Health Care : Innovation + Job News

Synthetic tracheas, developed, designed and “grown” by Columbus-based Nanofiber Solutions, were recently successfully transplanted into two patients in Russia.

Nanofiber Solutions does research to advance tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. “We develop three-dimensional manmade scaffolds to create synthetic human organs,” explains Jed Johnson, Ph.D., chief technology officer.

Both patients suffered from a narrowing of their laryngotracheal junctions due to auto accidents. “We seeded the scaffolds with bone marrow from each of the patients,” Dr. Johnson explained. “The resulting synthetic tracheas matched the dimensions of each patient’s natural larynx and trachea.”

According to Dr. Johnson, the highly experimental procedure was conducted by an international team of surgeons. Both patients were able to speak and breathe normally immediately after the surgery, he noted, and since the cells used were from each patient, there has been no rejection problem.

“We use very fine synthetic polymer fibers that are 500 nanometers in diameter for our scaffolds,” Dr. Johnson explains ”That’s 100 times smaller than a human hair.  So far, we have designed and developed scaffolds for tracheas, blood vessels, intestines and skin.”

Additional trachea transplant surgeries are scheduled in both Sweden and the United States within the next few months.

The Ohio Third Frontier Commission recently awarded Case Western Reserve University’s National Center for Regenerative Medicine $2.4 million to support its process and manufacturing platform for cell therapy.  Nanofiber Solutions is among eight collaborators working with Case Western Reserve University on this project. 

Source: Jed Johnson
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Case Western Reserve University is expanding their regenerative medicine research thanks to $2.4 million in funding awarded from the Ohio Third Frontier Commission. Case Western’s National Center for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM) will match funds along with a variety of collaborators, including Ohio State, Nanofiber Solutions and BioOhio to provide $4.8 million for the university’s “OH-Alive Innovator Platform: A Process and Manufacturing Platform for Cell Therapy” project.
 
The goals, says NCRM Marketing and Operations Manager Michael Gilkey, are twofold: first, to transform medical therapy through the use of cells rather than drugs to heal tissues and organs; second, to create the commercial and academic infrastructure in Ohio to establish a self-sufficient industry of biotechnology and support services that prove attractive to cell-therapy institutions across the U.S.
 
If successful, taxpayers and private companies in the industry stand to benefit. “[This project] plays a significant role in building the biotechnology infrastructure in Ohio,” explains Gilkey, reiterating that lives will be directly impacted by this research. “New cell therapies will be accelerated into clinical trials and market approval, so patients will get access to effective, cutting-edge therapies sooner.”
 
This project will save in public health costs. “Many diseases and injuries have no regenerative or curative therapy, so costs to U.S. tax payers is often high,” says Gilkey. “For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the cost of diabetes to be $174 billion in 2007.” Functional cell therapy could cure the disease early on and eliminate the possibility of developing complications associated with diabetes, saving billions of dollars every year.
 
The project’s finish date is slated three years from the start of the grant in late October or early November 2012. Gilkey says the platform will result in a new startup company that will commercialize the platform’s base technology. “We hope to have a long legacy of successful spinout companies from OH-Alive whose manufacturing technology is based from work by this innovative platform.”


Source: Michael Gilkey
Writer: Joe Baur

In the same week Kent State University was awarded $3 million for their nanoscale engineering project, Ohio State also received $3 million in the first Ohio Third Frontier Innovation Platform program.

The university’s “Next Generation Multi-Modal Molecular Imaging Technology Platform” project aims to advance, develop and validate new imaging modality [a technique used to create images of the human body] into a sustainable and effective medical imaging device that can be cost-effective.

"The goal is to make this an effective, safe and globally viable imaging technology that will benefit patients in the early discovery and characterization of diseases," explains Dr. Michael Knopp, Director of Ohio Imaging Research and Innovation Network. He adds that the group also wants to "catalyze collaboration in technology commercialization, innovation and product development between Ohio’s colleges and universities and Ohio-based industry.”
 
In collaboration with Philips Healthcare and Cardinal Health, Knopp and his team will take the fundamental technology they’ve already developed and bring it to its “full global market potential” by refining it.
 
“The benefit to Ohio will predominantly be in creating an additional commercial product line that is manufactured, developed and serviced in Ohio, by Ohio companies,” he says. “This will also create opportunities for scientific discoveries, improved health care and Ohioans' access to state-of-the-art capabilities."
 
