by bigger companies: Luna Energy was acquired in December 2004 by Baker Hughes, a leader in oil field services, and Luna i-Monitoring by IHS Energy in October 2003. [Jun 3,06] Even if $35M SBIR seems a lot of kerosene to start a fire, SBIR can claim at least some kind of ROI for a company attracting public capital. And something is better than the nothing that almost all other SBIR spending shows as a return. Luna TechnologiesLuna Technologies' Optical Backscatter Reflectometer (OBR(TM)) with distributed sensing has received a 2007 R&D 100 Award from the editors of R&D Magazine as one of the 100 most technologically significant new products introduced into the marketplace in the last year. [Business Wire, Jul 12] But will it be profitable? Who knows. The market seems skeptical since the stock is a third below its starting price a year ago. But that is better than being down the half it was last month. Luxtera (Carlsbad,CA)Luxtera, a startup based in Carlsbad, CA, that spun out of the California Institute of Technology, has announced the first optical cable based on the same silicon technology used to make microprocessors. The company says that the cable, called Blazar, can send 40 gigabits of data per second through its fiber but will cost as little as today's 20-gigabit-per-second optical cables. [Kate Green, MIT Tech Review, Aug 16] Intel isn't alone in the silicon-laser race. Luxtera, a start-up (Carlsbad, CA; two Phase 1 SBIRs), is planning to enter the market in the fourth quarter with chips that include the equivalent of four lasers, each of them able to send 10 gigabits of data a second. Alex Dickinson, Luxtera's chief executive, said Intel's development is interesting from a scientific point of view. But he argues that Luxtera's approach can bring practical benefits sooner, for applications such as connecting together servers to create a supercomputer. From a practical point of view, Mr. Dickinson said he doesn't think Intel's announcement "moves the ball forward." [Don Clark, Wall Street Journal, Jul 25, 07]
Lynntech (College Station, TX)SBIR Love Fest. When asked what time it is, he explained how the clock works. In testimony before the House SB Committee, DOD's SBIR manager/coordinator said next to nothing about what DOD has achieved toward SBIR goals in more than two decades. The NIH coordinator hinted that VC participation (codeword=flexibility) is important for health related innovation to get to market. The big difference is that DOD doesn't care about post-SBIR economic success. The DOEnergy manager said he didn't have money to explore program payoff. SBA reported "success" that would get any VC fired. Lynntech (College Station, TX; 400+ SBIR Projects) said it is the largest SBIR contractor in the State and one of the largest in the country. It is fair to say that we have found the program to be beneficial for our company. Having taken down zillions in free capital, Lynntech further says: Government is not well-organized to assist in the transition effort. That is: a new government handout program to help us pretend that the $100+M poured into our company has long term economic payoff. All of which would trigger a revitalization of the SBIR program and continue to improve an already stellar level of performance. The whole show avoided any hard questions about what SBIR is supposed to do and why it is even needed. Multi-SBIR winner Lynntech's full page ad in Wired for its Ozone Generator says we need more ozone. True, for the upper atmosphere. On earth, though, ozone is a hazard, especially in smog and inside jet airplanes. Still, advertising never went wrong insulting the intelligence of the consumer. Many times SBIR proposers insult government SBIR reviewers in analyzing their technology's economic future. It does not follow that since you know the technical details of your science that you also know, or can ignore, the economics of its use.
Mako SurgicalDr. Frederic H. Moll, 56, is a soft-spoken man who can look uncomfortable on stage. Yet his role in founding Intuitive Surgical ($2.5M SBIR), the company that now dominates the field, and his current involvement with three other robotics companies, has kept him in the sights of investors, health care providers and fellow entrepreneurs. ... He took the idea to his employer, Guidant, a medical device company. Guidant decided that robotic surgery was too futuristic and too risky, so Dr. Moll rounded up backers, resigned, and in 1995, founded Intuitive Surgical. [which] earned $144M last year on sales of $600M .... He’s now best known as chief executive of Hansen Medical (no SBIR), a publicly traded robotics company focused on minimally invasive cardiac care. But he’s also an investor in and a board member of Mako Surgical (no SBIR), an orthopedics robotics company that recently went public, and he is a co-founder and chairman of Restoration Robotics (no SBIR), a start-up company focused on cosmetic surgery. [Barnaby Feder, New York Times, May 4] Macrochem (Woburh, MA)MacroChem (Wellesley Hills MA; three SBIRs) reports it has closed on a private placement of $3.5M targeted at moving the company's EcoNail nail fungus treatment through its Phase 2 clinical program and developing its newly acquired product, pexiganan. [Mass High Tech, Oct 10] MacroChem (Wellesley Hills, MA; three SBIRs) has purchased the license to a treatment for diabetic foot infection. MacroChem executives report the company has exercised an option to acquire exclusive worldwide license rights for pexiganan, a novel, small peptide anti-infective, from New York City-based Genaera Corp (three SBIRs). [Mass High Tech, Oct 4, 07] Micro-HHS-SBIR user Macrochem (Woburn, MA) is closing the door and auctioning off the assets. [Mass High Tech, Sep 2]
Macrogenics (Rockville, MD)MacroGenics (Rockville, MD; $2.7M SBIR) plans to announce today that it has raised $25 million in financing [Washington Post, Sep 25, 08] Charities Investing. Fed up with breakthroughs that fill journals rather than medicine chests, private foundations and charities that have traditionally funded academic scientists have started doing the once-unthinkable: writing checks for millions of dollars to for-profit companies. ... Earlier this month, JDRF announced that it was giving $2 million to MacroGenics Inc., a Rockville, Md., biotech, for a phase-2/3 clinical trial of an antibody that might slow progression of type-1 diabetes. [Sharon Begley, Wall Street Journal, Jan 26] MacroGenics has had $2+M in SBIR. JDRF has also funded Sangamo BioSciences (Richmond, CA) $3M, Transition Therapeutics (Toronto) , and TolerRx (Cambridge, MA). Sangamo has also had $2+M SBIR.
MagneMotion (Sudbury, MA)Magnemotion (Sudbury, MA; $700K SBIR) is building a new headquarters in Devens and hopes to add 100 new jobs.... The state Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved state and local tax incentives for 10 companies that have pledged to add jobs in the state. [Boston Globe, Nov 25, 08] MagneMotion (Sudbury, MA; one Phase 2 SBIR) landed $6.3M from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration to develop a magnetic levitation (maglev) transportation system for use in cities, according to officials. ... received a patent for its maglev technology in July 2006. The following September, it closed $3M from Massachusetts Capital Resource Co. [Mass High Tech, Jan 15] Magnetek (Menomonee Falls, WI)Magnetek (Menomonee Falls, WI; no SBIR) got orders for fuel cell power inverters worth $1.3M from United Technologies. The 380-employee firm with a market cap of $144M makes and sells digital power control systems. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sep 27, 07] Unfortunately, for the last three years it has lost a total of about $80M. Magnolia Optical TechnologiesMagnolia Optical Technologies (Woburn, MA; $3M SBIR) announced that it is collaborating with Kopin in developing indium nitride-based, or InN-based, quantum dot solar cells for NASA and defense applications. [Boston Globe, Jul 11, 08] Magnolia Optical Technologies (Woburn, MA; $3M SBIR) reports it is working with Kopin on a solar cell development [STTR] contract Kopin won from NASA. [Mass High Tech, May 9, 08] Mainstream Engineering (Rockledge, FL)A QwikBoost(TM), claims the AF, of an allegedly SBIR product from Mainstream Engineering (Rockledge, FL) for refrigeration systems. The DOD database says Mainstream has had 35 Phase 1 SBIRs and 9 Phase 2s. CEO Bob Scaringe two years ago in an SBIR conference boasted 150 SBIRs. It has 30 employees, up from 6 in 1987. If the ratio of four Phase 1s for every Phase 2 had held over those years for the other SBIR agencies, Mainstream would have collected about $33M which is about enough to explain all the employee compensation for 13 years.
MapInfo (Troy, NY)Prosperity can be done. Our vision is to enable every business and government - worldwide - to harness the power of location. MapInfo is the leading provider of location intelligence solutions.[company website] In the face of higher slaes and lower profits for the latest quarter, the company is hopeful about the future with the hiring of former Microsoft Corp. executive John O'Hara as its new executive vice president of international operations [Albany Times-Union, Nov 3] Headquarters: One Global View, Troy NY. 900 employees, no SBIRs since 1986 founding. Acquired ten businesses in the US, UK, and Australia. Another measure of the coming of the modern age of the Capital District after being stuck by the Great Depression and the collapse of its 19th century industries by the end of World War II. Its 19th century starter was being the eastern terminus of the Erie Canal. The technological intellectual stimulus came from the growth and re-vitalization of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute after I graduated. It can be done. Marcadia Biotech (Carmel IN)Marcadia Biotech (Carmel IN) got a $15M infusion is developing an innovative and novel solution for hypoglycemia: glucagon that is stable in solution, enabling delivery via an injector pen. Founded in 2005 by Richard DiMarchi chair and professor of IU Bloomington department of chemistry, and former executives from Eli Lilly focuses its research on the discovery and development of synthetic peptide-based drugs with a license from IU. Marcadia was a recent recipient of a $2M 21st Century Research and Technology Award from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. [facts from company website] No known SBIR. Marinus Pharmaceuticals (Branford, CT)Marinus Pharmaceuticals (Branford, CT; no SBIR; founded 2004) has closed a $20 million Series B financing to help fund the development of epilepsy treatment. ... In total, Marinus has raised a total of $50 million in private funds to date. [Marc Songini, Mass High Tech, Apr 10, 09] Martek BiosciencesMartek Biosciences up 13% [Mar 26, 09] Martek Biosciences down 12% [Mar 5, 09] Martek Biosciences up 10% [Nov 13, 08] Martek Bioscience up 21% [Oct 13, 08] Martek Biosciences (Columbia, MD; $7M SBIR 1985-2001) has touted the progress of its vegetarian form of a good-for-the-brain food additive, announcing scores of deals with food companies over the past few years. But some industry watchers say the product's growth does not seem to be keeping pace with the steady flow of announcements. [Kejai Vijas, Dow Jones Newswires, Jul 27] After trading in a downtrend for three years, the stock broke out in mid-2007 and has been moving higher ever since. What the company does also differentiates it from other biotech companies. It develops nutritional oils from microalgae and fungi that are then used in everything from vitamins to baby formula. In June, the company reported an 89% increase in second-quarter profit, but also warned the third quarter will see a slowdown. [Matthew McCall, Investopedia, Jul 11, 08] Current market cap $1.2B, fifteen years public. If the government had taken a proportional equity share for its SBIR capital, SBIR would have something quantitative to offer as a rationale for funding, at least the Martek kind of company. But if it did such accounting for Martek, it would have to apply the method to all the other SBIR investments which would almost certainly show what a capital losing proposition SBIR is. Which, in turn, is why the almost all government disdains such accounting. Only MDA did it, and only for about five years in the 1990s. Martek Biosciences up 14% [Jan 7, 08] Martek Biosciences up 20% agreed to supply infant-formula supplements to South Korea's IlDong Pharmaceutical Co. [AP, Dec 13, 07]
Mascoma (Cambridge MA)Mascoma (Lebanon, NH; no SBIR) a cellulosic biofuels company, reports significant advances in its goal of simplifying the cellulosic ethanol process by skipping the use of costly enzymes, which could potentially reduce cellulosic ethanol's production costs by 20 to 30 percent. [Jennifer Chew, MIT Tech Review, May 12] But none of the process efficiency improvements can fill the hole in food production displaced for the fuel biomass. biofuels developer Mascoma (Cambridge MA; no SBIR) says it has acquired -based Celsys BioFuels (Indianapolis IN; no SBIR) a maker of cellulosic ethanol production technology that was spun out of Purdue University last year. ... Mascoma was founded in 2005 by [two] Dartmouth professors ... [it] emerged from stealth mode in 2006 and has since raised two rounds of private financing totaling $34M. [Mass High Tech, Nov 7, 07]
MasheryTen Startups to Watch: Instant Voicing by Pinger Founded 2005, Funding $11 million; Sharing, Privately by Pownce founded 2007 funding undisclosed; Cell-phone Streaming by Qik founded 2006 funding $4M; Traffic Master by Dash Navigation founded 2003 $71M; Crisis Sourcing by Ushahidi founded 2008 funding undisclosed; Partial Recall by QTech founded 2004 $5M; Are You ... Influential? by 33Across founded 2007, $1M; Semantic Ads by Peer 39, 2006, $11M; Mashups Made Easy by Mashery, 2006, $5M; Video Packet-Switching by Anagran, 2004, $40M. [MIT Tech Review, J/A08] Mason Box (North Attleboro,MA)Mason Box (North Attleboro, MA) is among several local companies that have been selected to participate in the "Next Generation Manufacturing Initiative, or NGMI, an effort to foster best-in-class manufacturing processes. Other participants in the initiative include Hoppe Tool (Chicopee, MA), Matouk Textiles (Fall River, MA), Munksjo Paper (Fitchburg, MA), and Spectro Coating (Leominster, MA). The initiative is a partnership of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group representing Bay State employers; MassDevelopment, the commonwealth's finance and development authority; and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a group dedicated to helping local manufacturers remain competitive in a global marketplace. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 19] No SBIR.
Material Technologies (LA, CAMaterial Technologies (Los Angeles, CA; no SBIR) whose stock trades around six cents has a full page add in USA Today (Mar 21) touting $8.3M in already completed government contracts and a new $286B law [the regular roads pork bill] allocating funds to states for [some unspecified share] nondestructive inspection of bridges. The company message: To own shares, call your broker, or DOWNLOAD a FREE Investor Packet. Note: such full page ads are not cheap for a company with three full-time employees, one of whom is Chairman, Chief Exec. Officer, Pres, Chief Financial Officer and Principal Accounting Officer [Yahoo Finance]. Note that by the same logic, if you have DOD SBIRs you can tout the $500B defense budget as a rich source of business for you. Just don't expect the DOD SBIR reviewers to be impressed by such a claim in your Commercialization section. Hear the Bridge Talk. Companies such as Material Technologies (LA, CA; no SBIR) and Physical Acoustics (Princeton NJ; $5M SBIR) are commercializing wireless sensors an inspector can slap on a bridge to diagnose cracks and stresses long before they become dangerous. ... For fees starting at about $35,000, [Physical Acoustics] will install a sensor to listen to creaks from fissures or the popping of steel-cable fibers, sounds that could be heard months before any flaws are visible to the man with the binoculars. [Business Week, Aug 20] Material Sciences CorpA few miles west of Chicago stands a brand new steel-processing plant. It cost $30M and is squeaky clean. There are almost no people. The only real sound comes from Robert Mataya, [of Material Sciences Corp] who is keen to show visitors that the wallet-sized piece of steel in his hand does not "ding" when someone flicks it. This is "quiet steel" [sold] to Singapore to make housings for computer disk-drives. America's once-rusty manufacturing heartland has restructured, retooled, and reinvented itself as the country's economic powerhouse. The Economist Apr 19, 1997. The biggest problem in the mid-West? Finding enough new workers to maintain the growth rate. MathStar (Minnetonka, MN)MathStar (Minnetonka, MN) will try an IPO to raise more development money for its new class of semiconductor integrated circuits called "field programmable object arrays" (FPOAs). MathStar is betting that its FPOA chips will meet the holy trinity of chip design: smaller, faster, and easier to build. But, the company noted in its filing, there is no commercial market for the company's technology yet. [Patrick Kennedy, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug 4] No apparent SBIRs.
Matouk Textiles (Fall River, MA)Mason Box (North Attleboro, MA) is among several local companies that have been selected to participate in the "Next Generation Manufacturing Initiative, or NGMI, an effort to foster best-in-class manufacturing processes. Other participants in the initiative include Hoppe Tool (Chicopee, MA), Matouk Textiles (Fall River, MA), Munksjo Paper (Fitchburg, MA), and Spectro Coating (Leominster, MA). The initiative is a partnership of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group representing Bay State employers; MassDevelopment, the commonwealth's finance and development authority; and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a group dedicated to helping local manufacturers remain competitive in a global marketplace. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 19] No SBIR. Matritech (Newton, MA)MZT Holdings Inc., formerly known as Matritech (Newton, MA; $5500K SBIR) ., reports that the former maker of bladder cancer tests has filed papers with state and federal regulators to dissolve its business and discontinue trading of its common stock [Mass High Tech, Jan 21]Matritech (Newton, MA; 5 SBIR Phase 1s), maker of tests for bladder cancer, reports it plans to sell its assets to a Massachusetts diagnostics firm [Inverness Medical Innovations for $36M] and wind down its operations [Mass High Tech, Aug 28] Matritech (Newton, MA) raised $4.36M in a private placement. [Jan 22, 07]. Five Phase 1 SBIRs in the mid 1990s. The stock p rice is down more than 90% from its highs of the last decade. Maxdem (San Dimas, CA)Another $6M for the world's stiffest, hardest, strongest polymer. Mississippi Polymer Technology got a $6M DOD Title III production contract for Parmax, its signature polymer than derives from an SBIR contract to a SoCal company. MPT is a production spin-off company of MaxDem which was nurtured by SDIO/BMDO first for polyquinilines and then for the self-reinforced thermoplastic polymer that became Parmax. Founder Bob Gagne took advantage of a BMDO offer to extend his Phase 2 SBIR if he found co-investment money to help move the material to the next stage of maturity. Gagne says he had never heard of government's making such offers but it was the time when BMDO was regularly moving the best new technology along a growth path. No, there's no sign that MDA will ever do that again with its present management attitude. Hello, Mississippi!
