IBM researchers received 4,914 U.S. patents in 2009, more than any other company for the 17th straight year. .. about 50 percent more than in 2004 [Austin American Statesman, Jan 13, 10]
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Hark, What News?news and views for entrepreneurs ..... as of Feb 8, 2010 REMINDER: don't call DC today; they're digging out. Note: Carl Nelson Consulting, Inc is not an investment adviser and may hold a financial interest or client relationship in companies discussed.
Looking for older stories? Visit the archives
Luminex (Austin, TX; one SBIR) posts 4th-quarter revenue of $38.2 million, up 35% from 2008 .... makes biological testing systems for medical and life sciences customers [Austin American Statesman, Feb 6, 10] Disc Dynamics (Eden Prairie, MN; no SBIR), a once-promising medical device start-up that raised about $65 million from investors, has shut down and is selling off its assets. ... developed a minimally invasive technique to treat low back pain, failed to win a go-ahead from the FDA to conduct a pivotal clinical trial. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb 5, 10] Infinia (Kennewick, WA; $3.6M SBIR) is raising another truckload of money. ... backed by Paul Allen and Vinod Khosla, has snapped up $11.5 million in new equity financing out of a round that could bring in as much as $75 million over time, according to a regulatory filing. ... developing solar-powered [Stirling] engines to generate large amounts of electricity in a renewable way [xconomy.com/seattle, Feb 5, 10] HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals (Seattle, WA; no SBIR) has raised $6 million in equity financing out of a round that could be worth as much as $12.7 million, according to a regulatory filing. ... led by former Xcyte Therapies ($1.3M SBIR) CEO Ron Berenson, is pursuing a new treatment for sickle cell anemia. [xconomy.com/seattle, Feb 4, 10] Kensey Nash down
15% [Feb 5, 10]
even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car. [Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), Jan 30] And the Republican ardor for free markets and anti-Democratic brakes will probably block any effective USG regulation to control the car. Why should the world richest nation not have the best Congress money can buy? Since TARP was of course a bonanza for fraudsters as government passed out money as fast as it could without the usual procurement type safeguards that fill the volumes of the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the TRAP IG has 77 ongoing criminal and civil investigations. To see all SIGTARP actions www.SIGTARP.gov Banks say they are beating the bushes to find small companies that want to borrow, but can find few takers. [Irwin Stelzer, The Sunday Times, Feb 7] Naturally, all observers with a political stem cell have an explanation that reinforces their own political opinions. A Confidence Game. "Everyone is depending on sovereign and fiscal authorities to keep the music going," he says. However, because the huge government deficits eventually act to slow economic growth, "people know that eventually the music is going to stop playing." The key unknown is at what point bond markets force governments to cut back on the stimulus. The answer, Mr. Brynjolfsson says, "is purely a function of confidence." [Tom Lauricella, Wall Street Journal, Feb 8] "Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn Tepha (Lexington, MA; $2M SBIR) medical devices company, has raised almost $3 million in financing, according to [SEC filing ] ... founded in 1998 as a spinoff of a collaboration between its sister company Metabolix Inc. in Cambridge and Children’s Hospital Boston to develop technologies related to cardiac tissue engineering. .. makes absorbable biomaterials, including polymers and elastomers, used in medical devices such as surgical sutures and meshes. [Mass High Tech, Feb 4, 10] AXT won a five year contract with Germany’s Azur Space Solar Power GmbH.... will sell germanium substrates to Heilbronn-based Azur Space, which will used them to make solar cells. [San Francisco Business Times, Feb 2, 10] Virent Energy Systems (Madison, WI; two SBIRs) has been awarded $2.4 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to help convert plant sugars into transportation fuels.... included in $33.8 million in funds from the [stimulus] to the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium ... Virent said it started working on pre-treatment and deconstruction of cellulosic biomass in 2007 with a $2 million Advanced Technology Program grant from NIST. [Thomas Content, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb 4, 10] Note that the stimulus funding is still in its first year when you hear all the political whining that the stimulus failed as measured by the 10% national unemployment. Facts are elastic toys in the hand of politicians eager for theater. Aerovironment down
12% [Feb 4, 10]
Respiratory disease business Pearl Therapeutics (Redwood City, CA; no SBIR) raised $15 million in loans that will be converted to equity in its next round of venture funding. [SEF Brown, San Francisco Business Times, Feb 2, 10] Solar-power technology developer 1366 Technologies has landed $5.1 million of a planned $6.2 million round of venture capital. [Craig Douglas, Mass High Tech, Feb 4, 10] Protonex Technology reports it has landed $1.5 million from the U.S. Army for supplying portable battery charger fuel cells. [Mass High Tech, Feb 4, 10] indispensable capitalist partner. China said it issued a record number of patents in 2009, [up 41% from a year earlier] but concerns are growing that new patent regulations and other initiatives may damp that growth. [Wall Street Journal, Feb 4] Everybody worries about regulation. The Chinese revitalization of Asian capitalism remains the most important positive event in the world in the last 30 years. Not only did it release a billion people from penury and oppression but it transformed China from a communist enemy of the U.S. into a now indispensable capitalist partner. [George Gilder, Wall Street Journal, Feb 5] Public growth, private shrinkage. NSF, NIST laboratories, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science continue on the path to doubling their budgets. [SSTI, Feb 4] As always, scientists believe that deficit reduction beef must come from some other sacred cow. But, GSK plans to expand previous cost-cutting efforts by saving nearly $800 million more a year by 2012 than previously planned. Half of that savings will come from reducing research and development spending, which will affect its R&D hubs, including the one in Research Triangle Park [Raleigh News &Observer, Feb 5] eldavojohn writes "MIT researchers have built and demonstrated the first room-temperature germanium laser that can produce light at wavelengths suited for communication. This achievement has two parts: '[U]nlike the materials typically used in lasers, germanium is easy to incorporate into existing processes for manufacturing silicon chips. So the result could prove an important step toward computers that move data — and maybe even perform calculations — using light instead of electricity. But more fundamentally, the researchers have shown that, contrary to prior belief, a class of materials called indirect-band-gap semiconductors can yield practical lasers.' While these are only the initial steps in what may become optical computing devices, the article paints it as very promising. The painful details will be published in the journal Optics Letters." [slashdot.org, Feb 5] Vertex Pharmaceuticals said that its experimental cystic fibrosis drug VX-809 met key safety and tolerability goals in a midstage study. [AP, Feb 3, 10] Planar down