 
Source: Dr. Michael Knopp
Writer: Joe Baur

Cincinnati-based startup ViableSynergy, a health IT commercialization firm, recently joined a new federal initiative aimed at liberating massive amounts of government-stored healthcare data to create new products and services designed to improve healthcare delivery.

The newly-formed Health Data Consortium, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is an effort to get data housed in various government programs like Medicaid or the Department of Veteran's Affairs into the hands of health innovators. The data, scrubbed of personally identifying information, could be used to create more effective healthcare services and help providers make better care decisions.

"In Medicaid services, you can look at claims data like the distribution of race and the types of claims," explains Sunnie Southern, founder and CEO of ViableSynergy. "You could look at that information across a map and visualize it.

"You could see if more African-Americans have heart attacks in a certain area, or more Caucasians have back surgeries, and make a decision based on that. If there is a high concentration of Asians who have heart attacks in an area, maybe you could put a clinic in that place. You could help reduce health disparities."

As an affiliate of the Health Data Consortium, ViableSynergy will work to communicate the needs of the region to the consortium.

"What does the community need, in the broad sense? What tools and resources do we in the real-world need -- NKU, business incubators or UC -- to liberate these massive data sets that are released? We'll be working as a conduit to answer those questions," Southern says.

Other members of the Consortium include California Health Care Foundation, Consumer Reports, Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Gallup/Healthways.

"(Health and Human Service CTO) Todd Parks, whose brainchild was the open government initiative, really wants to use health data to spur innovation and entrepreneurship," Southern says.

By Feoshia Henderson
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After 22 years as a surgeon at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Wayne Poll, M.D., turned in his surgical scrubs to become an inventor and entrepreneur. 

The former urologist, who did mostly laparoscopic surgeries, wanted to tackle an equipment problem that he – and his fellow surgeons – repeatedly encountered with laparoscopes.

“Hospitals pay millions of dollars for high-definition video systems, but surgeons don’t get the clear image they need,” he explains. “Fat, blood and water particles settle on the lens. Surgeons have to pull the laparoscope out of the patient and manually clean the lens about ten times every hour.”

Poll knew there had to be a better way, and he set out to create it. He established Minimally Invasive Devices, Inc. in 2007 with two employees. “For ten years, I tried going to companies with my ideas,” he recalls. He was constantly frustrated. Things started to happen when he won a business plan competition sponsored by Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.

He subsequently received help from TechColumbus, a technology business incubator serving a 15-county area in Central Ohio. Dr. Poll raised $200,000 in start-up capital and also received $2.4 million in angel funds, a portion of which came from funds supported by the Ohio Third Frontier program.

His invention – FloShield – received FDA approval, and about 600 of the devices were sold. The FloShield has air flowing around the end of the scope to blow away debris and provide a clear image of the surgical site. Surgeries can be performed more safely and in less time, he notes, which benefits patients, surgeons and hospitals.

Dr. Poll subsequently created FloShield PLUS.  “It uses the same invisible air curtain to protect the lens from floating debris, but it also has a saline solution that flushes fat off the lens.”

Approximately 30 facilities are using FloShield PLUS, which is manufactured and assembled in Franklin, Ohio. The company has 14 employees.


Source:  Wayne Poll
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

CellBank Technologies offers a way for surgery patients to plan for future surgeries. The startup company allows patients undergoing knee and hip replacement surgeries to store their own stem cells for possible future procedures. CellBank recently received $25,000 from the Innovation Fund.
 
“We offer a way to harvest and store stem cells without requiring a second surgical procedure,” explains Rachel Uram, CellBank founder and president. “There are one million hip or knee replacement surgeries each year, and surgeons go in and throw out a lot of stem cell-rich tissue. In 2005, five percent of replacement patients had a second surgery that required a bone graft.”
 
Using a patient’s own stem cells in a grafting procedure is “the gold standard in grafting,” says Uram. “Ten years ago they would go into the hip and harvest the tissue and use it. There were more patient complications and it was more painful.”
 
CellBank offers a better solution. “We collect specific tissues, process and store them so the patient doesn’t need a second procedure in situations like bone graft surgeries,” says Uram.
 
The family-run business has three founders, and they have brought on four part-time consultants. They are in the process of raising $1.5 million in seed money to complete testing. The Innovation Fund money will help bring CellBank closer to accepting customers.
 
“When we’re up and running we expect to have 15 to 16 employees,” says Uram. “Everybody loves the idea.”

 
Source: Rachel Uram
Writer: Karin Connelly

The statistics for obesity in the United States are staggering.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is common, serious and costly -- more than one-third of adults (35.7 percent) and approximately 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese. Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and certain types of cancer.