MaxygenMaxygen up 12% [May 12, 09] Maxygen down 10% [May 6, 09] Maxygen up 12% [Dec 8, 08] Maxygen up 11% [Dec 5, 08] Maxygen down 15% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Maxygen down 10% [Nov 14, 08] Maxygen up 10% [Nov 13, 08] Maxygen up 10% [Oct 23, 08] Maxygen down 10% [Oct 22, 08] Maxygen down 11% [Oct 15, 08] Maxygen up 13% [Oct 14, 08] Maxygen up 15% [Oct 10, 08] The Wall Street Journal's Patent Scorecard in Biotechnology ranks Invitrogen and Maxygen #2 and 3 in Science Strength (13-week rolling average). Sequenom was #6; Affymetrix #11 of 28 listed. Only Sequenom had an impressive stock price record, up 170% over 52 weeks. Maxygen up 14% [Sep 25, 08] Maxygen down 14% [Sep 22, 08] Maxygen up 13% [Sep 16, 08] Maxygen up 12% [Aug 8, 08] Maxygen up 12% [Aug 1, 08] Maxygen up 28% ...it is selling its hemophilia treatment program to Bayer's health care division for $90 million, plus up to $30 million in future milestone payments. [AP, Jul 2, 08] Maxygen down 28% [Jun 13, 08] after the company said it may be open to patent infringement litigation from rival Amgen. Maxygen up 11% [Nov 6, 07] MaxyGen down 12% on soggy earnings [Nov 1, 07] Maxygen up 10% [Oct 1, 07] Maxygen up 12% [Nov 16, 06]
Mechanical TechnologyMechanical Tech up 71% [Sep 19, 08] after its third generation Mobion® Chip has improved power performance by approximately 25% [pres release] Fuel cell developer MTI MicroFuel Cells received a $2.2 million bridge loan from its parent company and other investors to remain on track for commercialization. [Albany Times-Union, Sep 19] Mechanical Technology is eliminating 29 positions (third of the work force) -- including its CFO -- as a way to cut expenses and hold on to its cash. [Albany Times-Union, Sep 5] Mechanical Tech down 23% [Jul 23, 08] Mechanical Technology up 63% [Jul 22, 08], doubled in two days, after recent press release that it has achieved 2,700 hours of continuous operation with a Mobion laboratory cell the building block of the Company’s Mobion chip and systems. Mechanical Technology up 28% [Jul 21, 08] Mechanical Technology is hoping to raise $12 million to market its newest Mobion portable fuel cell. [Albany Business Journal, Jul 8, 08] MTI MicroFuel Cells, developer of Mobion portable power technology, announced today it will open an office in China. Parent Mechanical Technology said it has regained compliance with the Nasdaq's listing requirements (after an one for eight reverse split).[The Business Review (Albany), Jun 5, 08] MTI MicroFuel Cells is unveiling a new methanol-powered fuel cell for GPS navigation systems. ... Although GPS devices, or global positioning systems, are popular in cars, MTI Micro's fuel cell is embedded in a hand-held GPS used by hikers and campers. The prototype is the latest fuel-cell product MTI Micro has shown to the public. [Larry Rulison, Albany Times-Union, May 2, 08] Mechanical Technology got a NASDAQ warning of potential delisting for being under a buck. [Jan 08] MTI MicroFuel Cells (Colonie, NY; one SBIR) developing a small fuel cell designed to power consumer electronics, has set up a pilot manufacturing line. [Albany Times-Union, Jan 9, 08] a subsidiary of Mechanical Technology (Latham, NY; three SBIRs)Mechanical Technology has decided to exit the military market for fuel cells and will lay off roughly 25 people as it focuses exclusively on consumer electronics. One reason is Army budget cuts, especially cancellation of the Army's billion-dollar Land Warrior program. [Larry Rulison, Albany Times-Union, Mar 15] Foreign Interest. Mechanical Technology sold $11M worth of stock to three investors, one of which is investment fund registered to the Cayman Islands The company says it will use the money to fund its fuel-cell subsidiary, MTI MicroFuel Cells, which is developing fuel cells for the military and consumer electronics markets. [Albany Times-Union, Dec 22] Four Phase 1 SBIRs over a decade. Development Costs. the parent company of MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc. [Mechanical Technology] must raise additional capital to keep funding development of its Mobion fuel cell device, Wall Street analysts say, to fuel the company's cash burn is about $3M per quarter [Albany Times-Union, Nov 11] And it lost $3.7M in the most recent quarter.
Medarex (Princeton, NJ)Medarex up 10% [Apr 22, 09] Medarex up 17% [Mar 12, 09] Medarex up 10% [Mar 10, 09] Medarex down 11% [Mar 5, 09] Medarex down 13% [Mar 2, 09] Medarex down 13% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Medarex down 12% [Nov 14, 08] Medarex down 10% [Nov 12, 08 Medarex up 10% [Nov 3, 08] and the Massachusetts Biologics Laboratories said today that their two drug candidates reduced diarrhea in a clinical trial compared with a placebo. [Boston Globe, Nov 4, 08] Medarex up 11% [Oct 30, 08] Medarex up 10% [Oct 28, 08] Medarex up 10% [Oct 16, 08] Medarex up 31% [Oct 13, 08] Medarex (Princeton, NJ; $2M SBIR) plunged 18% after Pfizer's melanoma drug failed a clinical trial. The , biotechnology company was a partner with Pfizer on the development program and has a similar drug in late-stage trials with Bristol-Myers Squibb. [Wall Street Journal, Apr 3, 08]
MedicaMetrix (Wayland, MA)Startup MedicaMetrix (Wayland, MA; no SBIR) is looking to raise $3 million to get its urology technology to market. The company has invented a special sensor-equipped glove that can be used to examine a patient’s prostate gland and get an accurate recording of the gland’s size.The Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center reported providing “fast-lane” funding last week to two early-stage companies, MedicaMetrix (Wayland, MA; no SBIR) and VeinAid LLC (Fairfield, CT; no SBIR). MedicaMatrix, founded by Christopher LaFarge, makes the “ProstaGlove,” a disposable glove, with an embedded sensor, used to measure quantitative prostate volume. In addition to funding, the company received clinical trial help and materials development from M2D2. VeinAid, launched by Thomas Kottler, helps relieve varicose vein-associated pain and circulatory issues with its medical device applied externally. The M2D2 funds will aid marketing efforts of the device and assist with venture capital access and mold development. [Mass High Tech, Nov 26, 08] MedImmuneMedImmune said it is willing to consider takeover offers, reversing its stand against a sale because of interest from big pharmaceutical companies and investor unhappiness with the company's performance. The company has a market capitalization of nearly $9B and posted $1.28B revenue last year, mostly from its childhood respiratory drug Synagis. MedImmune also makes the inhaled influenza vaccine FluMist.[AP, Apr 13] $4M SBIR in the 1990s. Medis (New York NY)Medis Technologies, a small firm based in New York, plans to distribute hundreds of its new Power Pack portable fuel cells to a select group of business people, politicians and opinion formers. Each fuel cell is about the size of a cigarette packet, weighs 150 grams, and generates electricity by combining oxygen from the air with an internal fuel. It can be plugged into a hand-held device (such as a mobile phone, music player or portable games console) to power or recharge it, and has sufficient capacity to provide around 30 hours of talk-time on a mobile phone, or 60-80 hours of playback time for an iPod music-player. [The Economist, Jun 10] No SBIRs of record. MemjetHP will be forced to pay attention, says Steve Hoffenberg, director of consumer imaging research for Lyra Research, which monitors the digital imaging industry. "What Memjet is offering blows away anything else out there," Hoffenberg said. [Ken Dey, Seattle Times, May 21] No SBIR, market-driven innovators don't need SBIR and its robotic procedures. SBIR is for firms and technologies where time does not matter. CEO Bill McGlynn spent twenty years in HP's printing world.
Memry (Bethel, CT)Memry (Bethel, CT; $1.6M SBIR) up 65% reports it will be acquired by Italian firm SAES Getters SpA, Italian Group in a deal worth about $77.7 million. [Mass High Tech, Jun 24] Memsic (Andover, MA)Memsic (Andover, MA; no SBIR) raised $60M by IPO. Its website says it designs, manufactures and markets CMOS Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) IC products that have on-chip mixed signal processing. One director, Paul Zavracky, was once COO of Kopin. The founder CEO Yang Zhao is also Vice Chairman of the Board of Beijing University, School of Engineering. It has a wholly owned subsidiary, MEMSIC Semiconductor (Wuxi), LTD., in Wuxi, China to effectively manage the product quality, engineering, manufacturing yield, as well as the critical relationship with our foundries. MEMS Optical (Huntsville, AL)SBIR company advertises price competition. Unlike almost all advertisers in journals like Laser Focus World who tout technology gee-whiz. MEMS Optical a walled-off subsidiary of SY Technology (Huntsville, AL) advertises 50 assorted diffusers and splitters for under $5 each. Mirror, Mirror On the Wall MER (Tucson, AZ)Last year The Red Herring (June 15, 01) reported that MER (Tucson, AZ) owned a third of a enterprise to mass produce fullerienes and that they were cutting prices fast. (if the government won't put in SBIR money, you need some market move like price cutting to move product.) MER says the big customer is Toyota. MER has had about $1.2M of DOD SBIR for fullerene, all but one in Phase 1 contracts. The one Phase 2 was in the mid-90s.
MerkatumThe Texas Emerging Technology Fund is pumping more money into Central Texas technology startups. Six more Austin companies have won grants totaling $5.3 million. Among the six new grant winners is year-old NanoMedical Systems (no SBIR) which will use its $3.5 million to develop a tiny implantable capsule that delivers drugs a few molecules at a time, with the dosage controlled precisely for each patient. The company is completing a prototype using $4 million from a private investor, said co-founder and chief executive Randy Goodall. The grant will help fund it through the complex and time-consuming process of seeking Food and Drug Administration approval, Goodall said. ...... Farodox Energy Storage (no SBIR), which has developed a new fabrication process for high-performance electrical capacitors, $250,000; ... Ironbridge Technologies (no SBIR), which is developing self-heating food packaging technology, $250,000; ... Merkatum (no SBIR), which is developing fingerprint and facial recognition identity technologies, $250,000; ..... Stellarray (no SBIR), which is commercializing flat-panel radiation source technology, $750,000; ... Sunrise Ridge Algae (no SBIR), which is commercializing technology to turn algae into a renewable energy source. [Lori Hawkins, Austin American-Statesman, Nov 17, 08]
Merge Technologies (Milwaukee, WI)Merge Technologies's (Milwaukee, WI; no SBIR) woes have reached the point where the company is letting go workers in India hired to replace workers let go in West Allis and elsewhere in North America. The company (dba Merge Healthcare} , which develops software for medical imaging, said Thursday it plans to eliminate 160 jobs, including those of 115 people in Pune, a city in west-central India. [Guy Boulton, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb 15,08]
Meridian Bioscience (Cincinnati, OH)Meridian BioScience down 15% [Apr 27, 09] Meridian BioScience down 11% [Apr 16, 09] after the Cincinnati maker of medical diagnostic kits reported fiscal second-quarter earnings below analysts' estimates and cut its 2009 earnings and revenue guidance. [Wall Street Journal, Apr 17] Meridian Bioscience down 10% [Oct 15, 08] Meridian Bioscience up 10% [Oct 13, 08] Meridian Bioscience down 16% [Jul 17, 08] on a hint of softer sales. Meridian Bioscience (Newton, OH; one SBIR) is once again one of the nation's fastest-growing small public companies, according to Fortune Small Business magazine. The Newtown-based maker of diagnostic test kits and biotechnology products was No. 65 on the list this year. The companies were ranked based on percentage growth in earnings, revenue and stock performance over the past three years, according to a news release. [Business Courier of Cincinnati, Jun 27, 08] Meridian Bioscience (Cincinnati, OH; one SBIR) down 19%, after posting fiscal-second-quarter net income and sales that were less than Wall Street's guidance. [Wall Street Journal, Apr 18] Mersana Therapeutics (formerly Nanopharma, Cambridge, MA)Nanotech-focused drug company Mersana Therapeutics (formerly Nanopharma; Cambridge, MA; no SBIR) has raised $4 million in new funding from a convertible note placement, ... With the new funding, Mersana has raised approximately $36 million in private investment [since 2005]... proprietary nanotechnology platform to transform existing and experimental anti-cancer agents into new, patentable drugs with better pharmaceutical properties. [Mass High Tech, Oct 24, 08] Mesocopic Devices (Broomfield, CO)Protonex Technology (Southborough, MA; $1M SBIR) which makes high-performance proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells will pay $12M for Mesoscopic Devices (Broomfield, CO; $5M+ SBIR) which makes a range of fuel cells. MetabasisMetabasis Therapeutics (San Diego, CA; $2;5M SBIR) said that its second generation diabetes drug, which aims to curb the overproduction of blood sugar in the liver, successfully met efficacy and safety goals in a mid-stage human trial. [Terri Somers, San Diego Union-Tribune, Apr 29, 08] Metabasis Therapeutics up 11% [Dec 28, 07] Metabasis Therapeutics up 11% [Dec 26, 07] Metabasis Therapeutics up 13% [Aug 9, 07] Metabasis Therapeutics plunged 54% after announcing that biggie Schering-Plough is ditching the deal to commercialize the experimental hepatitis B treatment pradefovir after tests showed a heightened cancer risk.
MetabolixMetabolix up 10% [Apr 29, 09] Metabolix down 10% [Apr 20, 09] Metabolix up 13% [Mar 17, 09] Metabolix down 12% [Mar 16, 09] Metabolix up 17% [Mar 10, 09] Metabolix down 13% [Mar 9, 09] Metabolix down 12% [Feb 9, 09] Metabolix down 14% [Jan 20, 09] Metabolix down 10% [Jan 9, 09] Metabolix up 16% [Dec 23, 08] Metabolix up 10% [Dec 17, 08] Metabolix up 14% [Dec 16, 08]> Metabolix up 10% [Dec 12, 08] Metabolix up 15% [Dec 8, 08] Metabolix up 14% [Dec 3, 08] Metabolix down 14% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Metabolix up 15% [Nov 13, 08] Metabolix down 15% [Nov 12, 08] Metabolix up 11% [Oct 30, 08] Metabolix up 10% [Oct 28, 08] Metabolix down 15% [Oct 24, 08] Metabolix up 10% [Oct 13, 08] Metabolix up 24% [Oct 10, 08] Metabolix down 12% [Oct 9, 08] Metabolix down 12% [Oct 7, 08] Metabolix down 11% [Oct 6, 08] Metabolix down 10% [Sep 29, 08] Metabolix up 16% [Sep 19, 08] Metabolix up 12% [Sep 18, 08] Metabolix down 10% [Jul 25, 08] Metabolix up 11% [Jul 10, 08] Metabolix up 18% [Jul 8, 08] Metabolix down 11% [Jul 7, 08] Bioplastics. Metabolix has harnessed the complex genetics of plant-cell metabolism and collected hundreds of patents on a process for manufacturing "bioplastics" in large vats of microbes. A $200 M factory is under construction and could start producing Metabolix's bioplastic, called Mirel, early next year. .... while rival bioplastics must be incinerated or composted at high temperatures, Mirel will decompose if it is simply tossed in a home compost heap or dumped at sea [Mara Del Hovanesian, Business Week, Jun 30] Unfortunately, it now relies on food crops such as corn for which it must compete with a lot of other organic dreamers. Of course, he's trying to bioengineer switchgrass and other plants to produce the plastic in their leaves. If he can pull it off, Metabolix could grow bioplastics without corn. But that's the same purely wishful If that Washington politicians keep mouthing for the magic of ethanol. Metabolix up 15% [Jun 5, 08] Metabolix down 18% [Mar 17, 08] Metabolix down 13% [Mar 10, 08] Metabolix up 14% [Feb 13, 08] Metabolix initiated a program to develop an advanced industrial oilseed crop to produce bioplastics. [Boston Globe, Feb 8, 08] Metabolix down 10% [Jan 4, 08] Metabolix up 21% after announcing another way to use corn as its joint venture with Archer Daniels Midland released the findings of an independent life cycle assessment (LCA) for Mirel(TM) bioplastic resin. ... production of Mirel reduces the use of nonrenewable energy by more than 95% and provides a 200% reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) compared to production of conventional petroleum-based plastics. [press release Oct 12, 07] Another log on the fire under food prices. It also biodegrades in a wide range of environments: soil, home compost, industrial compost and both fresh and salt water. Metabolix got a $2M ATP award to develop a commercially viable process for producing bio-based chemicals from renewable agricultural products, rather than the typical from fossil hydrocarbons such as oil or coal. [Mass High Tech, Sep 28] Metabolix Up12% [Aug 7, 07] Metabolix up 10% after the company said discount chain Target is using its Mirel biobased plastic in gift cards. [Aug 6, 07] genetically engineered bacteria that consume corn sugar and produce a polyester that can be used to make biodegradable plastics, including the types used in shopping bags. ... almost ready for use on the commercial scale. In a joint venture with Metabolix of Cambridge, MA, which makes the microbes, Archer Daniels Midland is building a plant adjacent to its corn mill in Clinton, IA, that will use them to generate 110 million pounds of PHA annually. [Peter Fairley, MIT Tech Review, J/A07] Metabolix, a little-known company that uses bioengineered microorganisms to ferment sugar in the making of biodegradable plastic and chemicals, streaked from 17 on Apr. 20, to 24.92 on Apr. 25. ... On Apr. 23, Archer Daniels Midland, which owns about 6%, announced a joint venture with Metabolix to produce high-performance, all-natural plastics. "It is the only bioplastic that can be biodegraded at sea, soil, or sewer without industrial composting or incineration," says [Pamela] Bassett [of Cantor Fitzgerald]. [Gene Marcial, Business Week, May 7] Metabolix up 11% after naming new CEO. [May 4, 07] Recent IPO Metabolix up 14%. [Nov 16, 06] Metabolix, which had six Phase 1 SBIRs in the mid-1990s, will get $95M from its IPO. Its forte is developing and commercializing Natural Plastic as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics. In addition, the company is working on platform technology for producing with nonfood plant crops such as switchgrass its Natural Plastic and biomass for biofuels such as ethanol and for chemical products. [Mass High-Tech, Nov 10] Closed first day trading up 10%
Metabolon (Durham, NC)Biotechnology company Metabolon (Durham, NC; $400K SBIR) plans to use a new round of funding to complete the development of its first product. ... announced that it recently raised $5.3 million. In addition, it expects to bring in $5.7 million more before closing the books on this round of funding within 90 days. ... expects to have its first product -- a diagnostic tool for prostate cancer -- on the market within 12 months, CEO John Ryals said. ... has raised $25.3 million in venture capital to date. [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, May 9, 09] Now, instead of seeking government grants, Metabolon gives grants of its own, in Apr 09 it announced the launch of the Metabolomics Research Grant program. one of the first Metabolon grant recipients, Bhanu Chandra Mulukutla, with the University of Minnesota [company website] How many DOD and NASA SBIR companies with over, say, $25M of SBIR would have accumulated enough capital to give grants? Metabolon (Durham, NC; $250K SBIR) is a step closer to bringing to market a test that identifies how aggressive a prostate cancer is, which would help doctors decide how to treat the disease. ]Raleigh News & Observer, Feb 25, 09] MetroLaser (Irvine, CA)After gallons of kerosene, smoke. MetroLaser ( Irvine, CA) showed the viability of a moving hologram that can broadcast moving 3D images. NASA's SHIVA, the Spaceflight Holography Investigation in a Virtual Apparatus, started in 1999 for research in space. MetroLaser's founder, James Trolinger, [The Economist, Nov 13] have been pounding away at holographs for 30 years. For the last 15 years it has had over 100 SBIR projects with half going to Phase 2 which sums to over $30 from mostly DOD and NASA. Before '89 he got various funding from DOD R&D agencies to explore holographic applications as lasers began to be noticed as a research tool. The SBIR problem is that SBIR was not invented to be just the small business portion of what the agency would do otherwise. Although the SBIR political advocates have not complained about the diversion as long as they get an assured share of the money pie. If an agency wants to work long term on holography with its mainstream funds, go ahead. But the main effect of SBIR has been to simply shunt small firms from the mainstream funding into SBIR with no change in approach.