11% [Feb 3, 10] We asked a handful of VC investors to name the companies they hadn’t invested in but wish they had. ... Bessemer Venture Partners declined Apple, FedEx, and Google ... other VCs listed Agios Pharmaceuticals, EnerNOC, LogMeIn, [Galen Moore, Mass High Tech, Feb 3] Business spending on technology goods and services is returning as the economy mends, pumping new life into suppliers such as Cisco, though it has been slower to reach other sectors. ... "This is one of the most robust positive turnarounds I've seen in my career," [Cisco CEO Chambers] added [B Worthen and D Clark, Wall Street Journal, Feb 4] Pfizer said that it plans to cut R&D spending by as much as $3 billion by 2012, in an attempt to wring efficiencies following its take-over of Wyeth without sacrificing future product development. [Wall Street Journal, Feb 4] The Russian finance minister on Wednesday floated a new approach to catching up with the West in technology ... The government will order ministries and state companies to use more of their procurement budgets to buy products that qualify as “innovative” and that are made in Russia. [New York Times, Feb 4] A national security state going to enliven useful and advanced technology? Certainly no better than the US DOD does with its national security SBIR. Boston Dynamics (Waltham, MA; $2.4M SBIR) reports it has landed $32 million from [DARPA] to develop a Big Dog-like robot to carry supplies for U.S. Marines. [Mass High Tech, Feb 2, 10] American Superconductor down 10% [Feb 2, 10]
Nice Technology, Little Market. Martin Marietta Composites said it is closing its plant in Sparta [NC] that makes pedestrian bridge decks, commercial truck trailers and blast resistant panels. Chief financial officer Anne Lloyd says the company is dropping the product line because of a lack of demand. [AP, Feb 3]
Shrinking Cradle. A study by the Shenzhen Academy of Social Sciences ... shows a precipitous drop in the fraction of the population involved in starting new businesses, from 12% in 2004 to 5% in 2009. .... Many laws have been enacted to protect workers and the environment, making it more costly and complex to start a business. As factories have moved away, so has low-skilled labour. ... Only 9% of the respondents said the technology they hoped to use in their new venture was truly innovative—less than one year old. [The Economist, Jan 23] KingRobot sends news that a recent test of a US missile defense system has failed. The test of the Groundbased Midcourse Defense interceptor apparently had a problem with the sea-based X-band radar. Both the target missile, launched from the Pacific, and the interceptor, launched from California, performed as expected. "Yesterday's test was intended to quell doubters of the entire missile-defense approach, with the target missile deploying countermeasures. Critics of the GMD programme say that tests thus far, which have not included such spoilers, have been too kind to the intercept tech. The [military] isn't disclosing whether the intercepting kill vehicle had simply failed to reach the 'threat cluster' of warhead(s) and decoys, or whether it had reached the cluster but hit a countermeasure rather than the actual target." [slashdot.org, Feb 2] Luna Innovations up 10% [Feb 1, 10] Planar up 21% [Feb 1, 10]
Optelecom up 13% [Jan
29, 10]
Ready, Set, Continue. Congress is extending non-DOD SBIR again, until Apr 30. Which, unfortunately, gives the agencies that don't like SBIR an avenue to interrupt the flow of proposals and awards. Good news is bad news. Stocks turned lower at the end of a disappointing January as investors questioned the economy's ability to sustain a big fourth-quarter growth rate. [AP, Jan 29] Obama wants to offer tax credits to companies that hire new workers, a plan that drew a cool reception from Congress last month despite the nation's double-digit unemployment rate. With polls showing that jobs are Americans' top priority [AP, Jan 29] Some things the government does not do well, including stimulus by creating jobs that lasts only as long as the money. Wealth creation belongs in private hands after the government has built a safe and invigorating milieu. But until people stop rewarding their politicians with re-election for handing out public money, the inefficient machine will grind on at least at the federal level where running bills up on the national credit card is rewarded with hands on the levers of power. For a view of what can go wrong, look at Venezuela. Any program to fund private business must be done with great restraint and a structure that provides support only at critical junctures where there is a clear path beyond the barrier to privately based development. A greatly scaled down and highly targeted SBIR, for example, might - might - qualify; not the broad and loose handout of the last almost three decades. A venture capitalist recently remarked to me that the uncertainty the administration has created is "nothing short of paralyzing." Nobody will invest in an industry that might be the next to be overtaxed, overregulated, or publicly disemboweled. [Kimberly Strassel, Wall Street Journal, Jan 29] Strassel writes regularly in the ultra-conservative and growing WSJ op-ed section that never saw a good business tax or regulation. When priced in gold, the US stock market has been in a bear market for the entire 21st century [Chart of the Day, Jan 29] 9 oz today vs. 45 oz in 1999. "Good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attentions of practical or scientific men." --- A British Parliamentary Committee delivers its learnéd verdict on Thomas Edison's electric lamp, patented in the USA on 27th January 1879 [historytoday.com, Jan 29]federal deficits have only climbed to 5% of GDP four times since the end of World War II—in 1946, under President Harry S. Truman, and three years under President Ronald Reagan. Why are deficits labeled by president when the president has so little to do with it? One reason: Congresses are ID'd by a number that no one knows nor remembers. What's the number? Subtract 1787 from the year and divide by two to know that we now have the 111th Congress. Anyway the whole business of deficit is enfogged with attitudes that keep changing. The widening deficit and growing federal debt show how the political ground has shifted. During the Clinton administration, deficit concerns were pre-eminent. "Rubinomics," named for then-Treasury Secretary Rubin, said balanced budgets helped the economy flourish and kept interest rates down. By the time Vice President Dick Cheney famously said deficits didn't matter, the pendulum had swung back. Republicans passed tax cuts totaling nearly $2 trillion over 10 years and approved a Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the largest entitlement expansion since the 1960s. Now, there is a new orthodoxy. Democrats argue that fiscal discipline must be restored—but not before the nation regains its economic footing. The debate is how quickly to shift from fiscal stimulus to fiscal austerity. [Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal, Jan 30]