Matthew During, Ph.D., founder of Obgenex, is well aware of these sobering statistics.  The professor and full-time researcher at The Ohio State University is working to develop an effective treatment for obesity.

“When investigating environmental manipulation to control cancer, we discovered that so-called enriched environments reduced body fat and made animals resistant to obesity," During explains. "We then discovered the molecular pathways in the brain that made these animals obesity resistant.”

That led to developing the Obgenex treatment. “Our product will be the first biological and neurosurgical therapy for obesity,” he notes. “We essentially reset that part of the brain that regulates appetite and metabolism.”

Obgenex recently received a grant of $100,000 from Ohio Third Frontier to conduct a proof-of-concept study. “The study will take six to 12 months and will demonstrate efficacy and safety, which means effective weight loss with no adverse events,” During says. He is using a specific type of mice in the study. “They have an identical mutation that is found in the subgroup of human subjects who we plan to enroll in our Phase I clinical trial.”

The successful completion of the study is necessary for FDA approval to move forward on clinical trials with humans and will be used to lure investors to fund larger scale trials.  The technology will be licensed from The Ohio State University.

 
Source:  Matthew During
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

Life Core Technologies received a $250,000 investment from JumpStart for its Excel disposable cerebral cooling system, a device that reduces chances of death in a medical emergency.

“Excel has a cooling element that cools the brain 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius very quickly after cardiac arrest, stroke, or traumatic brain injury,” explains Life Core CEO Mike Burke. “The cooling allows the brain to use less oxygen and prevent oxygen depletion and swelling.”
 
The technology was developed by cardiothoracic surgeon Aqeel Sandhu in the late 1990s. “He discovered though his work with animals that cooling the brain can reduce the metabolic rate and several hours later they came back,” explains Burke. “In 2010, the American Heart Association came up with guidelines stating the cooling as soon as possible after cardiac arrest increases the chances of survivability and retained mental capacity."
 
The JumpStart investment will allow Life Core to conduct additional scientific studies. “We are working with a number of organizations to do additional studies,” says Burke. “We are proving the effectiveness.”
 
Burke is proud that the product is manufactured by a local company and assembled by Patriot Packaging, which employs veterans.
 
Life Core currently has five employees. “We will be expecting to grow as we attain commercialization,” says Burke. “We expect to grow internally with two people and also grow externally through distributors in Northeast Ohio.”

 
Source: Mike Burke
Writer: Karin Connelly

Tom Barratt owns a company that helps early-stage entrepreneurs to gain access to capital, expertise and high-level contacts, so it's no surprise that in 2006, his expertise was essential to creating LaunchTown, an annual "best idea" competition in Northeast Ohio.

Barratt was inspired by the efforts of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as well as a business professor at John Carroll University who wanted to create something for his students, The first year involved students from John Carroll and then grew to include universities and colleges across Northeast Ohio.
 
Barratt  says that the mission of LaunchTown is to give back to young people by “creating opportunities for students with great ideas to launch their businesses here and not take their talent and creativity to another part of the country after graduation.” The event is supported by the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.
 
Through Barratt’s contacts, he’s been able to gain the support of the North Coast Angel Fund, Akron’s ARCHAngel Network, JumpStart and other organizations.
 
Businessweek has recognized winners from 2010 (LifeServe Innovations) and 2009 (CitizenGroove) by naming them among the top 25 young companies created by individuals who are under 25 years of age. LaunchTown winners have also beaten teams from Harvard and Yale in national competitions.
 
Each year since 2007, finalists have brought their best ideas in science, engineering and the biomedical fields to compete for a $10,000 first prize and additional advisory services that are valued at $20,000.
 
This year’s winner, announced at an event in mid April, is University of Akron’s “Telkesis,” a four-student team who created a unique spinal implant that insures greater safety, flexibility and efficiency for patients who need spinal stabilization.


Source: Tom Barratt
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Getting face time with the right decision-makers is priority # 1 for any would-be entrepreneur. A terrific idea for a much-needed product may never become reality if it can’t presented to the right people.

Unfortunately, getting face time with the right decision makers doesn’t come easily for entrepreneurs. Fortunately, a one-year-old program in Columbus called First Customer is helping to change that for Central Ohio entrepreneurs. 

First Customer is a joint initiative of Tech Columbus, whose mission is to accelerate the growth of Central Ohio's innovation economy, and Columbus 2020, an economic development organization.  The new organization is currently focusing its efforts on helping qualified entrepreneurs get access to decision makers at established medical device and software businesses.