Micracor Inc (Acton, MA)The Coherent View of Micracor The Story of a Sale Coherent Buys Micracor Diffraction Limited Semiconductor Laser
MicrelMicrel down 11% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Micrel up 11% [Oct 16, 08] Micrel up 11% [Oct 13, 08] Micrel dives 20% [Jan 4, 08] after cutting its outlook for the fourth quarter due to lower-than-expected orders mainly from China and Korea Micrel up 12% [Nov 19, 07] on a multimillion-dollar, long-term contract with a solar company to supply commercial solar cells. [thestreet.com, Nov 19] 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. Micrel down 22% after reporting soggy second-quarter profits. [Jul 26, 07] Jennifer Dooley (Forbes, Aug 21) sees Micrel as a cheap stock as judged by its PE-Growth ratio of 1.0 even though it is down 40% from its high a few months ago. Of course that estimate depends on a 20% profit growth which is usually easier to pronounce than to achieve. Microbia (Cambridge MA)Microbia (no SBIR), a 10-year-old Cambridge MA biotech company has changed its name to Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. The privately held company has raised $231 M in private equity financing and is developing several drugs, including linaclotide to treat irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal disorders. [Todd Wallack, Boston Globe, Apr 8] Microbia (Cambridge MA; no SBIR) reports a new partnership with a multibillion-dollar drug company (Forest Laboratories) will yield up to $330M in fees and milestone payment for the right to market Microbia's experimental drug for gastrointestinal disorders, called linaclotide, in the United States, according to the companies. ... Microbia has raised a total of $231M in private capital [Mass High Tech, Sep 17] MicroCoating (Chamblee,GA)Valued at $223M. Since 1994, beginning with initial funding from SBIR, MicroCoating Technologies has grown from two to more than 100 employees, and now occupies some 100,000 square feet. Revenues have climbed at least 50% every year since 1994. And the concern, backed by an initial $4M from Atlanta-based Noro-Moseley Partners and additional capital from individuals, in May 2001 received a $7M equity infusion from Ballard Power Systems Inc. that valued the company at $233M. Ballard's investment is part of an exclusive agreement to develop MCT's proprietary Combustion Chemical Vapor Deposition process (CCVD) for use in making BALLARD® fuel cells. ... CCVD technology - an innovative open atmosphere technique for depositing high quality thin films of advanced materials such as ceramics, metals and composites on base material, either metal, ceramic, glass, or plastic. CCVD thin films provide the base material with such desired surface properties as corrosion resistance, oxidation resistance and catalytic properties. Hunt developed the technology, which dramatically reduces costs and enhances product applications, while a materials science and engineering graduate student at Georgia Tech. He then obtained an exclusive worldwide license from the Georgia Tech Research Corp. to commercialize this process and launched his company in 1993, concurrent with setting up shop in the institution's Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC). [ATDC Companies] Pssst! Coatings!, says Phyllis Berman in Forbes (online Mar21) about Andrew Hunt's Atlanta company Microcoating. Andrew got his start in the back yard as a Ga Tech grad student on a credit card, came to the SBIR National Conference where he looked to me like the perfect case for an SBIR. He talked the right talk of innovation and investment. His smile didn't hurt either. Berman speculates a $200M valuation of what is still a private company. Andrew's first VC money (he wangled customer finance for much of his business with companies like Rohm&Haas and International Paper) brought in $4M for 4% of the company. He got some business help from another SBIR entrepreneur from the San Diego area, Al Capote, founder of SBIR users Toranaga Technologies and Aguila when Al needed some coatings for an advanced process Toranaga was working on. Better than Chrome. A test coupon by MicroCoating Technologies (Chamblee, GA) withstood the dreaded salt-fog test and let no corrosion onto an aluminum coated steel panel in 1344 hours. MCT uses a new flame-assisted film deposition CCVD, which was the company's first name by Andrew Hunt alone with a 1994 BMDO SBIR (and only Phase 2 so far) and a license from Georgia Tech (where he invented the process for his PhD). Even though the MCT press release cited the usual technology niceties and focusing on commercialization of the novel technology that would deep-six chromium as a protective coating, rumors have it that big fish are being fried in MCT as those 18 people must be doing something profitable with the $1.7M revenue from customers like GM Delphi, Engelhard, 3M, Pilkington, Alcoa, Allied Signal, and Caterpillar. Another company for which SBIR was invented.
MicroIslet (San Diego, CA)Biotechnology companies in the United States are raising less cash than they have in a decade, in part because of the global economic crisis. The reductions have led to bankruptcies and threaten development of drugs based on biomedical breakthroughs. ... Twenty-five percent of the 370 public U.S. biotechnology companies have less than six months of cash, according to data compiled by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group in Washington. .... Among others, Peptimmune (Cambridge, MA; one SBIR), a 6-year-old firm, said it is struggling to pay for clinical trials of its multiple sclerosis drug. ... cut its staff more than half, to 22 people; moved to smaller offices to conserve the $6.5 million it has on hand; and is delaying research on drugs for Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, chief executive Thomas Mathers said. .... On Nov. 10, MicroIslet (San Diego, CA; $1.8M SBIR) developer of diabetes treatments, and Accentia BioPharmaceuticals (Tampa, FL; no SBIR) sought bankruptcy protection to reorganize, each citing an inability to raise money. [David Olmos and Rob Waters, Bloomberg News, Dec 1, 08] MicroMask (Sunnyvale, CA)
Micronics (Redmond, WA)Micronics (Redmond, WA; $1M SBIR) said it’s completed its third round of financing, which, when coupled with a second round completed earlier this year, totals $9 million. [Puget Sound Business Journal, Oct 16, 08] MicroOptical (Westwood, MA, NM)Video and text on the back of your eyelids, or more practically in or on a pair of glasses. MicroOptical (Westwood, MA) claims to have developed a wearable computing technology and has attracted $8M funding plus a DARPA SBIR. MicroOptical's founder, Mark Spitzer, was once chief scientist at Kopin which is also marketing a tiny display, but not that tiny. The company claims four products after six years of R&D. The showcase products are a monocular viewer that attaches to the temple of the user’s eyeglasses, a binocular viewer that is similar to a pair eyeglasses and a set of eyeglasses that has the display integrated into them. To market the products, no they don't market themselves, MicroOptical made a strategic deal with Essilor, a multibillion-dollar French business in France, one of the world’s largest providers of ophthalmic optical products. [facts from Patricia Resende, Mass High Tech, Sep 16] MicroOptical (Albuquerque, NM)Micro-Optical-Emcore Merger (Dec 9) MicroOptical Devices
(Albuquerque, NM) has been acquired by EMCORE (Somerset, NJ) in a $30M deal.
The acquisition will enable MicroOptical to nearly triple its employees, said
Robert Bryan, president. "We will have close to 50 people by the end of 1998,"
said Bryan who founded the company in late 1995. EMCORE is a 13-year-old company
and a leading provider of integrated semiconductor solutions. MicroOptical is a
leading producer of Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser components, arrays and
optical sub-assemblies. For the past two years, MicroOptical Devices has been the
poster child for laboratory spinoffs and high-tech start-ups. Two years ago,
the company employed one person. Last year the company had six employees.
It now has about 18. It was the star of Technology Ventures Corp.'s 1996
venture-capital symposium, receiving more offers to fund its product than it
needed. The firm also stirred the interests of potential suitors and
investors in the fall when it began looking for financing to fund another
expansion. "We have achieved many of the milestones we set for ourselves when we
first had equity financing in July," said Bryan. "We saw we were on a fast
track to rapidly grow the company and we needed additional capital."
Their financing efforts resulted in inquiries from many corporations
interested in combining MicroOptical's operations with their own.
EMCORE's offer was the best fit, said Bryan. [Sherri
Chunn, Albuquerque Journal, Dec 8]
Microstaq (Austin, TX)Austin-based Microstaq which develops high-tech control valves for air-conditioning systems and other equipment, has secured another $12.5 million in venture backing, the company plans to announce today. [Austin American-Statesman, Sep 22, 08] environmentally focused young tech companies some of the hottest properties around. ... Microstaq (Austin, TX; no SBIR) says the silicon-based fluid control chips that it unveiled at a tech conference this week can save 20 to 30 percent in electricity costs over traditional metal valves found in air conditioners and other equipment. ... has attracted more than $22 million in venture capital [Bob Keefe, Austin American-Statesman, Sep 13, 08] Why take slow and rigid and free and disinterested SBIR when real money will have a vested interest in your success and a path to more money when you need it? Would you prefer 100% ownership in a company that will go nowhere? MicrovisionMicrovision (Redmond, WA; $2.5M SBIR) which makes display technology, announced its fourth-quarter loss grew to $9.9 million, from a loss of $6 million a year earlier. [Puget Sound Business Journal, Mar 5, 09] FORGET MONITORS--NOMAD PUTS TEXT AND GRAPHICS RIGHT ONTO THE RETINA Matt Nichols, of Microvision, has just arrived from his crosstown walk. He's hurried from New York City's upcoming Museum of Sex, where he showed off the same equipment that he wants to demonstrate now. No, please--it's called Nomad, a retinal scanning device that can beam words and graphics directly into the viewer's eye. The Army is also interested in Nomad, for a less titillating function: equipping its helicopter pilots. When coupled with the proper software, the headset can display altitude, heading, speed, course and weapons status, all presented in a nice monochrome light beam that doesn't hamper the pilot's view at optical infinity,... could replace head-up displays on windscreens and virtual-reality helmets--a goal of the U.S. Air Force for decades. ...In late June the company conducted Nomad's first flight tests; eventually, ... Microvision intends to sell a commercial version as early as this fall for between $8,000 and $10,000. ... The heart of the Nomad technology lies in a MEMS light-beam scanner, which has a tiny mirror 1.5mm wide. A red laser diode bounces a pulsed beam off the MEMS mirror, which uses an electromagnetic system to move in two directions, creating a scanning pattern similar to those on television screens. An optical combiner modifies the beam to create an image 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels long. [Phil Scott,Scientific American, Sep 01] Microvision and Cree Win. Microvision (Bothell, WA) got an investment of $25M from Cree and the GE Pension Trust to speed development of its head mounted display. Cree laready had a deal with Microvision to integrate blue and green LEDs in the displays. Earlier Microvision had invested $10M in Cree's LEDs. Microvision had three Air Force SBIRs recently basically all the same thing - Head Mounted Display - from three different AF agencies (who may or may not have collaborated in the funding). Such oddities as three separate SBIR happen becasue bureaus like the AF set themselves limits on SBIR awards and then have to finagle to invest the right amount in any company. By contrast, BMDO would have funded the whole $2M in 2-3 increments depending on technical maturation and co-investment criteria. BMDO probably woiulkd not have funded this work anyway because the abstracts show it to be quite mature by BMDO standards. Mid Valley Industries (Kaukauna, WI
machine shop Mid Valley Industries (Kaukauna,WI; no SBIR) will receive $437,000 in enterprise development zone tax credits from the state Department of Commerce. Founded in 1996 by Kevin Schmid and Doug Pribyl, Mid Valley Industries focuses on precision specialty custom manufacturing, general job shop machining and complete machine assembly, according to the department. Its $4 million expansion is expected to create 75 jobs. The company now has 82 full-time employees. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jul 11] Minerva Biotechnologies (Newton, MA)Nanotechnology-focused biotech firm Minerva Biotechnologies (Newton, MA; $1.4M SBIR) has fired its CEO and brought suit against him in Massachusetts Superior Court, according to company officials. [Mass High Tech, Feb 1] Mirina (Seattle, WA)things are looking better: the research-oriented startups seem poised to survive the downturn, and long-awaited clinical results could propel larger companies like Dendreon to stardom. ... despite the financial crisis, the Accelerator, a local incubator based in Seattle's Eastlake neighborhood, created three firms last year - Recodagen, GPC-Rx and Mirina (none had SBIR) ... "Seattle is really a town of development-stage biotechs," Miller said. ... Light Sciences Oncology (no SBIR), a firm that canceled its initial public offering last February, managed to raise $10 million from venture capitalists in July. Private investors provided Redmond-based Healionics (no SBIR) — which manufactures material for implants — with a $2.6 million boost in December. In a deal that could yield big results, Bothell-based Acucela (no SBIR), which is developing therapies to treat blindness, signed a partnership deal in September with Japanese firm Otsuka Pharmaceutical that could potentially bring it $258 million. [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Jan 25]
Mirna Therapeutics (Austin, TX)Asuragen (Austin, TX; no SBIR) launched a company to develop and commercialize medical treatments based on microRNA, which has been shown to play critical regulatory roles in normal and diseased cells. The new company, Mirna Therapeutics, will be launched with $3 million in capital. Asuragen is transferring its intellectual capital on microRNA therapeutics to the new company. [Austin American-Statesman, Apr 4, 08] Mirus Bio (Madison, WI)Mirus Bio (Madison, WI; $500K SBIR) said it has developed a technique to switch off liver cells' ability to produce "bad" cholesterol. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jul 28] Mission ResearchMission Research will exit SBIR into the maw of Alliant Techsystems which will pay $230M for the ownership. Mission is a $180M a year business in things government loves - surveillance and remote targeting involving specialized sensors, antennas, composite materials and various imaging hardware and software. In 2002 it claimed 415 employees in the latest of its 269 DOD SBIRs. Back in 1986 when SBIR was still young, it had 400 employees. Do you think SBIR was a seed program for explosive growth or just another route for government contracts?
Mithridion (Madison, WI)Mithridion (Madison, WI; $300K SBIR) said that results of an initial Phase I clinical trial has shown its lead Alzheimer's disease drug candidate has "first-in-class" potential for improving memory and cognition symptoms. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Apr 8, 09] Mithridion (Madison, WI; $300K SBIR) that is developing a drug aimed at improving brain function, and maybe even halting the progression of Alzheimer's disease, will announce today that it has raised another $2.9 million of funding. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jan 12, 09] Mithridion (Madison, WI; $300K SBIR) that last month raised $2.3 million and acquired an Ohio drug development company is starting a clinical trial for a drug aimed at improving brain function and maybe even halting the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.It probably won’t be clear for three or more years [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jul 10, 08] Mobile Robots (Amherst, NH)A Luxury Robot. Visit the offices of Mobile Robots (Amherst, NH; no SBIR) and you're met at the door by a robot toting two champagne glasses and a bottle of bubbly. "My name is Jeeves," it says. "Forgive my lack of a British accent. I haven't downloaded it yet." ... [CEO Jeanne] Ditch has little use for [main competitor] robot's cheap and simple technology. "They're doing it at a hundredth of the price, and you're getting a hundredth of the quality," . ... the camera on her company's robots is of far higher quality and capable of a greater range of motion. [Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe (re-designed business page), Nov 12]
Molecular Biometrics (Chester, NJ)a $12 million, first-round venture-capital financing of Molecular Biometrics (Chester, NJ; no SBIR) ... to support research and development on ViaMetrics-E, which it plans to launch in Europe, Japan and Australia next year. ViaMetrics-E is a diagnostic procedure designed to help identify the most viable embryos with the greatest reproductive potential for in vitro fertilization. [Philadelphia Business Journal, Nov 10, 08] Hoping for a short infancy, Molecular Biometrics (Chester, NJ; no SBIR), an in vitro fertilization diagnostics company, is working on a $12 million Series A financing ... has developed a technique, using near-infrared spectroscopy, to detect biomarkers that can determine the viability of fertilized eggs within minutes, before reimplantation. The process increases the chances of successful implantation by 10 percent per cycle, the company said. Treatments run an average of three cycles at a cost of about $15,000 each. [Mass High Tech, Aug 22] Molecular Imprints (Austin, TX)Molecular Imprints (Austin TX; one Phase 1 SBIR), a nanotechnology company that makes advanced equipment used in producing computer chips, disk drives and other products, has raised $8.5M, bringing its investment backing to $80.5 M. It's a loan from a unit of a British hedge fund. [Austin Statesman-American, Apr 4]
Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA)Molecular Insight up 11% [May 8, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 21% [Apr 15, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 21% [Apr 8, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma down 16% [Apr 7, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 23% [Mar 23, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma down 19% [Mar 20, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 19% [Mar 17, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma down 19% [Feb 25, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 28% [Feb 24, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 16% [Feb 3, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma up 12% [Jan 26, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma down 13% [Jan 16, 09] Molecular Insight Pharma down 16% [Jan 9, 09]
Molecular Insight Pharma
up 17%
[Dec 16, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 19% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Molecular Insight Pharma up 14% [Nov 24, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 14% [Nov 17, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 10% [Nov 14, 08] Molecular Insight up 10% [Nov 13, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma up11% [Nov 11, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 12% [Nov 5, 08] Molecular Insight up 11% [Oct 30, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma up 13% [Oct 28, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 10% [Oct 24, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 20% [Oct 21, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma up 34% [Oct 16, 08] Molecular Insight down 19% [Oct 15, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma up 17% [Oct 13, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma up 14% [Oct 10, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 15% [Oct 9, 08] Molecular Insight Pharma down 10% [Oct 8, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals up 20% [Sep 18, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals down 15% [Sep 17, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals down 10% [Sep 4, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals down 11% [Aug 25, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals reported a larger second-quarter loss today, as it spent more money to develop its drug candidates. Molecular Insight lost $21 million, compared with a loss of $11.5 million, a year earlier [Boston Globe, Aug 13,08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals up 14% [Jul 22, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals up 10% [Jul 2, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals up 15% [May 12, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals down 11% [May 9, 08] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge MA; $2.5M SBIR) said that it has priced $150M in bonds, the proceeds of which should help the company through its first product launch. [Boston Globe, Nov 14, 07] Its stock price is down to half of its starting value last winter. Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA; $2M+ SBIR) announced positive results of analysis from a Phase 2b study of its imaging agent Zemiva to detect heart conditions, the company reports. Zemiva is under evaluation for use in emergency departments to diagnose acute coronary syndrome and evaluate cardiac ischemia [Mass High Tech, Sep 11] Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA) went public to raise $70M. $3M in SBIR. [Feb 2, 07]
Molten Metal Leads the Plunge Molten Metal Finds $7M Molten Metal Melts (Dec 5) In contrast, Molten Metal (Waltham, MA) melted when it declared bankruptcy on Dec 3. The stock which had traded as high as $28 in 1996 melted to 25 cents. Molten Metal has a big idea with a large social payoff, which would survive only in the ideal world of zero-pollution environmentalists. Still, the idea could be widely adopted if it could be economic. But only government would put in the big money required to develop it since it soon looked too expensive for today's environmental economics. When government stopped pouring in the money, the company's prospects collapsed. Whether government should have continued to prop up the technology is, of course, a political question as are many of DOE's better things for better living through subsidy. Haney Quits, SBIR Writ Large Converting Trash and Skeptics Converting Trash and Skeptics Molten Metal Fires R&D Molten Metal Hit by Strike Suit Molten Metal Meltdown
Momenta PharmaceuticalsMomenta Pharma up 11% [Mar 23, 09] Momenta Pharma down 10% [Mar 20, 09] Momenta Pharma up 11% [Mar 18, 09] Momenta Pharma down 12% [Mar 5, 09] Momenta Pharma down 21% [Mar 2, 09] Momenta Pharma down 10% [Jan 23, 09] Momenta Pharmaceuticals said that it will raise $24.1 million through a registered direct offering. [Boston Globe, Dec 12] Momenta Pharma up 10% [Dec 9, 08] Momenta Pharma up 10% [Dec 5, 08] Momenta Pharma up 10% [Nov 26, 08] Momemta Pharma down 14% [Oct 9, 08] Momenta Pharmaceuticals announced today that the FDA has agreed to review the abbreviated new drug application, or ANDA, for a generic version of Copaxone. [Boston Globe, Jul 11, 08] Momemta Pharma up 13% [Apr 28, 08] Momenta Pharmaceuticals up 18% [Apr 24, 08] Momenta Pharmaceuticals up 12% [Mar 24, 08] Momenta Pharma up 11% [Dec 14, 07] Momenta Pharma up 13% [Dec 6, 07] Momenta Pharmaceuticals down 58% after news that the Food and Drug Administration will not approve its application to market a generic version of Sanofi-Aventis' blood-thinner drug Lovenox unless it produces more supporting information. [Market Watch, Nov 6, 07] Momenta Pharmaceuticals up 10% despite news of more loss. [Aug 8, 07] Momenta Pharmaceuticals dropped 20% [Feb 9, 07] on news that Sanofi-Aventis lost a patent case over its top selling blood-thinning drug Lovenox. Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceuticals won the patent decision over whether Sanofi-Aventis filed properly for the patent. Those companies can launch generic versions when the patent expires in 2012 [AP, Feb 9] Monebo (Austin, TX)From the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, Image Trends (Austin, TX; no SBIR) which develops image correction and enhancement products for commercial and amateur photographers will receive $1 million, and RFMicron (Austin, TX; no SBIR) $250,000 to speed development of its microchip technology [Lori Hawkins, Austin American-Statesman, Jul 14, 08] Og ten central TX companies fed from the fund, only one has failed so far: Nanocoolers (no SBIR) Tried to create a thermoelectric cooling system that would help cool semiconductors. Closed in 2007. The others: Molecular Imprints Inc. Nanotechnology company that makes advanced equipment used in producing computer chips, disk drives and other products. Monebo Technologies (no SBIR) Heart monitoring device called CardioBelt that enables users to obtain their own electrocardiogram while at home. Quantum Logic Devices ($1+M SBIR, moved from NC) Developing a system that uses single-electron devices to analyze DNA, protein and other molecular interactions. Receptor Logic Ltd. (no SBIR) Developing antibodies to improve understanding of the immune system and lead to better drugs and vaccines. Xitronix (no SBIR) Developing advanced semiconductor testing technology. XTreme Power (no SBIR) Developing electrical storage systems that are used to cut energy bills for commercial and industrial plants. More Texas Green. Monebo Technologies (Austin) got $500K for a heart monitoring device called CardioBelt, and Hanson Robotics (Dallas) $1.5M to commercialize its robotics technologies. The Texas Emerging Technology Fund has now passed out $44M toward its legislated goal of $200M. [Austin American-Statesman, and Dallas Morning News, Oct 25] Neither company shows any SBIR.