Barely one month after reporting a $10 million venture investment, QD Vision (Watertown, MA; $1.7M SBIR) says it has taken in $3 million from DTE Energy Ventures to help expand the market for its technology for LED lighting and displays products. [Mass High Tech, Jan 21, 10] Cardiorobotics (Newport, RI (originally founded in 2005 as Innovention Technologies, Pittsburgh, PA); no SBIR) has landed $5 million in venture capital ... makes the cardioARM, a snake-like, remote-controlled robotic probe intended to minimize incisions necessary for surgical procedures. ... In June, raised a Series A round of $11.6 million [Mass High Tech, Jan 21, 10] Arsenal Medical (Watertown, MA, formerly WMR Bionedical; no SBIR)., a developer of targeted therapies for patients with chronic conditions, has raised $2.05 million in debt financing from nine investors, [Mass High Tech, Jan 21, 10] Alnara Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA; no SBIR) a developer of metabolic disease treatments, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. ... to file a new drug application for liprotamase, its pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy for patients with cystic fibrosis, which has gone through Phase 3 clinical trials with support from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics Inc. [Mass High Tech, Jan 28, 10] Repligen said today that it extended its long-term deal to supply recombinant protein A to General Electric's GE Healthcare unit. [AP, Jan 28, 10] Life Technologies reported higher-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter yesterday, as sales of the Carlsbad company’s products for scientific research continued to grow.... born of the 2008 merger of Carlsbad’s Invitrogen and instrument maker Applied Biosystems [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 29, 10] Cymbet (Elk River, MN; no SBIR) , a maker of thin-film rechargeable batteries, has wrapped up a $31 million round of financing, ... third round of funding; that round began in late 2008, when the company closed on $14 million ... technology provides back-up power to circuits used in several electronic devices, such as cell phones [Kathryn Grayson, Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal, Jan 25, 10] The quasi-public agency Connecticut Innovations Inc. today released a report indicating that the 20-year-old authority has brought about a $23.80 return — measured in impact on the state’s gross domestic product — on each dollar invested in local companies. ... CI invested $152 million in 84 companies [1995-2008]. .. CI’s investments helped to create an average of 1,610 jobs each year, including 563 direct jobs and 1,046 indirect jobs. The activity also brought in more than $209 million in state tax revenue, an average of $14.9 million a year, according to the report. The report also said that CI’s investments led to an additional $1 billion in outside investments. [Mass High Tech, Jan 21, 10] BioTech Maturing. Ten years ago, big biotechnology stocks were at an age when anything seemed possible. Investors believed the companies would make their wildest dreams come true. These days, youthful exuberance has given way to middle-aged cynicism. Price-earnings multiples of major biotech firms, once in triple digits, recently slipped below the S&P 500 average for the first time. ... And they already have learned acquisitions are no miracle cure. As biotech firms start to suffer from big pharma's ailments, they might simply have to accept lower valuations. [John Jannerone, Wall Street Journal, Jan 29] Yet Another Subsidy. The highly lucrative market for radioactive isotopes used in cancer scans and other medical procedures is at the center of a political struggle in Congress ... over the uncertain future of a $4 billion market now controlled by foreign suppliers with aging nuclear reactors .. [Markey's] bill, which the House overwhelmingly passed and the White House supports, would require the Department of Energy to provide at least $130 million to encourage the creation of domestic manufacturers of the special compounds. [Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, Jan 29] Governments are good at home cooking [protectionism] and spending public money, but terrible at wealth creation [competitive markets] and paying for the subsidies. Over the past five years, Washington has tried to reform Social Security, immigration, health care and energy policy. All of these efforts have either failed or are close to failure — thousands of people working millions of hours and in all likelihood producing nothing. .. as each party interprets victory as a mandate to grab everything [David Brooks, New York Times, Jan 29] Continuing Irresolution. SBIR Coach Fred Patterson reports that the House Small Business Committee has chosen not to respond to the Senate's compromise proposal, and we'll have a sixth Continuing Resolution, this one for 90-days. Since SBIR is mainly a political program, why be surprised that the politicians want to extract the most from it? And the advocates are still in angst over the $200M "stolen" by NIH in the stimulus handouts. If you're looking for a model of responsible political restraint, look to...... several new start-up "incubators" are slated to pop up around Silicon Valley in the next few months. ... Well-known incubators include Y Combinator and Plug and Play Tech Center, with many venture-capital firms also incubating start-ups. [Pui-Wing Tam, Wall Street Journal, Jan 28] The board of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public agency formed to oversee the state's $1 billion life sciences initiative, today approved up to $3 million in new matching grants to small businesses in 2010. ... will focus on emerging life sciences businesses with production-ready products and high potential to create jobs in Massachusetts. It will begin accepting online applications for the grants on Feb 1 through its website, www.masslifesciences.org. [Robert Weisman, Boston Globe, Jan 27] While the appetite for bandwidth increases, the network investment to provide it is not keeping pace. Similarly, semiconductor chip sizes continue to shrink, but investment in the new equipment to make smaller chips has fallen. According to Gartner Group, global semiconductor industry capital spending declined 32% in 2008 to $31 billion and further declined an estimated 43% in 2009. ... Confidence is returning to our economy. I expect 2010 to be a very good year for tech stocks, despite the run-up we saw in 2009. In particular, I'm betting on companies building the latest-generation semiconductors or facilitating greater network bandwidth. Gartner Group predicts capital spending in the chip business will increase 45% in 2009. [Jim Oberweis, Forbes, Feb 8] Pay Me Now, Or ... Debt for jobs now, settlement later. The world has issued so much debt in the past two years fighting the Great Recession that paying it all back is going to be hell--for Americans, along with everybody else. Taxes will have to rise around the globe, hobbling job growth and economic recovery. [Daniel Fisher, Forbes, Feb 8] No problem: politicians always prefer Pay Me Later when they will be out if office. We voters apparently believe the same thing because we keep re-electing them. But there are practical limits to the return on more debt: says Carmen Reinhart, a University of Maryland economist. The coauthor, with Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff, of This Time It's Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton, 2009), Reinhart has found that a 90% ratio of government debt to GDP is a tipping point in economic growth. Last year, Seacoast Science (Carlsbad, CA; $4.4M SBIR) introduced its first mass product, a compact gas chromatograph that is about half the size of a shoebox, which the company developed in partnership with Vernier, a Beaverton, OR, distributor of scientific instruments and products for the university, college, and other educational markets. The device, which sells for $1,750, also reflects another aspect of the startup’s strategy. “Because we’re just 12 to 13 people, we’ve gone out to look for industrial partners with marketing and distribution networks,” Haerle says. [Bruce Bigelow, xconomy San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 27. 10] Rapid Diagnostek (Hudson, WI; no SBIR) has raised $4 million of venture capital ... to develop a portable, one-step sensing device that could quickly diagnose diseases, bacteria, viruses, and spores by analyzing blood, urine and saliva. The company moved to Hudson in 2008 from Minnesota. [Kathleen Gallagher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan 26, 10]
EnVivo Pharmaceuticals (Redwood City, CA; one
SBIR) and FoldRx Pharmaceuticals (no SBIR)
will share with four other companies a $2.1 million
grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s
Research (MJFF).