Morphormics (Chapel Hill, NC)Morphormics (Chapel Hill, NC; no SBIR), spun out of UNC-Chapel Hill received a $2 M NIH grant to commercialize its 3-D mapping technology that improves radiation treatment of prostate cancer. .... will get its technology, which creates anatomical road maps of patients, ready for use in people [Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 6, 08] Morris Innovative Research (Bloomington IN)Morris Innovative Research (Bloomington IN; no SBIR) received the highest classification of approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a device that helps stanch the flow of blood after catheterization. ...12 full-time employees, held successful clinical trials in 2004 for the device, which includes a sheath to help catheters and a plug of pig intestine used to stop the increased flow of blood and encourage clotting. A pilot launch is planned in a few weeks in the Indianapolis area. [Indianapolis Star, Sep 11] MotricityMove and layoffs repeat a Motricity pattern. Until last week, Motricity was a symbol for entrepreneurial possibility and a shining corporate headquarters for the city of Durham. Then executives announced a restructuring last week at the behest of shareholders. They called for cutting hundreds of jobs and moving the headquarters to the West Coast. ... Venture capitalists, who have sunk more than $380 million into Motricity since 2001 and wield strong influence, backed the InfoSpace deal for its potential to more than double sales, slash overhead and drive up the value of their asset. [Frank Norton, Raleigh News&Observer, Mar 14] Software company Motricity, one of the Triangle's most lauded technology companies [says]t it will slash 250 local workers and relocate its headquarters to the West Coast. [Raleigh News&Observer, Mar 5] Motricity (Durham, NC; no SBIR) raised more venture capital than any other private company based in the [NC] Triangle -- about $200M since being founded in 2001. ... Now it wants to raise as much as $170 M to pay for an acquisition that could boost its chances of a Wall Street debut ... would expand its position in mobile infrastructure with a business whose revenue has been growing at about 50 percent annually [Frank Norton, Raleigh News&Observer, Sep 25] Billionaire financier Carl Icahn has invested $50M in Motricity (Durham, NC; no SBIR) ... which boosts total investments in Motricity to a Triangle record of $216M and will allow the company to pursue acquisitions .. .provides technology that helps people buy and receive games, graphics, ring tones and music on their mobile phones, is one of the region's fastest-growing technology companies [Anne Krishnan, Raleigh News & Observer, Feb 27]
MPP Group (Wauwatosa, WI)start-ups in the drug field within the Milwaukee 7 economic development region suggests another strategic direction for the regional economy. Those new ventures come as Concordia University of Wisconsin mounts an impressive campaign to build a new pharmacy school in southeastern Wisconsin, possibly in downtown Milwaukee. ... New ventures in the emerging drug-making concentration: MPP Group (no SBIR), a venture headed by serial entrepreneur Frank Langley that is building drugs aimed at alcoholism. James Cook, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researcher, developed the compounds. Neuro Amp (no SBIR), a spin-off from PhysioGenix (Wauwatosa, WI; $3M SBIR) that is aiming at diseases of the central nervous system and Alzheimer's. Promentis (no SBIR), a collaboration between Marquette University's David Baker and UWM researchers and former Schwarz Pharma managers who are targeting schizophrenia and central nervous system disorders. Cytometix (no SBIR) , a 2004 start-up headed by Lane Brostrom that is developing drugs for the treatment of pain and asthma. Endece (no SBIR), a 2006 Mequon start-up headed by James Yarger that is developing compounds for treating cancer, sepsis, learning and memory. [John Torinus, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan 31, 09] MPP Group LLC (Wauwatosa, WI; no SBIR) pharmaceutical development company landed a $630,000 package from the state Department of Commerce .... a $250,000 low-interest loan and $380,000 in grants. ... Word must get out that the state is eager to help high-tech entrepreneurs, said Torinus and others who participated in the meeting sponsored by the Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Aug 28]
Mudawar Thermal Systems (West Lafayette, IN)Mudawar Thermal Systems, (West Lafayette, IN; at least $1M SBIR) that focuses on creating cooling technologies for applications ranging from the space shuttle to nuclear reactors, has been awarded a $1.5 million grant from the Navy. The three-person company, founded by professor Issam Mudawar in 1992 at Purdue Research Park, is creating software to remove performance-robbing heat from electronics in devices such as avionics, X-ray machines and hybrid vehicle propulsion systems. [Indianapolis Star, Dec 5, 08] Munksjo Paper (Fitchburg, MA)Mason Box (North Attleboro, MA) is among several local companies that have been selected to participate in the "Next Generation Manufacturing Initiative, or NGMI, an effort to foster best-in-class manufacturing processes. Other participants in the initiative include Hoppe Tool (Chicopee, MA), Matouk Textiles (Fall River, MA), Munksjo Paper (Fitchburg, MA), and Spectro Coating (Leominster, MA). The initiative is a partnership of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group representing Bay State employers; MassDevelopment, the commonwealth's finance and development authority; and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a group dedicated to helping local manufacturers remain competitive in a global marketplace. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jun 19] No SBIR. Myocor (Maple Grove, MN)Myocor (Maple Grove, MN, founded 1996; no SBIR) announced that its percutaneous iCoapsys device was successfully implanted by Dr. Wes Pedersen, an interventional cardiologist with the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation .... a clinical stage medical device company dedicated to developing less invasive therapeutic options for the treatment of mitral regurgitation and heart failure. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, May 14,08]
Myomo (Boston, MA)Myomo (Boston, MA; no SBIR) raised $3.1M in a private financing to fund work needed to expand the use of its lead stroke-rehabilitation device ... founded in 2004, licensed its technology from MIT. The firm has raised a total of $4.2 million in private capital [Mass High Tech, Jan 31]
Myriad GeneticsPatent and Civil Liberties. A decision by the government more than 10 years ago allowed a single company, Myriad Genetics (Salt Lake City, UT; one SBIR) to own the patent on two genes that are closely associated with increased risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and on the testing that measures that risk. On Tuesday, [Texas patient] Girard, 39 filed a lawsuit against Myriad, the University of Utah Research Foundation and the U.S. Patent Office, challenging the decision to grant a patent on a gene to Myriad and companies like it. She was joined by four other cancer patients, by professional organizations of pathologists with more than 100,000 members and by several individual pathologists and genetic researchers. The lawsuit, believed to be the first of its kind, was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union and filed in federal court in New York. It blends patent law, medical science, breast cancer activism and an unusual civil liberties argument in ways that could make it a landmark case. [New York Times News Service (via Salt Lake Tribune), May 13] Myriad Genetics down 11% [May 5, 09] Myriad Genetics up 17% [Feb 3, 09] Myriad Genetics up 13% [Nov 4, 08] Myriad Genetics up 13% [Jul 1, 08]
Mystic Pharmaceuticals (Cedar Park, TX)Mystic Pharmaceuticals (Cedar Park, TX; no SBIR) will receive a $1.6 million award from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to commercialize its drug delivery technology. [Austin American Statesman, May 8, 09] founded 2003; 19 employees NABsys (Providence, RI)NABsys (Providence, RI; $500K SBIR), developer of DNA-sequencing technology, has closed a $4 million equity round that will be used to grow the company’s solid-state DNA sequencing platform. ... has won a $1.3 million federal grant, awarded by [NIH] in 2007 [Mass High Tech, May 5, 09] Nano-C (Westwood MA)Nano-C (Westwood, MA; $600K SBIR) announced today that it has been issued US patents that cover the manufacturing of its core products. [Boston Globe, Sep 16, 08] Nano-C (Westwood MA; one SBIR Phase 2) got a $2.9M ATP award to go with its $5.5M in VC since its 2001 birth. [press release, Oct 16, 07] Nanobiosym (Medford, MA)Nanobiosym (Medford, MA) got a $2M DOD contract to develop its genetic-detection technology to sense biological threats after multiple rounds of funding from AFOSR DARPA, and DOE SBIR Phase 2. Dr. Anita Goel, Founder, Chairman, & CEO was named in 2005 as one of the world's “Top 35 science and technology innovators under the age of 35 by MIT’s Tech Review. BS in Physics from Stanford, PhD in Physics from Harvard, MD from the Harvard-MIT Joint Division of Health Sciences and Technology [press release, Sep 26, 07]
Nanocomp Technologies (Concord, NH)The EZ-IO device from Vidacare (San Antonio, TX; $1M SBIR), the company Dr. Larry Miller co-founded in 2001, is the Gold winner in The Wall Street Journal's eighth annual Innovation Awards competition. ... The Silver award went to Audience (no SBIR), a maker of voice processors, for a noise-suppression technology designed to block annoying background noise in mobile-phone calls. ... A team of scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory won the Bronze for their work in developing a microchip that, by analyzing DNA, is able to identify thousands of different varieties of bacteria that might be present in air, water, soil, blood or tissue samples. ...The PhyloChip [not currently available commercially. It is manufactured by Affymetrix], developed by staff scientist Gary Andersen and a team of researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., won in [environment] category. ...Nanocomp Technologies (Concord, NH, no SBIR), the winner in [materials and other base technologies] category, has developed a process to create large sheets of fabric and lengths of yarn using carbon nanotubes -- synthetic carbon molecules prized for their exceptional strength and conductivity. [Michael Totty, Wall Street Journal, Sep 29, 08]NanoCoolers (Austin, TX)From the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, Image Trends (Austin, TX; no SBIR) which develops image correction and enhancement products for commercial and amateur photographers will receive $1 million, and RFMicron (Austin, TX; no SBIR) $250,000 to speed development of its microchip technology [Lori Hawkins, Austin American-Statesman, Jul 14, 08] Og ten central TX companies fed from the fund, only one has failed so far: Nanocoolers (no SBIR) Tried to create a thermoelectric cooling system that would help cool semiconductors. Closed in 2007. The others: Molecular Imprints Inc. Nanotechnology company that makes advanced equipment used in producing computer chips, disk drives and other products. Monebo Technologies (no SBIR) Heart monitoring device called CardioBelt that enables users to obtain their own electrocardiogram while at home. Quantum Logic Devices ($1+M SBIR, moved from NC) Developing a system that uses single-electron devices to analyze DNA, protein and other molecular interactions. Receptor Logic Ltd. (no SBIR) Developing antibodies to improve understanding of the immune system and lead to better drugs and vaccines. Xitronix (no SBIR) Developing advanced semiconductor testing technology. XTreme Power (no SBIR) Developing electrical storage systems that are used to cut energy bills for commercial and industrial plants. Money Wasn't Enough. An Austin company that received $3M from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to develop a high-tech cooling device has shut down. NanoCoolers Inc., founded in 2002, was working on a thermoelectric cooling system that would help cool semiconductors, which generate increasing heat as they become more powerful. "the technical challenges have proved to be substantial, and after many years of trying, we just have not been able to solve the problem," said Krishna Srinivasan, a partner with Austin Ventures, which was an investor in company. Before receiving money from the state fund in March, NanoCoolers raised about $19M [VC] [Lori Hawkins and Robert Elder, Austin American-Statesman, Dec 6]
Nanocopoeia (St.Paul, MN)Two Minnesota startups are joining forces to debut what they claim is a faster and more effective way to test drug-coated stents at the nation's premier biotechnology conference this week. Nanocopoeia (St. Paul, MN; $0.9M SBIR) and the Integra Group (Brooklyn Park, MN; no SBIR) will announce today a new company called NanoInterventions whose core technology is a mouse-based testing system for drug-coated stents. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 17, 08]
NanoCor Therapeutics (Chapel Hill,NC)NanoCor Therapeutics (Chapel Hill,NC; no SBIR) got a $3.75M investment from medical-device giant Medtronic to work on a gene-therapy-based treatment for congestive heart failure. [Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 8] Nanodynamics (Buffalo, NY))Nano IPOs. NANOTECHNOLOGY companies, nurtured on billions of dollars in government grants and venture investments through most of this decade, are getting ready to go public. ... NanoGram (Milpitas, CA; no SBIR), Unidym (Menlo Park, CA; no SBIR), NanoDynamics (Buffalo, NY; $1M SBIR). Unidym is a subsidiary of the Arrowhead Research Corporation, a public investment company that was founded in 2003 to back small companies engaged in nanotechnology research. [James Flanigan, New York Times, Dec 20] Nanodynamics (New York City)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]
Nanogen (San Diego, CA)Nanogen (San Diego, CA; $1M SBIR) said that it has filed for bankruptcy protection with plans to sell off nearly all its assets to the French company Elitech Group. The Chapter 11 filing culminates a scramble for survival at a company once considered one of the county's more promising biotechs, with technology focused on diagnostics. ... In the heat of the biotech frenzy early this decade, its stock neared $100 a share. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, May 15, 009] Sweet Technology, But. Molecular diagnostics maker Nanogen (San Diego, CA; $800K SBIR) will try to sell its 15-year-old founding technology, or close the money-losing program, as part of an aggressive plan to achieve profitability. [San Diego Union Tribune, Sep 18] Must be suitable for endless federal research contracts, but company has higher goals. Nanogen Goes Public Nanogen (San Diego, CA) raised $42M in an IPO without the help of any SBIR. Nanogen combines microelectronics with molecular biology to identify and test samples containing charged molecules. Using semiconductor microchips, Nanogen's system allows molecules to be identified and analyzed as they move around designated sites on the chips, depending on their positive or negative charge. Nanogen believes its system will have uses in medical diagnostics, biomedical research, genomics, genetic testing, and drug discoveries. The company is establishing corporate alliances with biotechnology companies such as Becton Dickinson and Elan to commercialize products using its proprietary microchip technology.[Hoovers] It's certainly the type of R&D that SBIR is supposed to help. Why didn't Nanogen need it while a parade of beneficiaries troops before Congress pleading inability to get started with new technology? NanoGram (Milpitas, CA)Nano IPOs. NANOTECHNOLOGY companies, nurtured on billions of dollars in government grants and venture investments through most of this decade, are getting ready to go public. ... NanoGram (Milpitas, CA; no SBIR), Unidym (Menlo Park, CA; no SBIR), NanoDynamics (Buffalo, NY; $1M SBIR). Unidym is a subsidiary of the Arrowhead Research Corporation, a public investment company that was founded in 2003 to back small companies engaged in nanotechnology research. [James Flanigan, New York Times, Dec 20] Nanomaterials Research (Tucson, AZ)Eleven Awards. Nanomaterials Research Inc (Tucson, AZ) says it has won eleven awards - in addition to the three BMDO Phase 2 SBIRs. But the eleven are all for its Website. The Website does have a page that could help its competitors - it reports happenings in the nano-world. Meanwhile, in April, the top investor pulled out his 50%.
NanoMatrix (Baton Rouge, LA)Organogenesis (Canton, MA; $200K SBIR) a life sciences firm focused on regenerative medicine, has acquired NanoMatrix (Baton Rouge, LA; $300K SBIR) , a maker of biologically compatible materials. [Mass High Tech, Feb 27, 08]
NanoMedical SystemsThe Texas Emerging Technology Fund is pumping more money into Central Texas technology startups. Six more Austin companies have won grants totaling $5.3 million. Among the six new grant winners is year-old NanoMedical Systems (no SBIR) which will use its $3.5 million to develop a tiny implantable capsule that delivers drugs a few molecules at a time, with the dosage controlled precisely for each patient. The company is completing a prototype using $4 million from a private investor, said co-founder and chief executive Randy Goodall. The grant will help fund it through the complex and time-consuming process of seeking Food and Drug Administration approval, Goodall said. ...... Farodox Energy Storage (no SBIR), which has developed a new fabrication process for high-performance electrical capacitors, $250,000; ... Ironbridge Technologies (no SBIR), which is developing self-heating food packaging technology, $250,000; ... Merkatum (no SBIR), which is developing fingerprint and facial recognition identity technologies, $250,000; ..... Stellarray (no SBIR), which is commercializing flat-panel radiation source technology, $750,000; ... Sunrise Ridge Algae (no SBIR), which is commercializing technology to turn algae into a renewable energy source. [Lori Hawkins, Austin American-Statesman, Nov 17, 08]
Nanomix (Emeryville, CA)Nanocompany Nanomix (Emeryville CA) collected an oversubscribed $16M funding .. The company is a spinoff from a venture founded in 2000 by two physics professors on the campus of the University of California-Berkeley. It develops nanotechnologies. Killer app? its sensors can detect subtle changes in the concentration of carbon-dioxide gas in a person's breath, revealing respiratory diseases in children and adults, and allowing anesthesiologists to monitor a patient's breathing during surgery. [San Jose Mercury News, Apr 2, 05]
Nanophase Technologies (Burr Ridge, IL)Nanophase Tech down 14% [Jul 23, 08] Nanophase Tech up 28% for the week ending Jul 11, 08 Nanophase Tech down 14% [Jun 26, 08] Nanophase Tech down 12% [Feb 8, 08] 2007 was another solid year of revenue growth, gross margin expansion, and technical progress, said CEO Cross. Revenue was up a third and loss down a third for the fiscal year. Nanophase down 11% [Jan 17, 08] Nanophase Tech down 11%. [Dec 31, 07] Nanophase Technologies up 17% [Dec 27, 07] Nanophase Technologies up 10% [Dec 18, 07] Nanophase Technologies down 13% [Dec 17, 07] Nanophase Technologies down 14% after reporting a wider loss in the third quarter due to a weakness in the housing market, [AP, Oct 19] Nanophase Technologies up 12%. [Jul 23, 07] Nanophase Tech sold stock for $10M with which it will acquire and install equipment and expand the Company's Romeoville facility to support anticipated increases in nanomaterial product demand[ Jun 07] Nanophase Technologies up 12% on reporting its highest quarterly revenue in company history. [Apr 13, 07] Nanophase jumped 14% on record revenue and gross profit margin even though it is still losing money. [Oct 26. 06] Nanophase jumped 18% [Jun 27, 06] and another 15% [June 29]. NanoPhase Sued A Nano-Profit (Mar 3) Nanophase Technologies made $230K for the quarter and a loss of only $3.1M for the year. The stock price hovers below its IPO price waiting for profits to appear regularly. Incomprehensible The stock went from 8 [at IPO] to 15 based on I don't know what," said one analyst [Wall Street Journal, Jan 15] trying to explain the rise and fall (to 6) of Nanophase Technologies (Burr Ridge, IL). Any capitalist's concern, of course, is always a growing profit business, not the sweetness of "atom-sized, super tough ceramic particles" which itself is inaccurate in granting sub-micron particles atom-sized status. And the more an R&D company emphasizes what it bests understands - the technical details - the more it turns off investors as incomprehensible and the more dependent it becomes on government dole. So, practice your elevator speech for the day you meet a possible investor in a hurry. Investors are always in a hurry to bet on some company and if yours sounds incomprehensible, you lose. Actually, that rule would help SBIR proposals get through to the spirit of proposal judges. Nanophase Goes Public Nanoptek (Maynard, MA)Nanoptek (Maynard, MA; $400K SBIR) has developed a new way to make hydrogen from water using solar energy. The company says that its process is cheap enough to compete with the cheapest approaches used now, which strip hydrogen from natural gas, and it has the further advantage of releasing no carbon dioxide. ... recently completed its first venture-capital round, raising $4.7M [Kevin Bullis, MIT Tech Review, Jan 30, 08] The company claims a proprietary nano-engineered photocatalyst (patents pending). NanosolarNanosolar announced that it has raised $300 million to help it complete its production lines in Silicon Valley and in Germany. [San Jose Mercury News, Aug 27] Thin Is In. from the Southwest to Silicon Valley to Germany. Everywhere you look, thin-film solar companies are opening new, more efficient factories. .... As First Solar scaled production up, it was able to bring its costs down. Solar producers measure their costs in terms of dollars per watt of energy produced, a formula that's a combination of the cost of producing a module and its power efficiency. Right now the best crystalline-silicon makers can sell modules at $3 to $4 a watt; First Solar can sell at around $2.40 a watt, a price the company expects to reduce steadily. ... Nanosolar announced it would begin profitably selling thin-film panels at $1 a watt. ... says he can achieve radical cost savings by directly applying photoactive chemicals with an ink composed of nanoparticles. ... [dubious] competitors pointing out that the cost of raw materials alone should make it impossible to produce $1-a-watt panels profitably. [Bryan Walsh, Time, Jun 23, 08] Nanosolar (San Jose, CA; $1M SBIR) , whose backers include Google co-founders, said it has started to sell what it calls "the world's lowest cost solar panel." [for freefield deployment in Eastern Germany]...uses a thin-film technology that requires only a fraction of the amount of silicon needed in conventional solar cells. ... make panels profitably for less than $1 per watt. [Franklin Paul, Reuters, Dec 18] In June 2006 if said it had $100M to enter volume production. Nanosolar will open one of the world's largest solar cell manufacturing facilities in South San Jose by spring, placing the city at the forefront of an emerging technology. [Katherine Conrad, San Jose Mercury News, Dec 12] Listen for the complaints from the "flyover states" that the government and the establishment are ignoring them. Nanosolar (Palo Alto, CA) has decided to build the world's largest factory for making solar power cells in the Bay Area -- a move that would nearly triple the nation's solar manufacturing capacity and give a significant boost to a growing source of clean energy. ... founded in 2001 with seed money from Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin ... the planned annual production could power about 325,000 homes. The technology is thin, thin, thin CIGS. [Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury, Jun 21] SBIR - one 2004 Phase 1. Nanosonic (Blacksburg, VA)What substance can conduct electricity like a metal, yet also stretch like a rubber band? Earlier this year, NanoSonic (Blacksburg, VA) found the answer in Metal Rubber, a filmy brown material that can extend to three times its original length and conduct electricity as well as a bar of steel, says NanoSonic founder Dr. Rick Claus. ... Like many inventions, NanoSonic's team didn't so much set out to create this new material explicitly, but more stumbled across their big find while working on other projects for the U.S. Air Force. "No one would actually fund you to make Metal Rubber," Claus says. [Karen Hoffman, MIT Tech Review, Dec 20] Indeed, NanoSonic has had about $12M in SBIR, mostly DOD, in the past four years which was enough to support the entire company in a variety of projects on creating new materials through molecular self-assembly. So far, potential customers are still scratching their heads for a first application of such a surprise. If you make such a startling invention, you can help your case by also inventing applications that can make money for someone else. Nanosphere (Northbrook IL)Nanosphere up 17% [May 16, 08] although still down 44% over 52 weeks. Nanosphere (Northbrook, IL; $4M SBIR) rose 25% [Mar 27, 08]. A week on, Nanosphere is up 41% from its IPO price. [Nov 7, 07] Nanosphere (Northbrook IL; $4M SBIR) going public this week to raise $120M. [Oct 07] NanosysNanosys (Palo Alto, CA; $4M SBIR) made a deal with In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC) to further expand collaboration ... to apply its novel electronics technology for innovative uses in the area of high-performance communications. [In-Q-Tel press release, Aug 22,07] Does that mean allowing W to talk even more directly to whatever the thinks "God" is? Nanosys, a (self-proclaimed) leader in the development of nanotechnology based products utilizing inorganic nanostructures, got a DARPA contract for up to $14M for "flexible low cost" solar cells. The press release makes no mention of the growing concern that nano-particles will be a long term health problem as they bypass the body's defenses against foreign stuff. The military has already scattered a lot of dangerous stuff - depleted uranium, perchlorate, oils and solvents in ground waters, radionuclide fission products - in the pursuit of national security. [Sep 04] Nanosys got a Phase 1 NIH SBIR to continue research and commercialization on semiconducting nanowires that could add up to $1.6M, says Jeff Miller [Mass High Tech, Sep 4].The company hopes to use nanowires, filaments that are one-ten-thousandth the width of a human hair, to create molecular electronic detection systems with a wide range of applications in the medical, environmental and defense industries. Nanosys has already got $17M million VC from a large syndicate. Charles Lieber, a Harvard professor and a luminary in nanotech research, founded the company last year along with Larry Bock, a serial entrepreneur who has founded 11 now-public companies. NanoSystems (Oxford, CT) A Senatorial Visit Nano-TerraPentair (NYSE) and Nano Terra (Cambridge, MA; two SBIRs) said they are forming a strategic alliance in water treatment. ... will "deploy its technology for functionalizing surfaces through chemistry and structuring to develop new solutions for the treatment of water." [Boston Globe, Mar 31, 09] Nanotechnology firm Nano-Terra and German drug maker Merck KGaA have upgraded their product development partnership to a commercialization deal. Cambridge-based Nano-Terra helped co-develop Merck’s “printable electronics” using nanometer-sized materials and a soft lithography technique called micro-contact printing. [Mass High Tech, Oct 9] NanoTune Technologies (Mountain View, CA)NanoTune Technologies (Mountain View, CA; no SBIR) raised $3M VC ... claims a unique tailoring process based around silica nanomaterials, capable of modifying the surface chemistry and precisely controlling the porosity of nanomaterials, a technology that could potentially have applications in numerous fields. [Matt Marshall, San Jose Mercury News, Dec 19, 07] Nanovation Technologies (Northville, MI)Nanovation Technologies (Northville, MI), a maker of integrated optical components for the telecom market tossed in the towel and filed for Chapter 11 when it could not satisfy all the present investors for a new round of financing. One investor, a Canadian firm, blocked the deal long enough to discourage the others and then offered to infuse cash for control of the board. Nano said nano-thanks. [Laser Focus World] Maybe it could now try for a government handout from SBIR.
Nantero (Woburn, MA)Nanotechnology company Nantero (Woburn, MA; $800K SBIR) sold its government and military business unit to Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. for an undisclosed amount. [Mass High Tech, Aug 14, 08] Nantero (Woburn, MA, one SBIR) and its partners Carbon Nanotechnologies (no SBIR) of Houston and the Roy Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center (JVIC) at Missouri State University (one politician) have been awarded a $6.2M (ONR) grant to develop carbon-based satellite components, ... Privately held Nantero has raised at least $31.5 million in funding. [Mass High-Tech, Feb 27] Sniff a pork project? In fiscal years 2005 and 2006, Blunt also helped secure more than $14M for defense-related research projects at the Center for Applied Science and Engineering (CASE), which will relocate much of its work to the new building. The Fiscal Year 2007 Department of Defense budget includes almost $8M in funding for CASE research projects. [Missouri State University news, Dec 15, 06] Didn't the Dem revolution of '06 stop such pork? Not for DOD whose appropriation was already law. Nascentric (Austin TX)Nascentric (Austin TX; no SBIR), which develops software for analyzing complex circuits designed at the nanometer level, raised another $7.2M of venture capital, especially from Intel Capital. [Austin American-Statesman, Sep 15]
Nastech PharmaceuticalNastech Pharmaceutical shares plummeted [Apr 25, 08] after the company announced it was raising $7.9 million through an equity offering to unidentified new and existing investors.
NaturalNano (Pittsford, NY)NaturalNano (Pittsford, NY; no SBIR) said that Noble Polymers, a division of Michigan-based Cascade Engineering purchased its halloysite nanotubes material. .... Cascade Engineering is a manufacturer that markets to a mix of industries such as the estimated $40 billion polymer composites industry. [Rochester Business Journal, Jul 29, 08] NaturalNano said it has entered an exclusive development and testing agreement with France-based cosmetics supplier Fiabila S.A. The deal will involve exploring the use of halloysite natural tubes in nail polish and other nail-care products. [Rochester Business Journal, Jun 20] NaturalNano (Pittsford, NY, no SBIR) announced a partnership with Philadelphia’s Rohm and Haas Co. to explore the development of polymers with enhanced properties. ... another major milestone in NaturalNano’s drive toward sustained revenue and validating it investments and patents in halloysite natural tubes enabled materials [Smriti Jacob, Rochester Business Journal, Jun 9, 08] NaturalNano has used nanotechnology to develop a type of paint that stops cellphone signals. It's done by blending particles of copper that are inserted into nanotubes, and then mixing and suspending these tiny particles into a can of paint. [Gizmodo, Mar 06] NaturalNano (Pittsford, NY; no SBIR) jumped nearly 28% [May 20, 08] following news the company has begun work with an undisclosed Fortune 50 chemical firm on two funded projects for uses of Pleximer and its halloysite nanotube technology. [Smriti Jacob, Rochester Business Journal, May 21] The stock reached six cents although the company's cash is barely enough to cover a fifth of its average annual loss for the past two years, and the company told the SEC that it might no longer be able to continue operations because of debt and growing losses.
Natus MedicalNatus Medical up 14% [May 1, 09] Natus Medical down 26% [Jan 20, 09] Natus Medical down 15% [Jan 5, 09] Natus Medical up 11%
[Dec 31, 08] Natus Medical up 13% [Dec 2, 08] Natus Medical down 12% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Natus Medical up 13% [Nov 25, 08] Natus Meidcal down 12% [Oct 30, 08] Natus Medical up 11% [Oct 13, 08] Natus Medical down 10% [Mar 12, 08] Natus Medical down 10% as it reported growth in both sales and profit for the quarter ended September, but also said regulators warned it about process problems at one of its plants in Seattle. [bizjournals.com, Nov 1, 07] Natus Medical up 10% on inclusion in new neuro index. [Sep 27, 07] Natus Medical rose 14% on better than expected profits. One Phase 1 SBIR long ago.
Navini Networks (Richardson, TX)Cisco Systems will buy privately held Navini Networks (Richardson, TX, 260 employees; no SBIR) for $330M, extending the networking equipment maker's acquisition streak and providing the latest validation for the new wireless network technology called WiMax. [San Jose Mercury News, Oct 23]
Navmar Applied Sciences (Warminster, PA)Navmar Applied Sciences (Warminster, PA; $11M SBIR) won a Phase III Small Business Innovative Research contract worth nearly $10 million from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, [Philadelphia Business Journal, Sep 18, 08] Neah Power (Bothell, WA)Neah Power's (Bothell, WA) $8M round of venture capital brings investment to $20M to develop new fuel cells small enough for mobile devices like laptop computers and DVD players. From an expected product release in 2006, the marketeers project that by 2012, micro fuel-cell technology will power 13% of laptops. [story Seattle Times, Aug 20] No sign of any SBIR money.
Nektar Therapeutics (San Carlos, CA)[VC] firm Clarus Venures has invested in $18 M dollar financing of Pearl Therapeutics (no SBIR), a California-based biopharmaceutical company developing products for major respiratory diseases. ..... Pearl, founded in 2006, has raised $36 M of VC and other funding to date. Nektar Therapeutics (no SBIR) has licensed advanced particle technology to Pearl, and the company it is using to develop technology that will give patients and their health care providers a choice of formulations and dosage strengths of respiratory treatments. [Mass High Tech, Jul 7, 08] Large-cap Pfizer's report of increased lung-cancer cases among users of its inhaled-insulin product weighed on Nektar Therapeutics (San Carlos, CA, no SBIR) which fell 25%. The company developed the delivery system used with the product and said it has stopped talks with potential partners for its inhaled-insulin programs. [Wall Street Journal, Apr 10, 08]
Nekton Research (Durham, NC)iRobot agreed to buy Nekton Research (Durham, NC; $4M SBIR, 24 employees), an unmanned underwater robot and technology company... for $10M+. [Boston Globe, Sep 9, 08] Nekton has grown into an aquatic robotic power with customers that include defense agencies. ... iRobot already gets about 45 percent of its sales from the military and industrial segment. ... traces its history to Duke University, where Wainwright was a biology professor. He wanted to understand how fish swim. [Jonathan Cox, Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 9] NeoChord (Minneapolis, MN)Clarian Health Ventures -- an investment company owned by Indianapolis hospital system Clarian Health -- said Tuesday it has invested an undisclosed amount in startup NeoChord (Minneapolis, MN; no SBIR) ... developing a minimally invasive procedure to treat mitral-valve regurgitation for cardiac patients. [Indianapolis Star, Oct 8, 08]
Nerites (Madison, WI)Nerites (Madison, WI; one previous SBIR) got a $134,000 SBIR grant from NIH to develop alternative methods of tendon repair ... Nerites' hydrogel technology - which the company says can be used to close internal tears and incisions or to affix medical devices - was described in a June 2007 cover article in the journal Nature and was called one of the top 100 scientific developments of 2007 by Discover magazine [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb 21, 09] NetezzaBattery Ventures, Waltham MA VC firm, has two IPOs in the next two weeks: Netezza (Framingham, MA) and BladeLogic (Waltham, MA). [Boston Globe, Jul 13, 07] Neither did SBIR.
NetLogics MicrosystemsTwo employees at NetLogics Microsystems, a computer chip design and development company, have been indicted for allegedly trying to steal trade secrets on computer chip design that they were going to use in a company they were starting on their own. [Sharon Gaudin, Info Week, Oct 1] NetworkFab (Santa Clara, CA)Agilent Technologies will acquire private defense contractor NetworkFab [Santa Clara, CA; one Phase 2 SBIR] [San Jose Mercury News, Aug 14] Neuro Ampstart-ups in the drug field within the Milwaukee 7 economic development region suggests another strategic direction for the regional economy. Those new ventures come as Concordia University of Wisconsin mounts an impressive campaign to build a new pharmacy school in southeastern Wisconsin, possibly in downtown Milwaukee. ... New ventures in the emerging drug-making concentration: MPP Group (no SBIR), a venture headed by serial entrepreneur Frank Langley that is building drugs aimed at alcoholism. James Cook, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researcher, developed the compounds. Neuro Amp (no SBIR), a spin-off from PhysioGenix (Wauwatosa, WI; $3M SBIR) that is aiming at diseases of the central nervous system and Alzheimer's. Promentis (no SBIR), a collaboration between Marquette University's David Baker and UWM researchers and former Schwarz Pharma managers who are targeting schizophrenia and central nervous system disorders. Cytometix (no SBIR) , a 2004 start-up headed by Lane Brostrom that is developing drugs for the treatment of pain and asthma. Endece (no SBIR), a 2006 Mequon start-up headed by James Yarger that is developing compounds for treating cancer, sepsis, learning and memory. [John Torinus, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan 31, 09] Neurobiological TechnologiesNeurobiological Technologies (Richmond, CA; two SBIRs) reported a fiscal fourth-quarter loss of $3.5 million, compared with a loss of $4.2 million in the same quarter a year earlier. [East Bay Business Times, Sep 16, 08] Neurobiological Technologies up 33% [Oct 15, 07]
Neurocrine BiosciencesNeurocrine Biosciences up 11% [May 18, 09] Neurocrin Biosciences down 11% [Mar 26, 09] company said some data in its fourth Phase II study on endometriosis pain treatment Elagolix require additional dialogue with advisers and regulators. [Wall Street Journal, Mar 27] Neurocrine Biosciences up 14% [Mar 23, 09] Neurocrine Biosciences down 11% [Feb 25, 09] Neurocrine Biosciences up 10% [Jan 21, 09] Neurocrine Biosciences up 12%
[Dec 31, 08] Neurocrine Biosciences down 11%
[Dec 29, 08] Neurocrine Biosciences up 14% [Dec 24, 08] Neocrine Biosciences up 12% [Dec 5, 08] Neocrine Bioscience down 24% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Neocrine Bioscience up 35% [Nov 24, 08] Neurocrine Biosciences down 17% [Nov 12, 08] Neurocrine Biosciences down 10% [Oct 15, 08] Neurocrine Sciences up 11% [Sep 19, 08] Neurocrine Biosystems up 11% [Sep 3, 08] Neurocrine Biosciences up 11% [Jul 11,08] Neurocrine Bioscience was up 16% for last week but down 54% for 52 weeks. [Jan 14, 08] Neurocrine Loses Sleep Over Insomnia Drug, down 48% [Market Scan, Dec 13, 07] Neurocrine Biosciences up 12% [Nov 29, 07] Neurocrine Biosciences hit the skids 30% after announcing a delay in the re-submission for approval of its experimental sleep drug indiplon to summer 2008 and reporting losing $39M in the quarter. [Nov 3, 06] $11M+ in SBIRs.