Memsic (Andover, MA; no SBIR, IPO
2007) maker of micro-electromechanical (MEMS)
devices, has acquired certain assets of smart sensor
developer Crossbow Technology (San Jose, CA;
no SBIR) for $18 million in cash.
Cubist Pharmaceuticals reported
that its fourth-quarter profit dropped 76 percent from a
year-ago period helped by a hefty tax benefit, but said
sales of its antibiotic Cubicin sharply increased. [VCs] last year invested the lowest amount in such
companies since 1997, according to a report from
Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the [NVCA]
Cree up 17% [Jan 20, 10]
Protonex Technology landed a [Army and stimulus] contract worth $1.85 million for the development and supply of advanced portable battery charger/auxiliary power units (APU) fuel cell systems. ... could increase to $6.4 million if three option phases are awarded. [Mass High Tech, Jan 20, 10] Many venture capitalists say they plan to invest more cash into Silicon Valley companies this year than in 2009. But certain categories of technology start-ups won't be the recipients. In particular, companies in areas such as networking equipment, telecommunications, semiconductors and alternative fuels may be fresh out of luck, venture capitalists said. That is largely because those areas typically require large sums to get off the ground. ... "We're preoccupied by capital efficiency," said Bob Ackerman, a venture capitalist [Pui-Wing Tam, Wall Street Journal, Jan 21] A new survey of small and mid-sized businesses in New England found that 42 percent of respondents are planning to make new hires this year, compared with 29 percent last year. [Boston Globe, Jan 21] The freshly inaugurated governor reeled off a litany of new actions to increase college graduates, double the Governor's Opportunity Fund and target bioscience companies, invest in renewable energy, and provide tax credits for green job creation [SSTI, Jan 20] How will he pay for all that plus a $4B starting deficit? Don't ask, nor how all that fits into his required Republican limited government. Xcellerex (Marlborough, MA; no SBIR) a provider of manufacturing systems for biotherapeutics and vaccines, has begun a Phase 1 clinical trial of its yellow fever vaccine, XRX-001. ... In 2007, Xcellerex pulled in $20 million in a second round of financing .. Series C round of financing came later in 2007 with an investment of $31 million. [Mass High Tech, Jan 13, 10] Cree rose as much as 10% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company posted quarterly results that left analysts' expectations in the dust. [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 20, 10] Implant Sciences announced a contract totaling approximately $6 million for its Quantum Sniffer(TM) QS-H150 Portable Explosives Detectors and associated support. ... by the Government of India, for use by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in Force Protection and Public Safety applications throughout the country. [company press release] Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has agreed to buy Ahura Scientific (Wilmington, MA, founded 2002; no SBIR) maker of analytical instruments, for $145 million in cash. [Mass High Tech, Jan 19, 10] In intellectual terms, as Robert Skidelsky writes, the global financial crisis marked the collapse of the “efficient market hypothesis”, which said economic actors behave rationally and markets efficiently. In fact, the world discovered (again) that economic actors can behave irrationally and markets can be anything but efficient. [Lionel Barber, Financial Times, Dec 14] The inefficiencies, real or imagined, make a convenient basis for political meddling in the name of "market failure" in handout programs like SBIR that help buy votes from beneficiaries. Liquidia Technologies (Durham, NC; one SBIR) raised $20 million in venture capital financing... to continue clinical testing of its experimental flu vaccine based on nanotechnology. ... employs 46, previously raised more than $30 million in venture financing ... In addition, Liquidia and its founder, N.C. State and UNC-Chapel Hill chemist Joseph DeSimone, won a $3 million federal grant [NIST-TIP] in December. [Alan Wolf, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 19, 10] Aurora Flight Sciences (Manassas, VA (R&D in Cambridge, MA); $15M SBIR) to develop technology for a hot air balloon to operate on Saturn’s moon, Titan. [Brendan Lynch, Mass High Tech, Jan 18, 10] NASA and the SBIR advocates will no doubt continue to bleat about commercialization while the Centers fund R&D for outer space. The company's website does standard R&D spin for government-use stuff. It must be good stuff to get $15M and growing SBIR over twenty years from DOD and NASA. BTW: what would you consider a decent nursery period for small high-tech companies before they can compete on their own for government R&D work. What really happens is that the mission agencies won't let them compete for much of that work because the agency must put at least 3% of their outside work into SBIR. "Go get SBIR," say the agency managers to such companies. TransEnterix (Durham, NC; no SBIR) is poised to begin selling its first products after obtaining all of the necessary regulatory approvals for its new surgical system and finding new space to assemble them. ... leased 37,000 square feet of space in Morrisville's Keystone Technology Park ... founded in 2006, is being fueled by the $55 million it raised in October [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 19, 10] Catabasis Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA; no SBIR) has raised about $2 million in an amendment to a filing with the SEC [Mass High Tech, Jan 18, 10] Novelos Pharmaceuticals could have a blockbuster drug on its hands. The company will soon release data from a Phase 3 clinical trial for its drug target to treat non-small-cell lung cancer. [Mass High Tech, Jan 15, 10] Life Image (Newton, MA; no SBIR) pulled in $2 million in financing, according to a filing with the SEC. ... develops web-based applications and services to ease access to patients’ medical-imaging history. [Mass High Tech, Jan 15, 10] Sequenom settled shareholder lawsuits by paying $14 million, funded by insurance, and issuing the plaintiffs almost 10% of its shares outstanding. Last year, Sequenom disclosed it had "mishandled data" from its prenatal Down syndrome test and fired its chief executive and head of research [Wall Street Journal, Jan 16] Ping Fu, the CEO of Geomagic (RTP, NC; one SBIR), recognizes that most entrepreneurs are too busy running their companies to get involved in politics. But when the White House called, she jumped at the chance to provide a voice for small- and medium-size businesses. Fu was one of 50 CEOs who attended a forum Thursday in Washington about using technology to modernize government. .... she got her main point across: that any stimulus or job-creation money should be aimed largely at smaller companies, which do the bulk of the hiring. .... she co-founded in 1996 makes 3D software that allows customers such as NASA and Harley Davidson to build realistic digital models of products. ... continues to prosper during the downturn and plans to add to its 100-employee workforce again this year. [Alan Wolf, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 15, 10] Does everybody think that what they are doing would be an ideal stimulus target? Where money is on offer, .... A giant nonprofit and a technology startup in the Triangle each snagged a slice of a $78 