NeurogenNeurogen (Branford, CT; two Phase I SBIRs in 1988) a pioneering member of Connecticut's small but lively biotech industry, has hired an adviser to help sell the company or its assets and has laid off half of its already shriveled workforce, the company said Tuesday. To save cash, Neurogen — which in 22 years never brought a drug to market or made a profit — has also stopped enrolling new patients in the Phase 2 trials of its most advanced drug, aplindore, for Parkinson's disease and restless legs syndrome. ... By the start of this year, the company's total net losses had reached $322 million [Eric Gershon, Hartford Courant, May 13, 09] Neurogen (Branford, CT; no SBIR) the struggling biotech company, said that its deal to raise cash by selling four of its five buildings for $6 million has fallen through. ... still trying to raise cash by selling "non-core assets," including its chemical library, which a "global pharmaceutical company" has agreed to buy for $3 million. The company, which has been developing drugs for psychiatric and neurological disorders, is facing delisting from the Nasdaq Global Market [Hartford Courant, Dec 3, 08] Biotech firm Neurogen (Brookline,MA; tiny SBIR long ago) said it plans to raise $30.6 million in a private placement and cut 45 workers to focus resources on clinical development. [Mass High Tech, Apr 9, 08] Neurogen filed to sell filed papers with U.S. regulators to sell $100M of securities at its convenience. [May 30, 07] Neuroges (San Carlos, CA)NeurogesX (San Carlos, CA; no SBIR) is a biopharmaceutical (founded 2000; 37 employees) developing novel pain therapies. Its chief product, NGX-4010, a skin patch containing synthetic capsaicin, is in phase III trials for treating patients with post-therpetic neuralgia, a side effect of shingles.Gene Marcial (Business Week, Sep 24, 07) likes its prospects for European markets as well. SBIR? Who needs it? The six-person Board has three VCs. NeurogesX (37 employees in San Carlos CA; no SBIR) up 16% after noting promising results from a late-stage trial of a pain patch. Neurognostics (Wauwatosa, WI)Neurognostics (Milwaukee WI; one SBIR) signed an agreement to provide its functional MRI (fMRI) system to researchers at the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Iowa for a National Institutes of Health-funded Huntington's disease study. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sep 18] Neurognostics (Wauwatosa, WI; one SBIR) said it has installed its functional magnetic resonance imaging system at the University of Southern California. The technology, which enhances images by including information about the functionality of brain tissue, will be used initially by USC to study therapies in multiple sclerosis patients. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jun 20]
NeuroMetrixNeuroMetrix agreed to pay a criminal penalty of $1.2 million and change its business practices to avoid prosecution for illegal kickbacks to doctors ... $2.5 million to settle civil charges that it encouraged doctors to improperly bill Medicare [Todd Wallack, Boston Globe, Feb 9, 09] NeuroMetrix has been granted 510(k) clearance from the FDA for three of the company’s Universal Electrodes. The single-patient, disposable electrodes are used in nerve conduction studies, in conjunction with the company’s Advance NCS/EMG System. [Mass High Tech, Oct 2, 08] NeuroMetrix says it plans to cut about 15% of its workers to reduce costs. [Mass High Tech, May 14,08] NeuroMetrix Inc. and Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems report the two medical devices firms have formed a limited liability company to expand an existing joint venture to develop a product for peripheral nerve injury. [Mass High Tech, Feb 19, 08] NeuroMetrix lost nearly half its value [Feb 11, 08] after a prediction that one of the company's medical devices would not receive a positive rating, likely prohibiting federal reimbursement. [AP] NeuroMetrix down 11% more [Feb 14, 08] NeuroMetrix and SurModics appeared on the NASDAQ top ten short interest ratios. [Jan 08] NeuroMetrix up 15% after an analyst upgraded the stock and said the company will be able to survive lower reimbursement rates for its NC-Stat monitor device, if necessary. [AP, Jan 3, 08]
Neuron Systems (Burlington, MA)Neuron Systems (Burlington, MA; no SBIR) raised $9M in Series A funding, according to online reports. Investors in Neuron Systems include Johnson & Johnson Development ....working on treating retinal diseases, reports state. The company was founded in 2005 from Thomas A. Jordan and Harvard University researcher John Dowling. [Mass High Tech, Aug 11, 08] Burlington-based biotech company Neuron Systems has raised $8.96 million in Series A funding, according to online reports. Investors in Neuron Systems include Domain Associates LLC and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., both based in New Jersey. Neuron Systems is working on treating retinal diseases, reports state. The company was founded in 2005 from Thomas A. Jordan and Harvard University researcher John Dowling, The pair have filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark office for compounds and methods to both treat and prevent age-related macular degeneration. [Mass High Tech, Aug 11, 08]
Neuroptix (Acton, MA)Alzheimer’s disease detection company Neuroptix (Acton, MA; no SBIR) has taken in $18.5 million in a Series B round of funding, to help push its diagnostic test toward clinical trials. In 2006, took in $500,000 from angels as a seed round. In 2007 a scant $1.6 million in its Series A round, [Mass High Tech, Oct 22, 08]
New Era Technology (Gainesville, FL)Alleged Fraud. Federal investigators are accusing a University of Florida professor and three members of his family of fraudulently receiving millions of dollars from NASA and then funneling money to their personal bank accounts, court documents show. .... the university’s Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute ... According to court documents, Dr. Anghaie and his family members set up a company called New Era Technology (Gainesville, FL; $2.5+M SBIR) ... Court documents assert that the company submitted fraudulent proposals to NASA for research contracts. As a result, the company received several NASA contracts. The company is also accused of submitting fraudulent invoices to NASA for hours it said were worked by employees. ... Dr. Anghaie has served on and been the chairman of several research advisory boards and review panels for the National Research Council, NASA, and the Departments of Energy and Defense. Results of Dr. Anghaie’s research have been published in more than 500 papers and reports. [AP, Feb 27, 09] NextIO (Austin, TX)NextIO (Austin, TX; no SBIR) raised $18.8 M in venture investment to continue its development and sales of chips and systems that enable dozens of computer servers to work together at high speeds. [Austin American-Statesman, Feb 29]
Nextreme Thermal SolutionsThirteen NC companies will split $1 M from a new state fund intended to help businesses create environmentally friendly technologies. In the Triangle area: Ecocurrent of Raleigh received $100,000 to convert hog manure into electric power; Kyma Technologies of Raleigh received $60,000 to work with N.C. State University on a more efficient, cheaper electric switch.; 3F LLC of Raleigh received $100,000 to develop a natural fiber-reinforced concrete formula.; Piedmont Biofuels of Pittsboro received $75,000 to work on a reactor that more efficiently creates biodiesel.; Nextreme Thermal Solutions of Durham received $57,319 to manufacture a generator that converts waste heat into electricity.; Rain Water Solutions of Raleigh received $18,000 to develop a new rain barrel manufacturing process. [Raleigh News & Observer, Jul 1] NimbleGen Systems (Madison, WINimbleGen Systems (Madison, WI; $1.8M SBIR) got a $415K NIH grant to participate in its Cancer Genome Atlas pilot project and help develop innovative technologies for exploring the genomic underpinnings of cancer. using high-tech methods to select regions on the genome for DNA sequence analysis. NimbleGen is being acquired for $272M by the diagnostics arm of Roche Holding AG, the giant Swiss pharmaceutical company. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Jul 4]
Night VisionNight Vision lost its appeal that argued that the government was obligated to award the Phase III contract to Night Vision because the government orally promised to do so and that the SBIR law requires it to do so. The court rejected both arguments. Remember that the government does not make oral future contracts and that the SBIR law only allows sole-source procurement for Phase II but does not require it. If you do a Phase 2, the government can award a subsequent contract to whomever it selects with your technology. The free money leaves the government free to do whatever it wants but just for government purposes. If you get a Phase 2, you should remember that the agency will act in its own interest with little if any regard for your interests beyond the expressly contracted terms of the Phase 2 contract.
NitroMedNitroMed , the Lexington company that became known for marketing a heart medicine for blacks called BiDil, is attempting to reinvent itself. The company -- which recently unveiled plans to sell the rights to BiDil, its only approved drug -- today said it will merge with Archemix a small, privately-held Cambridge biotech company developing drugs for blood-related diseases. [Boston Globe, Nov 19, 08] NitroMed (Lexington, MA; no SBIR) said it’s suspending the sales force for its drug to treat heart failure in black patients, BiDil, and cutting 70 jobs while it conducts additional studies to gain approval of a once-daily form of the medicine. [Bloomberg, Jan 16] a research-based emerging pharmaceutical company [company website] Who Needs Sellers? NitroMed, maker of a heart drug approved only for black patients said yesterday it fired its entire 120-member sales force and would replace it with a small team of heart specialists in a move to cut costs and improve marketing. [AP, Oct 12]
NitronexNitronex (Durham, NC; one Phase 2 SBIR) got $7.5M in new funding. ... The company is working to fill 200 new manufacturing, engineering and administrative jobs and expects to invest $24 million into the new headquarters during the next five years. [Raleigh News&Observer, Jan 12] A Raleigh nonprofit group opposed to business incentives filed a lawsuit Friday related to a $100,000 grant that Durham County promised Nitronex in March. [Raleigh News&Observer, Dec 22] Nitronex (Raleigh, NC) will take $100K to move to Durham. Gallium nitride valley. Bob Lynch CEO of Nitronex talks about GaN. GaNgallium nitride combines attributes of all different semiconductors, kind of all packaged into one. It has the frequency response, which is another way of talking about speed,of indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. ... it's the first time in a semiconductor that you have all the advantages of speed and power in one material. ... We put gallium nitride on just standard silicon, off-the-shelf silicon wafers. And that's one of our unique attributes, is the ability to put it on silicon.... the wireless base-station market. is a perfect application ... We have licensed it to other areas where we're not going to get into the products. Blue lasers, for instance, for the next generation of DVDs. There's a company in Japan that's licensed some [intellectual property] from us to build their blue lasers, which they're actually in production ... How valuable is a license like that to Nitronex? Very. Multiple six-figures kind of value. We've already written royalty checks to N.C. State in very high amounts. Very early on, too. So we're commercializing it. They're happy, we're happy.... In opto-electronics, things like blue light-emitters, either lasers or LEDs [light-emitting diodes] --we won't build those, we're going to license that technology. But for things like RF products for base stations and higher frequencies, we'll build those; high-temperature electronics, high-power switches, we're going to build those.... there's no reason to believe that this area can't be the Gallium Nitride Valley.......Our goal is IPO. Public markets are unpredictable, so we have the horsepower behind us to stay private and grow pretty substantially, and we also have the markets that will allow us to get retained earnings to grow with as well so you don't have to dilute and sell equity. But to grow at the rate we need to grow, we're going to need some pretty large capital infusions over the next few years.... [CHRISTINA DYRNESS, Raleigh Observer]
NKT Therapeutics (Newton, MA)NKT Therapeutics (Newton, MA; no SBIR) secured $8 million in a first funding round [Mass High Tech, Mar 19, 09]nLight (Vancouver WA)nLight (Vanouver,OR; $6M SBIR) has landed $10.7 million in new investment ... Founded in 2000, employs more than 200 in the Portland metro area and more than 300 altogether [The Oregonian, Jan 27, 09] Semiconductor laser manufacturer nLight (Vancouver, WA; $1M SBIR) bought Liekki, a Finnish optical-fiber maker. .... NLight started in 2000 with about a half-dozen employees. It now has close to 400. [Allan Brettman, The Oregonian, Oct 9, 07] nLight (Vancouver WA; $1M SBIR) got a $3M earmark (at the Appropriations Committee stage) to develop safe lasers to use at military checkpoints in Iraq and Afghanistan, boasts its Senator. [The Oregonian, Sep 13]
NMT MedicalNMT Medical up 13% [May 29, 08] NMT Medical reports it has been awarded $2.25 million in damages from a federal court in its patent infringement lawsuit against a Minnesota company. [Mass High Tech, May 20, 08] NMT Medical up 11% [Apr 29,08] NMT Medical up 13% [Jan 25, 08] NMT Medical down 26% [Jan 23, 08] said it would close a trial testing a new migraine treatment after only a handful of patients met enrollment requirements and the study was becoming costly, pushing shares to a three-year low. [Reuters, Jan 23] NMT Medical up 15% [Jan 3, 08] NMT Medical down 12% [Nov 9, 07] despite winning a favorable patent ruling.
Noble FiberThe Ultimate Silver Lining How Bill McNally turned his idea for an antibacterial fabric
into a $50 million sensation. .. McNally, an
eight-year Marine Corps veteran, pitched X-Static to the Pentagon, and by
2004 every U.S. soldier was wearing X-Static socks, T-shirts, and gloves.
... Today the firm [Noble Fiber] has more than 300 licensing
partners, including Adidas, Polartec, and Puma. ... More important, the
company is on track to hit $50 million in sales in 2005. Noble has been
profitable from the start, [ Nomadics (Stillwater, OK)Nomadics (Stillwater OK; over $20M SBIR and STTR) is exploiting polymers that change colors in the presence of target molecules for sniffing explosives. MIT chemist Timothy Swager just won the $500K Lemuelson-MIT prize for the chemistry. The company also won a $16M DOD contract teaming with iRobot to put the detectors where they will do the most good with the least risk to the warrior. The company's elevator pitch (overview): ICx Nomadics pursues the research and development of emerging technologies focused on homeland security and force protection. The ICx Nomadics Technology Cultivation model creates value by applying the skills and creativity of a cross-disciplinary technical team to early stage technologies, driven by proper funding and professional management.
Northstar Battery (Springfield, MO)Northstar Battery (Springfield, MO; no SBIR; founded 2000) plans to add 400 jobs (already has 316 employees at its first plant) with a new manufacturing plant it's building at home. ... makes batteries for industry, mainly for telecommunications uses such as cell phone towers. ... Company officials said they considered putting the new plant in China but had quality concerns. They also looked at other states but decided that Missouri had the best incentives. ... expects to invest about $73M in the new plant. [AP, Mar 18] Northstar NeuroscienceNorthstar Neuroscience, whose technology for treating stroke patients failed a clinical trial last January, said Monday it plans to lay off most of its remaining employees and seek shareholder permission to liquidate the company. [Seattle Times, Jan 5, 09] The stock of Northstar Neuroscience (Seattle, WA; no SBIR), maker of a device for stroke patients, plunged nearly 84% after the company said a trial didn't meet a goal. [Seattle Times, Jan 23] Novacea (South San Francisco, CA)Novacea (South San Francisco; no SBIR) lost 50% after announcing it has ended its Phase 3 ASCENT-2 clinical trial of Asentar(TM) (DN-101), the company's lead investigational cancer therapy for the treatment of patients with androgen-independent prostate cancer, or AIPC, due to an imbalance of deaths between the two treatment arms, as observed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for the clinical study. [company press release, Nov 5, 07] NovaScan (Milwaukee, WI)Two Wisconsin businesses will receive state funding for technology development: NovaScan (Milwaukee) $50K for technology to measure the electrical properties of materials used to identify tissue types in the body, and Platypus Technologies (Madison) $50K for nanotechnologies for the life sciences. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct 17] Platypus has hauled in about $7M in SBIR. Novatek (Provo, UT)Provo businessman named the top "Utah genius" ... . The Utah Genius 2009 Awards honored individuals or companies that received the most patents in the state in 2008. Cities also were honored for the number of patents and the number per capita. Last year, Hall's company, Novatek (Provo, UT; $2.7M SBIR), which creates tools and machines for industries such as oil and gas drilling, mining and construction companies, received about 50 patents, while filing for another 100. [Tom Harvey, Salt Lake Tribune, May 12, 09] NovaTorque (Sunnyvale, CA)Boosting the efficiency of existing appliances is just as important as harnessing alternative energy sources to power them. That's why John Petro, founder of NovaTorque (Sunnyvale, CA; no SBIR), decided to redesign the electric motor, which consumes about half of all the electricity used today ... Though the motor was conceived in 2003, its development stalled for years because Petro didn't have the funds to manufacture it. The $40 billion motor industry is notoriously resistant to change [Anita Hamilton, Time, Dec 15, 08]
NutrabiotixPurdue University says it helped launch 10 startup companies from July 2007 to June 2008, including GreenTech America, Intelliphage and Nutrabiotix. All use Purdue-licensed technologies. Purdue Research Foundation's Office of Technology Commercialization also reported more than $4.1 million in royalties for that time frame. [Indianapolis Star, Jul 29]
NVE (born NonVolatile Electronics, Eden Prairie, MN)NVE up 12% [Apr 8, 09] NVE up 10% [Mar 23, 09] NVE up 12% [Mar 12, 09] NVE up 21% [Jan 22, 09] NVE down 11% [Nov 6, 08] NVE up 11% [Oct 16, 08] Forbes 200 Best Small Companies list for 2008 had several "SBIR involved" companies: Hittite Microwave 12, II-IV 23, Synaptics 33, NVE 39, ATMI 114, Cymer 166. NVE down 11% [Oct 6, 08] NVE down 13% [Jul 24, 08] earnings fail to inspire [SmallCapInvestor.com] NVE up 34% [Jan 24, 08] NVE up 14% [Nov 29, 07] NVE down 14% [Jul 19, 07] after news of a 78% increase in profit. Happiness is what you got minus what you expected. NVE was up 11% [Jul 2, 07] and up 170% over 52 weeks. NVE up another 20% [Feb 26, 07] NVE led the NASDAQ diving competition with a 24 percenter. [Jan 17, 06] NVE rose 11% despite Motley Fool's continued scoffing. [Jan 8, 07] NVE, another volatile stock, up 11% [Oct 30,06] NVE up 10% to 86 times earnings despite Motely Fool's Jack Ulrich's intransigence that I have seen nothing to convince me that Freescale Semiconductor or any other company intends to license NVE's Spintronic technology, and Tim Beyers's that the breadth of Big Blue's [patent] claim [against Amazon] could separate it from the typical bloviating that accompanies most patent cases, such as the on-again, off-again saber-rattling that characterizes NVE claims of intellectual ownership of magnetic random access memory (MRAM) technology. NVE jumped 20% when it reported 25% higher profit for the quarter. [Oct 19, 06] Motley Fool contributor Stephen Ellis is less than thrilled with the story behind these numbers. Volatile. The ups and downs of NVE continued with an 12% up day. It has gone from $60+ two years ago down to $12 and is now oscillating in the $30s. Two weeks ago Motley Fool contributor Tim Beyers called NVE a wonderful short candidate. Three weeks ago Fool columnist Seth Jayson called it an overhyped non-player in the non-existent MRAM market . Where lies the truth about NVE future profit prospects (what drives stock prices)? That's why we have an auction market of buyers and sellers. [Oct 06] NVE is approaching tripling in value since mid-June. Up 18% yesterday. [Sep 06] NVE jumped 18% on the news of a patent award for "antiparallel magnetoresistive memory cells". [Aug 04] NVE stock jumped 42% after it announced a nano-patent for "spin-momentum magnetic memory cells" and "thermally assisted spin-momentum writing.". NVE has partnerships with Cypress Semiconductor and Motorola to license the company's MRAM technology. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jun 24] NVE started life when Jim Daughton left Honeywell and got SBIR from SDIO. That was back when SDIO (now MDA) favored entrepreneurs with new technology instead of service companies with a need for a government-paid salary. invest in this coming tidal wave? asked Josh White (Forbes, Nov 10,03) Of the few nano-plays, White started with NonVolatile Electronics which has had a spectacular year rising from single digits to $40 a share after some visits to the penalty box of the pink sheets. In the usual optimism of the marketers, Investors should look beyond today's meager revenue and earnings because the real gold lies in MRAM. Ex Honeywell'er and founder Jim Daughton (who is still a major officer) started NVE life with SBIRs from SDIO in 1992 and has at least 24 Phase 2s over the decade from DOD and NSF. Cypress Semiconductor Corp., which makes computer chips for video-game consoles and mobile phones, has sold a portion of its investment in NVE Corp. for $23M . NVE shares have nearly quadrupled this year.... Cypress, based in San Jose, Calif., said development of its magnetic random access memory chip is taking longer than expected. The company is developing the chip based on NVE's spintronics technology, a technique that uses magnetic spin to create circuits. [Bloomberg News, Sep 6, 03] NVE reverse-split its common shares, changed its symbol (NVCR.OB) and says it plans to the repurchase 50,000 post-split shares in the next six months. [Nov 25, 02] In the news from near Lake Wobegon (Eden Prairie, MN) NVE got a DARPA contract for an initial $365K for advanced "BioMagnetICs." in DARPA's program seeking nanoscale magnetics for "laboratory on a chip" diagnostics to detect and manipulate single bio-molecules and cells. The basis is NVE's GMR "spintronics" materials of exotic metals a few atoms thick. In typical hype, NVE claims a commercial potential of spintronics of $100B a year. The award feels like a Phase 2 SBIR for NVE's Phase 1 Spin Dependent Tunneling Magnetic Field Sensors for Clutter-Limited Detection. Spintronics got a cover story in June's Scientific American . This spring Cypress Semiconductor invested $6.2M in NVE for a 17% stake in the company, NVE was the child of Arthur Pohm and James Daughton, two Honeywell employees the late 1980s with technology that stored data in the magnetism created between thin films of iron, nickel, and cobalt alloys. NVE reported a quarterly trickle of revenue, $2.3M, which was 60% larger than the previous trickle. NVE (nee Nonvolatile Electronics) now claims to be the leader in practical commercialization of spintronics, which many experts believe represents the next generation of microelectronics. Whether practical and spintronics and commercialization can be uttered together is still highly speculative. A decade ago NVE was making those kind of noises over GIANT MAGNETORESISTANCE for which it is still getting an occasional SBIR raising its SBIR total over $16M. The ever hopeful government actually doesn't care whether NVE lives or dies or commercializes as long as the government gets the technology rights from whatever NVE learns while spending the SBIR money. NVE (ne Nonvolatile Electronics) signed an deal with Agilent Technologies whereby Agilent gains non-exclusive rights to certain NVE technology. NVE gets $1Min the first year and future payments based on sales of the Agilent products. Nonvolatile Electronics which went public through the back door last fall is still losing in the range of $100K per quarter and the stock price muddles along at a market cap around $20M. NVE "merged" with a defunct software company and slipped into its public spot in stock trading markets. NVE has had 19 Phase 2 SBIRs going back to its first from NSF in 1991 to its most recent from BMDO. The Economist Mar 18 reports that the NRL intends to commercialize its design of a magnetic nonvolatile memory in a GMR material through NonVolatile Electronics (Eden Prairie, MN) which recently began work on the necessary processing and fabrication techniques. But it will be some years before the first chips roll off the production line.. What is the government doing "commercializing its in-house developed technology"? The Economist didn't discuss the details or the ramifications of such government action, and may have misinterpreted an SBIR award to NVE. NVE had three BMDO Phase 2 SBIRs in the early 90s for its GMR based nonvolatile memory work and grew from 10 to 50 employees, but has neither gone public nor expanded its SBIR award rate. It did get a $1.8M ATP award recently. It did make the Minnesota Technology FAST 50 in 199 for the second year for the top 50 fastest growing technology companies in Minnesota. It bills itself as a semi-fabless manufacturer of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) based semiconductor devices. Northeast Photosciences (Holllis, NH)Wanna read a BMDO SBIR project? Ludman et (many) al "Very thick holographic nonspatial filtering of laser beams", Optical Engineering, Jun 97 by Northeast Photosciences, Hollis, NH. Into the Black HOLOS Northstar Photonics (Minneapolis, MN)Northstar Photonics gets $11M venture capital funding. The financing, along with $10M raised in preliminary and first-round funding since mid-1999, is expected to carry the 26-employee firm until it begins selling its product, said Tom Oliverius, Northstar's finance vice president. But he said the company hopes to raise an additional $5M in this financing round. Northstar's device is a component of a fiber-optic telecommunications line that helps boost speed and carrying capacity. It is expected to begin producing revenue in 2Q 2002, Oliverius said. [Steve Alexander, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oct 3] Northstar got started without SBIR but with the help of Minnesota Project Innovation whose business advisor Brian Schiffman joined the company. Northstar Photonics (Minneapolis, MN) got an $8.5M investment from a Minneapolis VC. Although Northstar didn't do SBIR, one of its main players was an SBIR fan - Brian Schiffman who did the business help for Minnesota start-ups at Minnesota Project Innovation before plunging back into the private sector. Northwest Biotherapeutics (Seattle, WA)Northwest Biotherapeutics (Seattle, WA; $400K SBIR) is attempting a comeback in the public marketplace, five years after being kicked off Nasdaq in 2002 when it ran out of cash. ... said it raised about 13.1 M pounds ($26 million) in net proceeds from foreign institutional investors as it began trading [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Jun 23, 07]
Novalux (Sunnyvale, CA)Novalux (Sunnyvale, CA) found that adding a crystal of lithium niobate to a gallium indium arsenide laser would boost its light output and change its wavelength from infrared to the red, green, or blue that are the building blocks of color displays. The lasers shine on arrays of thousands of micromirrors that flip back and forth thousands of times a second to combine the light into new colors of different intensities, says inventor Aram Mooradian, founder of Novalux and former head of the quantum electronics group at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. [MIT Tech Review, J/F07] Mooradian had two Phase 2 SBIRs (with an co-investment extension) with his Massachusetts start-up Micracor before he sold it to Coherent in 1996 and started over in 1998. No SBIR (yet) for Novalux (the named investors sound like folks with allergic reactions to partnering with government). In the 1990s, co-investment highlighted SDIO/BMDO SBIR as company after company in Phase 2 found third-party investors to demonstrate enough market potential to merit more government investment. No, happy words didn't count; just money on the table, although the money could be used for any purpose that moved the product toward a market. Note that such a scheme is entirely distinct from cost-sharing where a private entity pays for government R&D work. The SBIR advocates oppose the cost-sharing, which is fair comment, but also oppose the co-investment because it steers SBIR money away from the drone companies that just do government R&D work. Aram Mooradian is back with $20M and more optically pumped lasers, this time as the founder of Novalux (Sunnyvale, CA). Aram founded Micracor in Boston in 1992 where he got one BMDO SBIR Phase 2 after which he sold out to Coherent in 1997. He plans to gather another $60M this summer. Is Aram an SBIR success story? Would he have $80M this year in development money if SBIR had not let him venture out from his perch at Lincoln Labs? Story in The Red Herring, Aug 00 (online sometime later). The management team comes from PARC, Intel, Livermore, E-Tek, Opto-Power, and AMD. Novecon Technologies (Reston, VA)
Novocell (San Diego,CA)Big Pharma's move into stem cell research is starting to inject cash into little biotechnology companies, including San Diego's Novocell (no SBIR) at a crucial time. Novocell is expected to announce this morning that it has signed a two-year collaboration with Pfizer giving the drug-making giant access to the tiny biotech's expertise at turning human embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing pancreas cells. [Terri Somers, San Diego Union Tribune, Dec 19, 08] Two San Diego-area biotechnology companies yesterday were among six commercial operations to receive grants from the state's taxpayer-funded stem cell institute. The funding included 23 grants ranging from $700,000 to $1.1 million. ... Life Technologies, formerly known as Invitrogen, which makes tools for drug discovery, and Novocell, (San Diego, CA; no SBIR) $827,000, which is using human embryonic stem cells to develop a therapy for diabetes. [Terri Somers, San Diego Union Tribune, Dec 11] Human embryonic stem cells may provide the source of insulin-producing islet cells that diabetics need, new research suggests. Novocell (San Diego, CA; no SBIR), a privately held company with 37 employees, coaxed human embryonic stem cells to evolve into cells that produce insulin to control blood sugar when injected into mice with diabetes, according to an article published online yesterday by the journal Nature Biotechnology. [Terri Somers, San Diego Union-Tribune, Feb 21, 08] Novomer (Ithaca, NY)Affordable, biodegradable plastics made from carbon dioxide are moving closer to market. Novomer, (Ithaca, NY; $200K SBIR by 2005), which is developing the plastics, has received $6.6M in venture-capital [MIT Tech Review, Nov 14] NP Photonics (Tucson, AZ)Perhaps the most surprising news to emerge from NFOEC came at the end when we met with a company called NP Photonics, a stealth spinout from the University of Arizona. They have achieved the first major advance in EDFA (erbium-doped fiber amplifier) technology since its inception 30 years ago. Nasser Peyghambarian having overthrown the formidable EDFA paradigm which demands ever-longer doped strands and ever-more powerful pump lasers in return for more amplification, NP Photonics will soon enable tiny EDFAs of far superior functionality and radically lower cost than possible today. Facilitating reductions in the cost of WDM undreamt in Nortel’s worst nightmares, their impact will reverberate through the net-work and among many of our favorite companies such as Corning and JDSU. [Gilder Tech Report]
NuVantNuVant says it got an $870K extension to a $1.74M DOD contract. It had an Army Phase 1 SBIR back in 2002 and a DOE Phase 2 in 2004.
Nuventix (Austin, TX)Nuventix (Austin, TX; no SBIR) closed an $8 million tranche on a Series C round of funding through a combination debt and equity financing. ... developer of a cooling device for electronics, reports that the capital will be used to cover further development costs combined with support for new Asian distributors. .... founded in 2005, employs 30 workers. [Austin Business Journal, Apr 13] Nuventix (Austin, TX, 30 employees; two 2003 SBIRs as Innovative Fluidics, Atlanta, GA)) which sells cooling technology for LED lighting systems, has raised $4 million in venture capital to speed product development and expand its push into Asia. Spun out of the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2005, Nuventix sells devices that use quick pulses of air to dissipate heat from lighting, consumer electronics, telecommunications devices and medical equipment. ... has raised $32.5 million since its inception [Lori Hawkins, Austin American-Statesman, Apr 13] Nuventix ((formerly Innovative Fluidics of Atlanta GA), Austin, TX; $100K SBIR) whose products cool lighting, electronics and other high-tech equipment, has raised $8.5M in VC investment ... manufactures its products at a Flextronics plant in China [Austin American-Statesman, Jan 8, 08] Nuvera Biosciences (Woburn, MA)molecular diagnostics company Nuvera Biosciences (Woburn, MA; $1M SBIR) is licensing testing technology to Veridex LLC to help predict patient response to different types of breast cancer chemotherapy. ... Veridex will develop and sell Nuvera assays to evaluate patient response to tamoxifen and taxane chemotherapy treatment. [Mass High Tech, Apr 6, 09] Nuvera Fuel Cells (Cambridge, MA)Nuvera Fuel Cells (Cambridge, MA: $800K SBIR) struck a deal with landscape equipment giant The Toro Co. to provide its PowerFlow fuel cell systems for integration into Minnesota company's Workman utility vehicle [Mass High Tech, Apr 4] NZ Applied Technologies (Woburn, MA))OK, We'll Buy It All A Glass Investment If you make the equipment to send signals down a wire, what better partner could you have but the wire maker. Glass giant Corning has made an equity investment in SBIR-powered photonics materials house NZ Applied Technologies (Woburn, MA). The money will speed the development of photonic products with NZAT's proprietary OptoCeramic device technology and packaging architecture. NZ's co-founder Peter Norris thinks the market will be several billion dollars. The good news is that money like Corning's can be compounded by SBIR agencies who like commercial development of products, like BMDO, and without the pressure from such agencies, companies like NZAT have an incentive to promise commercial while doing essentially government R&D with mutual self-deception by company and government. NZ Applied Technologies Inc. (Woburn, MA) was #24 in New England High Technology Fast 50 awards last week of companies whose growth over the last five years has been of astronomical proportions. Sponsored by Deloitte & Touche, a nationwide accounting firm, and the Boston-based law firm Hale & Doerr. [Mass High Tech] NZ's problem is that all that growth was SBIR awards that the government may suddenly stop for any kind of government reasons, one of which may be too much SBIR. NZ-Corning DealNZ-Corning Deal
Oasys (New Haven, CT)A Yale University spinoff Oasys (New Haven, CT; no SBIR) is developing a novel desalination device that reduces the energy needed to purify water to one-tenth of that required by conventional systems. .... using what it calls engineered osmosis. Unlike conventional desalination systems, the Oasys system establishes an osmotic pressure gradient instead of using pressure or heat to force water through a purifying membrane. The approach exploits the fact that water naturally flows from a dilute region to one that's more concentrated when the two solutions are separated by a semipermeable material, thereby saving the energy normally needed to drive the process. [Lee Bruno, MIT Tech Review, Jan 8] ObjectVideo (Reston, VA)British start-up Ipsotek is a shrimp. .. expects losses in 2007 on estimated revenue of $3M. That puts him well behind ObjectVideo (projected 2007 sales: $30M) of Reston, VA. (nearly $2M SBIR), founded by scientists and managers from DARPA, which is monitoring platforms for the New York City subway system. [Stephanie Fitch, Forbes, Aug 13, 07]
OBS Medical (English)OBS Medical (Carmel, IN) will receive $2M from the Indiana 21st Century Fund to speed the development of its BioQT technology, designed to improve pharmaceutical cardiac safety. ... a subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd., based in the United Kingdom. [Indianapolis Star, Jun 25] Subsidising Foreign Companies. OBS Medical (Carmel, IN) will receive $2M from the Indiana 21st Century Fund to speed the development of its BioQT technology, designed to improve pharmaceutical cardiac safety. ...a subsidiary of Oxford BioSignals Ltd., based in the United Kingdom. [Indianapolis Star, Jun 21]
Ocean Power TechnologiesOcean Power Tech up 16% [May 27, 09] Ocean Power up 13% [Apr 30, 09] Ocean Power up 12% [Apr 22, 09] Ocean Power down 10% [Apr 6, 09] Ocean Power Tech up 10%% [Apr 2, 09] Ocean Power Tech up 14% [Mar 26, 09] Ocean Power Tech up 11% [Mar 17, 09] Ocean Power down 10% [Mar 2, 09] Ocean Power Tech down 10% [Feb 19, 09] Ocean Power Tech up 12% [Jan 26, 09] Ocean Power Tech down 13% [Jan 7, 09] Ocean Power Tech up 17% [Jan 2, 09] Ocean Power up 12% [Dec 31, 08] Ocean Power down 12% [Dec 30, 08] Ocean Power down 25% [Dec 29, 08] Ocean Power Tech down 19% [Dec 10, 08] Ocean Power Tech up 13% [Dec 8, 08] Ocean Power Tech up 10% [Dec 3, 08] Ocean Power Tech up 17% [Dec 2, 08] Ocean Power Tech up 13% [Nov 24, 08] Ocean Power Tech up 11% [Nov 4, 08] Ocean Power Tech down 10% [Oct 23, 08] Ocean Power down 14% [Oct 8, 08] Ocean Power Tech down 18% [Oct 6, 08] Ocean PowerTech up 14% [Sep 29, 08] Ocean Power Tech up 10% [May 15, 08] Ocean Power Tech down 12% [Jan 4,08] Ocean Power Tech up another 23% [Dec 27, 07] Ocean Power Tech up 17% [Dec 26, 07] Ocean Power Technologies up 11% [Oct 1, 07] Revenue up, loss up, shares up 11% for Ocean Power Technologies. [Sep 14, 07] Ocean Power Technologies down 12%. [Aug 6, 07] Ocean Power Technologies which IPO'd Apr 25,07 is trading about 10% below the IPO price. About $1.4M SBIR.
OCI (St Louis, MO)The Army FCS Program awarded its Small Business of the Year award to OCI (St Louis, MO; no SBIR). [St Louis Post Dispatch, Feb 22] OculusOculus fell 2.5% from its IPO price. [Jan 25, 07] No SBIR for the wound-care products like Dermacyn. OddpostOddpost is part of an emerging breed of here-today, bought-tomorrow startups that are sprouting with minimal funding, flowering briefly, and being gobbled up by far bigger companies. In many instances, these built-to-flip outfits forgo -- or sometimes can't get -- money from venture capitalists. They instead create shoestring operations focused on the rapid development of narrow technologies to plug gaps in existing product lines or add useful features to existing products. Then they look to a deep-pocketed patron to scoop them up. .... By the end of September, there will have been more than 5,300 tech acquisitions in 2004, based on research from Mergerstat. The average reported selling price was $12 million. Microsoft alone has bought 46 companies in the past four years; ... large companies increasingly recognize that, with stock options no longer the lure they once were, the most cost-effective way to bring in new talent and to fund R&D is simply to buy up innovators and their ideas. "Big companies stink at innovation, and they know it," says Vivek Mehra, general partner at venture fund August Capital. [Om Malik, Business 2.0, Oct 04] Oil Chem Technologies (SugarLand, TX)"The first time we used the product in the field was for a Chinese well," said Christie Lee, president of Oil Chem Technologies (SugarLand, TX; no SBIR). "In the meetings, there would be six of us and a dozen of them. They tried to duplicate our product by breaking it down and analyzing it, but they were not able to totally replicate it." ..."We were a small fish swimming with sharks," Lee said. "But it established credibility for us because we could say our product had been tested in the field." [Sandra Bretting, Houston Chronicle, Sep 30] Omeros (Seattle, WA)Omeros (Seattle, WA; $1M SBIR) said it’s received $3.1 million in funding from the Stanley Medical Research Institute for development of its schizophrenia treatment drugs. [Puget Sound Business Journal, Jan 28, 08] Biopharma Omeros (Seattle, WA; $1M SBIR) filed for an IPO, aiming to raise as much as $115M ... founded in 1994, has no product revenue and no products approved for marketing. It is developing compounds for inflammation and disorders of the central nervous system [Seattle Times, Jan 10, 08] In Feb 07 it raised $63M.
OmniGene Bioproducts (Cambridge, MA)BioEnergy International LLC, a developer and manufacturer of next-generation, renewable biochemicals and biofuels acquired the assets of OmniGene Bioproducts (Cambridge, MA; $700K SBIR).
OmniGuide (Cambridge, MA)OmniGuide (Cambridge, MA; $1.8M SBIR mostly as Omniguide Communications), a developer of laser scalpels used in minimally invasive surgeries, has pulled in $1.8 million in an equity round, according to a regulatory filing .. A prior Series E private equity financing, announced last May, brought in $25 million ... backed by Analog Devices Inc. founder and chairman Ray Stata, who serves as chairman of the board [Mass High Tech, May 15, 09] OmniGuide (Cambridge, MA; $1.6M SBIR), a developer of laser scalpels used in minimally invasive surgeries, reports it has closed a $25 million Series E round of private equity financing. [Mass High Tech, May 15]
OmniLytics (Salt Lake City, UT)Eli Lilly announced an agreement with OmniLytics (Salt Lake City, UT; no SBIR) to collaborate to research and license products to treat food-borne bacteria. [Indianapolis Star, Mar 12, 08]
OmniSonics Medical Technologies (Wilmington, MA)OmniSonics Medical Technologies (Wilmington, MA; no SBIR) ceased operations in January. The end came without warning to doctors who were conducting studies on new applications of its federally approved device to break up blood clots with ultrasound pulses. [Barnaby Feder, NY Times, Apr 5, 09]
OncogenexCanadian firm Oncogenex going public this week. Not to be confused with Oncogene Science of lower NY which had a ton of HHS SBIR and was once a public firm before being bought by Bayer in 1999.