million federal stimulus grant to promote biofuels research. Both grant recipients are hiring engineers, project managers and other scientists for the research efforts. ... Palmer Labs (Durham, NC; no SBIR), 18-month-old, nearly $1.5million .. RTI International $750,000 to study new ways of cooking wood waste [John Murawski, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 15, 10] Love stimulus? Remember that somebody has to pay for it, and the government has no money of its own. in search of a problem. It's hard to recall just how much hype surrounded the Segway when it was introduced in 2001. Some of the biggest names in tech predicted it would change the world. They were wrong. And as the company was quietly sold [to a British investor] last week, it was somehow comforting that even the best get it wrong sometimes. ... "With a price tag that started around $5,000, the Segway PT pretty much doomed itself to a niche market: rich guys who aren't afraid to embarrass themselves in public." ... a classic case of a product in search of a problem [Chris O'Brien, San Jose Mercury News, Jan 17, 10] NASA and InnoCentive, which operates a global network of 200,000 potential problem solvers, [to apply the principles of crowd-sourcing to solve the research and development problems that face its corporate customers] are collaborating to open a new NASA Open Innovation Pavilion designed to provide the public with the opportunity to solve difficult problems in human health and performance facing the US space program. ... seeking input from the public on [among others]: How to keep food fresh in space and how to develop an effective aerobic exercise program that keeps astronauts fit in space, [Boston Globe, Jan 15] Over half the world's equity capital is now outside the U.S., and that fraction is growing. For the S&P 500, 40% to 50% of profits and revenues come from foreign sales, and that fraction will be rising. [Jeremy Siegel, Fortune, Jan 10] The U.S. remains the world's science and technology leader, but other countries are gaining ground, the National Science Board said ... nearly a third of $1.1 trillion spent on research and development globally in 2007, minted more science and engineering doctorates than any other country, and led the world in innovative activity ... awarded 22,500 doctorates in natural sciences and engineering in 2007, but more than half of them were awarded to foreign nationals ... 49% of patents granted, down from 55% in 1995 [Justin Lahart, Wall Street Journal, Jan 16] Worry about record profits. While Intel reported its most profitable quarter ever, analysts raised concerns about the coming year. Morgan Stanley said a peak quarter for Intel often puts an end to a chip-sector rally. [Wall Street Journal, Jan 16] Japan is a poster child for the Great Reckoning. Asia's biggest economy has little to show for the 30 trillion yen ($329 billion) that the government has pumped into it since late 2008. Unemployment, already at a near-record 5.2%, is edging higher. Meanwhile, deflation is intensifying, wages are stagnant, and worried households are saving more and spending less. Worse, Japan's population is aging rapidly, reducing the tax base and raising social costs. [William Pesek, Business Week.com, Jan 14] For those advocating more government "investment" in their technology hobbies, the government can't afford it, particularly since it is hard to discern a definite payback for the R&D dollars already spent in an act of continuing faith. $16.56 Impact for Each State Dollar, says North Dakota. Providing strong evidence for how public investments in research and TBED pay off even on a short time horizon, a recent impact analysis calculated the total impact from the first $19.9 million North Dakota spent over the past four years for the establishment of 20 Centers of Excellence across the state. Analysts from North Dakota State University reported a combined cumulative impact of $329.5 million for the 30 months ending June 2009. The total includes both direct reported results and estimates for indirect impacts .. seven new spin-off companies were created, five companies expanded within North Dakota, and five companies expanded to the state [SSTI, Jan 13] Let me control the assumptions and the "indirect effect" and I can give you any impact you want. Thousands of Massachusetts small business owners who have been pummeled by rising health insurance costs should see some relief under a program approved yesterday by state regulators. The Health Connector board voted to take over the administration of health insurance plans for roughly 17,000 small businesses, a task that had been handled by a private company, Worcester-based Small Business Service Bureau. The new program is aimed at the smallest of small businesses, those that employ between one and five workers. There are roughly 40,000 such employers in Massachusetts that offer health insurance to their workers, according to state figures. [Kay Lazar, Boston Globe, Jan 15] China has replaced Germany as the world’s largest exporter. And it plans to continue feeding its products into world markets in increasing quantities so as to provide jobs for a workforce that is already sullen, and just might become mutinous. [Irwin Stelzer, The Sunday Times, Jan 17] And what has SBIR done to foster economic vitality that would contribute to America's competitiveness? Not a lot by any respectable economic measure. After all, why should a mission agency of the USG care about economics when there is no payoff to the agency for success? The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the U.S. government establish a central national security budget and then set aside money by responsibilities, breaking with the current arrangement of letting departments and agencies decide how best to arrange their budgets. [Walter Pincus, WashPo, Jan 18] The investigating arm of Congress ignores the legislating arm of Congress where committee turf is guarded even more ferociously than the Executive Branch departmental turf. The conservatives' focus on ideology, they say, is an opportunistic way of distracting attention from the mistakes of the Bush years and the role conservative policies played in bringing us to this point. To cite ideology rather than the economy in explaining the poll numbers is like analyzing the causes of Civil War without any reference to slavery or the rise of the New Deal without mention of the Great Depression. ... many, especially political independents, are upset that the government has had to spend so much and that things have not turned around as fast as they had hoped. [EJ Dionne, WashPo, Jan 18] The nation of instant gratification wants to know why the financial and economic mess isn't cured yet. T'row da bums out; bring back da odder bums? Hepregen (Medford, MA; one SBIR) won a
$500,000 Phase 2 SBIR [NSF] grant contributing to the
company’s total $2 million in federal funding. ...
developing a platform to reduce the liver toxicity
caused by approved drugs.... co-founded in 2007
[Mass High Tech, Jan 14, 10] spun out
Hepregen Corporation from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), with a commitment of a $5-million
Series A investment [company website, Feb 09]
The new technology—that Bhatia and HST postdoctoral
associate Salman Khetani describe in the Nov. 18 online
issue of
Nature Biotechnology—arranges human
liver cells into tiny colonies only 500 micrometers in
diameter that act much like a real liver and reportedly
survive as long as six weeks.