Oncolytics BiotechOncolytics Biotech (Calgary, AB; 11 employees) has tinkered with the structure of the reovirus [carried in water supplies and found in the intestines of most adult humans appears to be lethal to cancer cells] to create a drug candidate called Reolysin. Encouraged by promising animal trials, the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., is about to start testing Reolysin in human patients with ovarian cancer, the fifth-leading cause of cancer death for women. [Business Week, Feb 4, 08]
Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Emeryville, CA)Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Emeryville, CA; $800K SBIR) and its partner, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, said Monday that a test of their cancer drug Nexavar failed a Phase III trial to treat a form of melanoma. [San Francisco Business Times, Apr 27, 09] Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Emeryville, CA; $600K SBIR) said a lung cancer trial of its flagship drug Nexavar was halted because of increased death in patients taking the drug. [Wall Street Journal, Feb 20] Onyx Pharmaceuticals (Emeryville, CA; $800K SBIR a decade ago) up 18%, now up 11 of the last 12 sessions as part of its 448% gain so far this year. Yesterday's move came after the pharmaceutical company swung to a third-quarter profit of $555,000, or 1 cent a share, and noted a jump in revenue for Nexavar, a kidney- and liver-cancer therapy. [Wall Street Journal, Nov 8]
Open SiliconOpen Silicon's innovation was its strategy to outsource chip design to lower-cost workers in India. ...When Intel changed its mind and closed the [ASIC] business, he lured five co-workers to help start his company. Within nine months, he brought over another 20 former colleagues, both in the United States and India. ... The advantage Open Silicon offers is that it can negotiate pricing with chip factories and other vendors based on a volume of business that none of its customers could attain by themselves, [Mark Boslet, San Jose Mercury News, Jun 21] SBIR? Get serious.
OpGen (Madison, WI)OpGen (Madison, WI; no SBIR) the leader in microbial genome analysis today announced a strategic investment and development agreement with In-Q-Tel [company press release, Oct 29, 07] OpGen (Madison, WI; no SBIR) raised $23.6 M more in a financing led by VC firms on both coasts for developing products that can rapidly identify bacteria and other organisms. The FDA used OpGen's technology to determine whether all the contaminated spinach in an outbreak earlier this year was related to the same organism, [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sep 13]
OPNET TechnologiesOpnet up 11% [May 29, 09] Opnet declared an initial dividend. [May 14, 09] OpNet down 10% [Apr 20, 09] OPNET up 12% [Mar 23, 09] Opnet up 13% [Mar 12, 09]
OPNET up 11%
[Dec 16, 08]
OPNET down 10%
[Dec 15, 08] Opnet down 12% [Dec 1, 08] On a stock bloodbath day Opnet up 11% [Nov 21, 08] Opnet Tech up 21% [Oct 28, 08] Opnet Tech up 20% [Oct 16, 08] Opnet Tech down 10% [Oct 14, 08] Opnet Tech up 12% [Oct 13, 08] Opnet Tech up 11% [Oct 10, 08] Opnet Tech down 11% [Oct 9, 08] Opnet Tech up 17% [Sep 19, 08] Opnet Tech up 15% [Jul 11,08] OPNET Technologies down 24% [Nov 2, 07] 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. OPNET Technologies topped the list of Biggest Percentage Price Decliners on the Nasdaq after soggy profits results and forecast. [May 17, 07] OPNET Technologies up 15% [Feb 1, 07] on better earnings.
OptTek Systems (Boulder, CO)Companies contending with an aging workforce and looking for new ways to attract and retain a diverse workforce may one day turn to a tiny software company for help. OptTek Systems (Boulder, CO) is a developer of software that helps optimize problem-solving software. Most of its work centers on software that can simulate a specific business or financial problem, such as how to staff a hospital with the right number of doctors and nurses or, as in the case of its customer Halliburton, which oil and gas fields to explore to optimize investment. However, with a [Phase 2] SBIR grant of $450,000, 14-person OptTek is building a complete software application that can be applied to workplace issues. .... after working on a similar project for the Navy .... Founded in 1992 by former University of Colorado at Boulder researchers, OptTek began using SBIR grants to help fund research and development a few years ago. Its new software, called OptForce, will be available for commercial sale by the end of the year. [Kimberly Johnson, Denver Post, May 30, 08] If the work was done for the Navy and is ready for commercialization, why is NSF funding it with SBIR? Because tech merit runs the show where peer review dominates since the academics don't care much whether a company has already had SBIR for essentially the same stuff.
Optelecom-NKFOptelecom down 17% [May 13, 09] Optelecom up 12% [Apr 20, 09] Optelecom up 11%% [Apr 1, 09] Optelecom down 10% [Mar 11, 09] Optelecom down 21% [Mar 9, 09] Optelecom up 12% [Mar 6, 09] Optelecom down 13% [Mar 5, 09] Optelecom down 12% [Feb 18, 09] Optelecom up 15% [Feb 17, 09] Optelecom down 15% [Feb 13, 09] Optelecom up 17% [Feb 12, 09] Optelecom up 12% [Jan 29, 09] Optelecom down 10% [Jan 28, 09] Optelecom up 13% [Jan 22, 09] Optelecom up 12%
[Dec 31, 08] Opteelcom down 16%
[Dec 30, 08] Optelecom up 10%
[Dec 16, 08] Optelecom up 13% [Nov 17, 08] Optelecom down 12% [Nov 10, 08] Optelecom up 15% [Nov 7, 08] Optelecom down 19% [Nov 6, 08] Optelecom-NKF up 15% [Nov 5, 08] Optelecom down 16% [Oct 24, 08] Optelecom up 21% [Oct 21, 08] Optelecom up 23% [Oct 14, 08] Optelecom down 13% [Oct 9, 08] Optelecom-NKF up 10% [May 2, 08] Optelecom-NKF up 17% [Nov 7, 07] on bright earnings. Optelecom down 12% after reporting another loss. [Aug 1, 07] Optelecom was down 11% on disappointing earnings. [Feb 28, 07]
Optherion (New Haven CT)Optherion (New Haven CT; no SBIR) reports it has raised startup capital of $37M to advance products for age-related macular degeneration. [Mass High Tech, Oct 9] Labs in New Haven near its scientific founders at Yale and at the U of Iowa in Coralville.
Optical Concepts (Lompoc, CA)Corning and WL Gore says they are testing a prototype fiber with Gore's 850nm VCSEL. That VCSEL probably came from SBIR awards 1992-1995 to a start-up in Lompoc, CA that was bought out by Gore. Optical Concepts founded by Kevin Kilcoyne got about $3M of BMDO Phase 2 money plus the co-investment that BMDO encourages, especially for any Phase 2 after the first, and developed products that are now serious candidates for big time commercial use.Optigain (Peacedale, RI)Optigain Joins Lucent. Optigain (Peacedale, RI) sold a majority equity share to FITEL Technologies, a joint venture company of Lucent Technologies and The Furukawa Electric Co. Optigain under founder Harish Sunak got much of its early R&D capital from BMDO SBIR awards in erbium-doped amplifiers.Six of the seven Phase 2s were from BMDO. The company's pre-Optigain name in 1992 was EDFA. Says the press release: The agreement positions FITEL to provide a broader suite of amplification products and Raman pump units for signal amplification in optical networks. The Rhode Island facility, to be named Optigain-FITEL, will be a center of excellence for Raman technologies as well as a North American design and manufacturing center for amplification products. The technology: Amplification products for the C and L-band have grown exponentially in demand over the past few years due to the increased reliance on fiber optic communications and transmission systems. Raman technologies have recently become an important factor in long-haul transmission systems due in part to their ability to increase the bandwidth per channel and optimizing signal to noise ratio for 10Gb to 40Gb systems by using the existing fiber as the gain medium. FITEL’s integrated Raman pump system uses a series of high-powered pump units to optimize the signal to noise ratio of an optical signal, allowing the signal to travel longer distances with less regeneration. FITEL develops and markets some of the most powerful and reliable pump modules available on the market. The Raman pump units are used in conjunction with Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers (EDFA) in long-haul and high-speed transmission systems. FITEL also manufactures some of the smallest single channel EDFAs available on the market. Optimal TechnologiesThe formula is top secret, and some say the technological claims are mathematically impossible. But Raleigh NC politicians and state officials have been wowed by Optimal Technologies' (Canada) claims that its product can prevent electricity blackouts and lower utility costs. They lured the startup company to downtown Raleigh with the promise of $650,000 if it creates 325 local jobs. ... The eight-year-old company's product: a network management tool that can improve electricity flow over clogged utility transmission systems, many of which are aging and in need of expensive upgrades [John Murawski, Raleigh News&Observer, Jan 16]
Optimer PharmaceuticalsOptimer Pharmaceuticals up 13% [May 20, 09] Optimer Pharmaceuticals fell 6.3% as the firm said results from its recent study on an antibiotic treatment didn't differentiate its drug from a competitor's treatment as much as was previously hoped. [Wall Street Journal, May 19, 09] Optimer Pharmaceuticals said it has more good news for travelers. The San Diego company announced yesterday that its second Phase 3 clinical trial of its antibiotic Prulifloxacin successfully killed pathogens that cause traveler's diarrhea in people visiting India, Guatemala and regions of Mexico. [Terri Somers, San Diego Union Tribune, Feb 25, 09] Optimer Pharma up 13% [Jan 21, 09] Optimer Pharma down 12% [Jan 9, 09] Optimer Pharma up 13% [Nov 14, 08] Optimer Pharma up 22% [Nov 13, 08] Optimer Pharma doubled [Nov 11, 08] ... reported positive top-line results from a late-stage study of its lead anti-infective drug candidate for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infection, an illness caused by infection of the inner lining of the colon by a certain kind of bacteria. [Wall Street Journal, Nov 12] Optimer Pharma down 35% [Nov 12, 08] Optimer Pharma down 10% [Oct 23, 08] Optimer up 12% [Oct 16, 08] Optimer up 23% [Oct 13, 08] Optimer Pharma down 15% [Oct 10, 08] Optimer Pharma down 12% [Oct 9, 08] Optimer Pharma down 10% [Oct 8, 08] Optimer Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA; $2.3M SBIR) developing an antibiotic for traveler's diarrhea said results from a late-stage clinical trial show that its product is faster and works on a broader range of gut-wrenching bacteria than those already on the market. The trial showed that one dose of 'once-daily Prulifloxacin started curing traveler's diarrhea within 24 hours, the company reported [Terri Somers, San Diego Union Tribune, Jul 17, 08] Optimer Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA, $2.3M in HHS SBIR) went public last week and is trading 20% above the IPO price. Optimer Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA), which has two late-stage anti-infective product candidates, filed to go public. $2M+ SBIR from HHS. Optivision (Palo Alto, CA)Optivision Makes Top 100 A Piece for Optivision
Opto TechnologyPerkinElmer said it has bought Opto Technology (no SBIR; annual revenues are under $15 million), a supplier of LED- based lighting components and subsystems [Boston Globe, Feb 3, 09]
Orbital Technologies (Madison, WI)Orbital Technologies(Madison, WI; $36M SBIR) announced that it is seeking investors to embark on its next stage of expansion. .... which looks ahead to the privatization of space travel for commercial and even private purposes, is unfazed by the economic slowdown and credit crisis. .... about 80 staff members, most of them engineers or scientists ... In more recent years, its investments in research and development have yielded so many diverse spin-offs that it reorganized itself in October into five separate operating groups. Each of the five has applications that are ripe for commercialization, Crabb said. [John Schmid, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec 2, 08] Twenty years and $36M to get to the stage where the company is organizing for commercialization. Of what for what realistic profitable markets? What did the government think it was doing for all those years and millions?
Orchid CellmarkOrchid Cellmark up 10% [Aug 1, 08] Orchid Cellmark up 18% [Jul 11,08] Orchid Cellmark up 13% [Nov 23, 07] Orchid Cellmark down 12% on soggy earnings [Nov 1, 07] Organogenesis (Canton, MA)Organogenesis (Canton, MA; small SBIR), that makes artificial skin, said it is part of a large consortium that aims to develop regenerative medicine therapies to treat battlefield injuries. [Boston Globe, Apr 18, 08] Organogenesis (Canton, MA; 3 Phase 1 SBIRs), a maker of regenerative-medicine products, reports it plans to expand into a third building in Canton intended for manufacturing -- part of a multimillion-dollar incentive package pledged by the state. ... the state provided the firm with an incentives package worth $12.9M to expand and create jobs in the state, according to the company. In a statement, [Gov] Patrick said the expansion of Organogenesis in Massachusetts serves as proof of the state's commitment to spur long-term growth in life sciences. [Mass High Tech, Apr 3, 08] Organogenesis (Canton, MA; $200K SBIR) a life sciences firm focused on regenerative medicine, has acquired NanoMatrix (Baton Rouge, LA; $300K SBIR) , a maker of biologically compatible materials. [Mass High Tech, Feb 27, 08] OriginOil (Los Angeles, CA)OriginOil (Los Angeles, CA; no SBIR), an algae biofuel company, has developed a simpler and more efficient way to extract oil from algae. The process combines ultrasound and an electromagnetic pulse to break the algal cell walls. Then the algae solution is force-fed carbon dioxide, which lowers its pH, separating the biomass from the oil. [MIT Tech Review, May 1, 09] Orion Energy Systems (Plymouth, WI)Orion Energy Systems (Plymouth, WI; no SBIR) posted a glowing debut through its IPO, with the company's stock closing up 65%. ... high-intensity fluorescent lighting helps businesses save on energy costs associated with lighting large buildings such as factories, warehouses and distribution centers [Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Dec 20] Orion Genomics (St Louis, MO)Orion Genomics (St Louis, MO; one SBIR), a biotechnology startup in the Center for Emerging Technologies, [St Louis Post Dispatch, Dec 20,07] announced today the discovery and validation of the most frequent DNA alterations detected in breast cancer to date. The results of a genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation appeared in PLoS ONE. The study entitled, "Identification of Novel High-Frequency DNA Methylation Changes in Breast Cancer" found more than 50 novel biomarkers, which were subsequently validated in up to 230 independent patient samples. [company press release] OrologicOrologic wants to be "the Intel of networking eventually" with its 10 employees and no product, But this summer, it raised $500K seed money and hopes soon on $4-6M of VC. First prototype early next year. Orologic's founders believe they have discovered the Holy Grail of networking. - layer 4 switching which combines routing and switching into one box and allows a network to give priority to specified kinds of traffic. Orologic, which moved into RTP's First Flight Venture Center last December plans to use its next round of funding to finish work on its prototype and begin marketing and sales efforts. [CHRIS O'BRIEN, Raleigh News & Observer, Sep 8] Ortel Corp (Alhambra, CA)
Ortel Up A Third Ortel Skyrockets Ortel (Alhambra, CA) saw a 14% drop in sales and a consequent $1.1M loss for the quarter. In a statement worthy of a government bureau it said, The third-quarter revenues of its core broadband products, which represented 71 percent of total revenues for the third quarter and 67 percent for the nine-month period, were negatively impacted by a slower-than-expected ramp-up of major product enhancements. The stock price took a hit of 28% in one day. Ortel makes advanced solutions to original equipment manufacturers for the transmission of video, voice and data. Ortel was a minor user of SBIR before going public in 1995. Extremely Cost-Effective Prices Make a Profit, Take a Dive Some Cable, Some Hype Ortel Big Day Ortel in China Ortel Buys Into China Oryx Technology (Fremont, CA)Oryx Lands a Deal
Oscient PharmaceuticalsFollowing a difficult second half of sorts, Oscient Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA; $1.3M SBIR in 2004) reports that it is cutting staff levels by 32 percent and is considering a potential sale of the company ... Ranked as the sixth-fastest growing company in Massachusetts for 2008 by the Boston Business Journal, Oscient saw its stock value plummet from a 52-week high of $2.84 to about 19 cents as of yesterday’s close. [Mass High Tech, Feb 12, 09] Its peak price in Y2K was 396. Oscient Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA; $2.3M SBIR) said it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Lupin Pharmaceuticals, which is seeking to market a generic version of one of Oscient's drugs. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jan 15] Oscient Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA; $2.3M SBIR) received a warning letter from the NASDAQ that the biotech company’s market value dropped below $15 million for 10 days straight, failing to meet the exchange’s minimum eligibility requirement for market listing.[Mass High Tech, Oct 6, 08] The stock of Oscient Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA; $2.3M SBIR) [down 24% ]is plunging as Wall Street is disappointed by the company's first-quarter revenue forecast. [Boston Globe, Apr 17, 08] Oscient Pharmaceuticals up 20% [Oct 19, 07] Oscient Pharmaceuticals down 11% as it talked disappointing revenue but not profits. [Oct 10, 07] Oscient Pharmaceuticals down 10% [Aug 3, 07] Oscient Pharmaceuticals dropped 18% after it upped its ongoing convertible senior bond offering[Apr 18, 07] Oscient Pharmaceuticals (at least $2.3M SBIR) did an 8-to-1 common stock reverse split. [Nov 16, 06]
Osiris TherapeuticsOsiris Therapeutics discontinued enrollment in a clinical trial for Prochymal, a Crohn's disease treatment, due to a suspected flaw in the trial's design. The Baltimore stem-cell researcher fell 21% [Wall Street Journal, Mar 28] New highs made by Cubist Pharma and Osiris Therapeutics [Dec 2, 08] a first-ever deal to bring treatments to market based on adult stem cells, Genzyme has entered into a deal with Osiris Therapeutics, which will see Genzyme investing at least $130 million in Osiris — in a deal worth a potential $1.25 billion. [Mass High Tech, Nov 4, 08] Osiris up 10% [Oct 28, 08] Osiris down 13% [Oct 23, 08] Osiris down 10% [Oct 22, 08] Osiris Thera up 13% [Oct 16, 08] Osiris Thera down 10% [Oct 15, 08] Osiris Thera down 10% [Oct 2, 08] Osiris Thera up 15% [Sep 18, 08] Osiris Therapeutics said it has reclaimed sole worldwide rights to cardiovascular indications for Prochymal and ended its development and commercialization agreement with Boston Scientific Corporation in order to provide Osiris with the flexibility to enter more strategically beneficial relationships. [Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, Jan 8, 08] Cleveland BioLabs down 59% [Jan 4, 08] as DOD picks Osiris, up 10%, for $225M contract for stem cell therapy. Osiris Therapeutics up 16% [AP, Nov 27, 07] after it said that one-year data on its stem-cell treatment candidate for knee surgery, called Chondrogen, showed positive results. Osiris Therapeutics up 16% after announcing encouraging results from its effort to help the hundreds of thousands who die each year because their scarred hearts can no longer pump blood efficiently [Businessweek.com, Mar 26, 07] Osiris Therapeutics dropped 10% after a clinical trial of its stem cell therapy did not make enough replacement cartilage for damaged knees. Osiris Therapeutics up 13%. [Dec 4, 06] Osiris Therapeutics up 15% after good news form a clinical trial of a stem cell therapy. It also had recently raised another $20M. SBIRs totaling $1M in the 1990s. [Nov 10, 06] |