Jobs, or else.
Luna Innovations down 11% [Jan 13, 10] Affymetrix down 14% [Jan 13, 10] The technology that Affymetrix develops is quickly becoming obsolete, or so analysts believe. ... increased pricing pressures from competitors as its technology becomes quickly outdated by new genetic analysis technology such as Illumina’s sequencing technology. [Lisa LaMotta, Minyanville.com, Jan 13, 10] Rechargeable-battery maker Ener1 dropped 16% after ending discussions with Fisker Automotive about the feasibility of a business relationship concerning the Fisker Karma vehicle program. [Wall Street Journal, Jan 14, 10] AquaMost (Madison, WI; one SBIR), a start-up company based on University of Wisconsin-Madison technology and licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and Encotech, (Eighty Four, PA; probably no SBIR), a provider of products, systems, and services for the environmental remediation industry, announced that they have been awarded a $100,000 SBIR Phase I [NIH] grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop and commercialize an advanced water purification device [photoelectrocatalytic oxidation]capable of removing organic pollutants and pathogens from water. [company press release, Jan 12, 10] Targeted Genetics, a 21-year-old Seattle biotechnology company that's been struggling in recent years, said it plans to deregister its stock and cease filing [SEC] reports. [Seattle Times, Jan 14, 10] Life science firms pitch optimism [CEO] of Alkermes stood before scores of potential investors yesterday and talked about two drugs - for diabetes and opiate dependency - that his Cambridge company expects to get approved in 2010. “This year is going to be a big year,’’ Pops said. ... Henri Termeer defending his leadership at Genzyme as it scrambles to fix production problems, Biogen Idec’s James C. Mullen avoiding any mention of his recent decision to step down from the company’s top post - the mood was generally upbeat. ... companies have been raising more money in follow-on offerings than any time in the past decade, about $6 billion in 2009 ... Another huge market opportunity lies in a drug being developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals to treat hepatitis C, a largely untreated virus estimated to affect about 3 million Americans and 100 million people globally. “We’re doing a lot to raise awareness of this disease,’’ said new Vertex chief Matthew Emmens. [Robert Weisman, Boston Globe, Jan 14, 10] from the 28th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco Where's the cure? The pool of money for medical experiments is tight, which will affect the development of drugs, devices and other treatments. ... a [new] study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that the rate of increase in funding for biomedical research in the United States has slowed since 2005. ... researchers are finding the competition for NIH grants especially fierce. [Janet Moore, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jan 13] Send more money? From where? The tea-party demands less government finance although they can't agree just what that means in detail no matter how great it sounds in the abstract. Of course the tea-party sees waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere except in the programs they champion, perhaps like more NIH research. More spending for us, less wasteful spending for "them", and no taxes to pay for anything. Where's the financial cure when we need it? Demand creates supply. An exchange at a financial hearing in Washington laid bare a truth about Wall Street: if there’s a buyer, no matter how sophisticated, there’s a seller. [AR Sorkin, New York Times, Jan 14]
Polspeak
Laying out her goals for the year, [NC Gov] Perdue
promised to push tax incentives for small
businesses and use federal training dollars to
give small employers administrative support they
wouldn't otherwise get. She also challenged
business and education leaders to guarantee that
every public school student is prepared for
college or a career. .. "We're tired of business
as usual." ... I am, and will continue
to be, known as the 'jobs governor'."
[Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 14] She's looking
forward to $400M federal handout for education
(while Texas declines $700M).
We are no closer today to SBIR reauthorization than we were when the House and Senate SBIR legislation was passed back in July of 2009 with conference talks starting in August. [SBIR Insider Rick Shindell, Jan 12] Rick sees a pure political stratagem by SB Chair Velazquez of two-year re-authorization which aligns with her bi-annual need for campaign contributions. But since SBIR is mostly a political handout anyway, where's the great injustice of playing both sides of it? In the nearby city of Frankfurt/Oder, the factory that made the solar cells used at Lieberose, owned by First Solar, an American firm, cannot keep up with demand as one sheet of glass after another rolls down its production line. In Germany this is seen as vindication of an industrial policy that has nurtured solar power for almost a decade with incentives known as feed-in tariffs. [The Economist, Jan 9, 10] Illumina unveiled new technology yesterday that it says will bring the cost of sequencing a human genome below $10,000. It was the latest milestone in the advancement of genetic analysis, from the $3 billion Human Genome Project a decade ago to current systems that can run a person’s genome for around $50,000. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 13, 10] Molecular Biometrics (Norwood, MA; no SBIR) diagnostic tool developer, has completed a $12.5 million Series B round of funding [Mass High Tech, Jan 12, 10] Life Technologies said it acquired the Bay Area company AcroMetrix (Benicia, CA; one SBIR) for an undisclosed amount. AcroMetrix makes diagnostic quality control products for laboratories, blood screening centers and diagnostic manufacturers. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 13, 10] Luna Innovations up 21% [Jan 12, 10] Microvision down 14% [Jan 12, 10] Illumina up 16% [Jan 12, 10] CardiAQ Valve Technologies (Winchester, MA; no SBIR) has closed on a $6.5 million Series A round led by private investors including board member Rob Michiels [who] served until April 2009 as president and COO at CoreValve, which was bought by Medtronic for $700 million, plus milestone payments. [Mass High Tech, Jan 12, 10] Argon ST said that it will consider options including a potential sale, merger or acquisition. ... designs and develops sensors, computer systems and software used in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, mostly for the U.S. government. Founded in 2004, Argon ST has roughly 800 employees and reported annual sales in 2009 of $366 million. [Washington Post, Jan 13, 10] Bind Biosciences, (Cambridge, MA; one SBIR) nanoparticle-based drug developer co-founded by MIT’s Robert Langer and Harvard Medical School’s Omid Farokhzad, has raised $11 million in a third round of financing [Julie Donnelly, Mass High Tech, Jan 12, 10] Semprius (Durham, NC; $500K SBIR) has attracted a $1.5 million strategic investment from a German company. As part of the deal with Durham-based Semprius, X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries will fabricate semiconductors for customers that have licensed Semprius' technology to develop new applications. ... has raised more than $10 million in venture capital financing from Intersouth Partners of Durham and other investors [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jan 13, 10] top management of Optimer Pharmaceuticals has gone bullish on the stock in recent weeks. Through option exercises and open-market purchases, Chief Executive Michael Chang and [his wife] Chief Operating Officer Tessie Che have raised their holdings by more than 16% as the drug developer awaits results from an important clinical trial. [David Reynolds, Wall Street Journal, Jan 13, 10] Valence Technology (Austin, TX; no SBIR) said it received a $3.1 million order from Smith Electric Vehicles, a British company that makes electric-powered commercial vehicles. Valence, which makes rechargeable batteries, earlier received a $1.4 million order from Smith parent Tanfield Group PLC, which is increasing production of its Smith Newton truck in the United States. [Austin American Statesman, Jan 13, 10] Spire said that its wholly owned subsidiary, Spire Semiconductor LLC, has been awarded part of a federal contract from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory to help develop a solar concentrator chip. For part of the 18-month, $3.7 million cost share subcontract, Spire Semiconductor is developing technology to cost-effectively manufacture concentrator solar cells for concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems that would be 42 percent efficient. [Mass High Tech, Jan 12, 10] Embattled Genzyme [CEO] told investors today that about 80 percent of patients who use Cerezyme, the company's drug for a rare genetic disorder, have resumed treatments after a supply interruption caused by a virus at its Allston Landing plant last year. [Boston Globe, Jan 12, 10]
the N.I.H. currently prohibits its funds from
being used to support the graduate or the
postdoctoral training of foreign-born science
students, who make up the majority of our talent
pool in many fields. In addition, the
N.I.H.’s conservative review panels make it very
difficult for young scientists to secure funding
for creative, risky basic research, once they
establish their own labs. This affects senior
scientists as well. [David Anderson,
letter to the New York Times, Jan 13]
IBM researchers received 4,914 U.S. patents in 2009, more than any other company for the 17th straight year. .. about 50 percent more than in 2004 [Austin American Statesman, Jan 13, 10] 350th Birthday. The first fellows of the Royal Society, as it is now known, were followers of Sir Francis Bacon, a 17th-century statesman and philosopher who argued that knowledge could be gained by testing ideas through experiments. .. they invented the processes on which modern science rests, including scientific publishing and peer review, and made English the primary language of scientific discourse. [The Economist, Jan 9, 10] a robotic vehicle designed to disarm car and truck bombs ... be used by the State Police Logan bomb squad to fight domestic terrorism ... LandShark Series D robot, manufactured by Black-I Robotics (Tyngsborough, MA; no SBIR) was funded by a congressional earmark sponsored by US Representative Niki Tsongas [Boston Globe, Jan 12, 10] founded in 2005 diagnostic test maker Quidel (San Diego, CA; one SBIR) announced plans to buy the privately held Ohio diagnostics company Diagnostic Hybrids (Athens, OH; $500K SBIR) for about $130 million. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 12, 10] Luna Innovations down 19% [Jan 11, 10] Achillion Pharma down 10% [Jan 11, 10] AMAG Pharma up 20% [Jan 11, 10] besting Wall Street expectations. Argon ST up 12% [Jan 11, 10] Vical said a partner received approval to start marketing a vaccine for melanoma in dogs. [Seattle Times, Jan 12, 10] Genoptix, (Carlsbad, CA; $1M SBIR) laboratory that helps doctors diagnose certain types of cancer.... has grown rapidly. In a little more than a decade since its founding, it has grown to more than 400 employees with $135.3 million in revenue during the first nine months of last year.... [founder Tina] Nova co-founded San Diego-based life science companies Ligand Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA; one SBIR) and Nanogen (San Diego, CA; $1M SBIR) [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 11, 10] Vertex Pharmaceuticals said that it plans to seek regulatory approval of the experimental hepatitis C drug telaprevir as scheduled. [Boston Globe, Jan 12, 10] Ligand Pharmaceuticals said it received a $1 million milestone payment from Merck subsidiary N.V. Organon under a collaboration that ended Dec. 31. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 8, 10] Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA; no SBIR) jumped 30 percent after Chief Executive Rich Pascoe said the company is continuing to work toward approval of an insomnia drug that regulators turned away last month. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 8, 10] We are seeking submission of white papers that bring forward new and innovative science & technology ideas and/or educational programs that could support the future efforts of DoD biometrics and forensics capabilities. Details. Innovalight (Sunnyvale, CA; $900K SBIR in Texas) which sells silicon ink-based high efficiency solar cell materials and technology, said it raised $18 million in new capital. ... the fourth round of funding was led by EDB Investments of Singapore. [Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, Jan 7, 10] TVA Medical (Austin, TX, founded 2008) has raised $2.6 million to continue developing minimally invasive therapies for renal disease. [Lori Hawkins, Austin American Statesman, Jan 10, 10] Detroit Incubator. At five years old and covering a city block, the [Wayne State U] incubator, known as TechTown, describes itself as an “entrepreneurial school” that provides space for emerging businesses to grow. It houses 150 start-ups in areas like education, the creative arts and environmental sciences. ... “This is a city that is used to making things,” said Randal Charlton, TechTown’s executive director. [Susan Saulny, New York Times, Jan 10] Feed gazelles. The biotech industry raised a record $55.8 billion in 2009 despite hesitant stock and venture capital markets, as drug-company partnerships fed the cash-burning startups that develop new therapies. .. a jump of 85% over 2008, according to Steve Burrill, whose San Francisco firm Burrill & Co. is both an industry investor and analyst. ... $37 billion in financial partnerships through which large drug companies license technologies or experimental remedies from biotech startups, ... [CEO] of Sangamo BioSciences said he hopes to use partnerships to fund the costly marathon of developing a biomedical breakthrough while retaining enough control to preserve his company's big league potential. [Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan 10, 10] The SBIR advocates want to choke this flow by refusing SBIR funds to companies that have larger VCs investing at the nursery stage to mature the infant technology to the stage where big pharma would be willing to take over. But if SBIR is to be a launch platform for future market companies, it has to get beyond bland and repetitive handouts to life-style firms doing incremental R&D for government agencies. Feed gazelles, not SBIR mills. Both the agencies and the economy will be better off in the long run. The investment arms of large Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers have created an investment network in Silicon Valley operating under the radar that pumps money into a variety of chip, software and services companies to gain the latest technology. As a result, some Asian manufacturers have proved more willing than entrenched Silicon Valley venture capitalists to back some risky endeavors. [Ashlee Vance, New York Times, Jan 10] And what are the SBIR advocates doing about the competitive rise of Asian capital in US innovation? Practically nothing, pretending that any SBIR is better than no SBIR while making no constructive suggestions about how it could be structured to target real entrepreneurs. Here’s e-mail from Bill Gross, who runs eSolar, a promising California solar-thermal start-up: On Saturday, in Beijing, said Gross, he announced “the biggest solar-thermal deal ever. It’s a 2 gigawatt, $5 billion deal to build plants in China using our California-based technology. China is being even more aggressive than the U.S. We applied for a [U.S. Department of Energy] loan for a 92 megawatt project in New Mexico, and in less time than it took them to do stage 1 of the application review, China signs, approves, and is ready to begin construction this year on a 20 times bigger project!” [Tom Friedman, New York Times, Jan 10] Genius and Opportunist? a passionate book that raises important moral questions ... focuses on the social and political context in Germany in order to illuminate the choices von Braun made. .. Biddle argues that German rocketry was a form of technological Romanticism with strong cultural connections to right-wing politics. The United States, like the Soviet Union, built on what Germany had done. Did it inherit more than the technology? [David Holloway reviewing Biddle's Dark Side of the Moon, New York Times, Jan 10] Cytori Therapeutics (San Diego, CA; one SBIR) said yesterday that it received approval to start marketing a product that prepares a patient’s fat tissue for reinjection into the body for cosmetic procedures. [Thomas Kupper, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 9, 10] Luna Innovations zoomed 72% [Jan 8, 10] Superconductor Tech up 12% [Jan 8, 10] Immuniomedics up 24% [Jan 8, 10] Konarka Technologies raised $23.8 million in a Series G round of funding as well as a warrant sale, according to regulatory filings. [Mass High Tech, Jan 8, 10] ZymoGenetics said its stock offering of 14 million shares was priced at $6 per share, ... its net proceeds will be approximately $79 million [Seattle Times, Jan 9, 10] EyeGate Pharmaceuticals (Waltham, MA; no SBIR) has secured $22.6 million in a Series D venture financing. Current Paris-based investors Ventech and Innoven Partners, and Icking, Germany-based Medicis Capital participated in the round. They were joined by two new investors, Paris-based Natixis Private Equity and Emerging Capital, of Washington D.C. ... to continue developing the company’s drug target for dry eye syndrome, which affects more than a million men and women in the United States. [Julie Donnelly, Mass High Tech, Jan 8, 10] proprietary technology platform is based on over 10-years of development at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami and has been tested extensively in both preclinical and human studies in Europe. [company website] Therapeutics startup Acetylon Pharmaceuticals (Boston, MA; no SBIR) has pulled in $2 million in funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $9.25 million. [Mass High Tech, Jan 8, 10] ... formed in late 2008 to commercialize promising pharmaceutical technology emerging from collaborative research at Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Acetylon is focused on development and commercialization of next generation, selective, small-molecule Histone Deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors with enhanced therapeutic efficacy and tolerability versus current alternatives. [mattcenter.mediaroom.com] Harvest Automation (Groton, MA; no SBIR) raised a $4 millon tranche of a Series A round of funding, according to a company official. ... founded by ex-iRobot Corp. employees .. developing robots for materials handling, though it’s still stealthy about specific uses markets [Mass High Tech, Jan 8, 10] Small molecule pharmaceutical developer Lycera (no SBIR), formerly based in Ann Arbor, Mich., has moved its headquarters to Cambridge ... develops drugs to treat autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Founded in 2006, the company maintains a research and development facility in Michigan. In April, Lycera raised $36 million in a Series A round [Mass High Tech, Jan 7, 10] a spin-out of the University of Michigan ... benefiting from the State of Michigan’s commitment to strengthening the presence of emerging life science companies in the region. [company website, 2006] II-VI made an unsolicited proposal to buy Middlefield, Conn.-based Zygo (Middlefield, CT; one SBIR) according to a release from Zygo. ... Earlier this week, II-VI, which makes specialty optics, closed a deal to acquire the Chinese optics firm Photop Technologies and issued updated guidance for its year-end figures that could see the company break $300 million in profits. [Pittsburgh Business Times, Jan 7, 10] II-IV had just under $3M SBIR starting in 1984 with 112 employees and ending in 1992 with 220 employees. It now has 1900 employees, revenue of $270M, and a market cap of $930M. Salient Surgical Technologies (Portsmouth, NH; no SBIR, founded as TissueLink in 1999) has landed $15 million in new funding, according to federal documents. The company makes devices to control bleeding during surgeries. [Mass High Tech, Jan 7, 10] Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, CA; no SBIR) jumped 30% after CEO Pascoe said the company is continuing to work toward approval of an insomnia drug [Silenor® (doxepin)] that regulators turned away last month [San Diego Union Tribune, Jan 8, 10] PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals (Durham, NC; no SBIR) raised $25 million in a series B round of financing, the company announced ... developing therapies based on its proprietary technology with proteins that can be used to enhance the delivery of therapeutic drugs. [Triangle Business Journal, Jan 7, 10] In the Archives
helping small high-tech companies get from idea to marketPrepared by Carl Nelson Consulting Inc, carl@carl-nelson.com; http://www.carl-nelson.com 209.33.215.155 |