Such access comes through a steering committee of eight chief information officers from a wide range of industries and fields, such as real estate, utilities, city government, restaurants, hospitals, insurance and fashion.

“To qualify, the entrepreneur must have a clear concept, a written business plan, a team in place and a previous funding source,” explains Parker MacDonell, who is facilitating First Customer. “The individual must also have completed a beta or clinical test and be ready to commercialize the product or service.”

According to MacDonnell, First Customer has had some 35 startups begin the vetting process since the program launched. “Three have gotten business so far, and there are another four or five that will over time,” he notes.

The idea for First Customer came from Columbus laparoscopic surgeon Dr. Wayne Poll. Dr. Poll invented a medical device to help doctors maintain clear sight during a laparoscopic procedure. While his device is now a success, Dr. Poll discovered that hospitals can be difficult to navigate when it comes to new products.

He hoped to see an organization created to help entrepreneurs get access to decision makers. First Customer is the result of his farsighted idea.
 
Source:  Parker MacDonell
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

A new health IT startup accelerator is taking applications for a 12-week business development program that includes $20,000 in startup funds.

The Innov8 For Health Startup accelerator is an outgrowth of Cincinnati's Innov8 For Health initiative aimed at creating jobs, attracting and retaining talent and improving health outcomes through innovation.

"This goes back to the Innov8 for health theme. We want to identify people who have ideas and support and incentivize them down the path of innovation," says initiative founder Sunnie Southern, also founder of ViableSynergy.

The accelerator will take applications until April 30. It's open to any early-stage startups grounded in health IT. Companies outside of Cincinnati must move to the city during the program. It starts June 11 with eight companies.

"The focus is on providing better health care at a lower cost. The range of solutions can be everything from making it easier to select high-quality healthcare providers to making doctor and patient interaction more efficient," Southern says.

Each company selected will receive $20,000; in return, the accelerator will own six percent of the company. Startups will also work with mentors and tackle business development aspects including sales and marketing, branding, technology and operations and navigating government regulations.

Innov8 For Health partners include GE Aviation, C-Cap, Queen City Angels and the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

The Greater Cincinnati area is particularly suited for healthcare IT innovation, because many health providers here are further along in adopting paperless records and sharing secure, electronic patient information, Southern says.

"We have one of the most mature health information exchanges in the country, Health Bridge. It's really a cornerstone of what makes Cincinnati different; we have this deep expertise in sharing and exchanging data," she says.

By Feoshia Henderson
Follow Feoshia on Twitter

Peter Greco and his cofounders, Rush Bartlett and Arthur Chlebowski, have just moved their startup company, LyoGo, to Columbus from Indiana.

LyoGo, which was one of the winners of last year’s 10xelerator program at the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University, has created a drug delivery system that makes it possible for patients to give themselves their own injectable medications. This technology cuts out trips to a physician’s office and thereby shrinks healthcare costs..

LyoGo's technology accommodates drugs that remain unstable in solution form and must either be refrigerated or lyophilized (freeze-dried) to be stored. The existing process for such drugs leaves room for error in the mixing and injection process. LyoGo streamlines and simplifies the process, leading to greater ease and safety in the self-medication process. The company name LyoGo was derived from a shortened version of the phrase, “Lyophilized products to Go."

Greco says that a major draw of Columbus is the Battelle Memorial Institute, the world’s largest, independent R&D organization. “Battelle will provide services to refine the LyoGo device,” which was made possible through a million-dollar investment from an investor who was present at the 2011 10X accelerator program, at which LyoGo was one of the ten funded teams.

Greco and his team are excited about the possibility of eventually seeing their device on the market. Greco says “LyoGo is gathering test data which the pharmaceutical companies can use to assess the compatibility of our device with their drugs. We expect to be working soon with a pharmaceutical company to pair their drug with our device so that it may improve patients’ lives.”


Source: Peter Greco
Writer: Catherine Podojil

Linkage Ventures and CincyTech have formed a unique strategic partnership to create and co-invest in startup companies whose technologies can help people as they age.

Cincinnati-based CincyTech is a public-private seed-stage investor that has invested since 2007 in 35 startup companies in IT and bioscience. Linkage Ventures is a newly created venture arm of Linkage, a Mason-based nonprofit organization whose members are senior living providers throughout the US. Linkage has hired investment banker and former technology company executive John Hopper as managing director of Linkage Ventures.

CincyTech and Linkage are partnering in order to identify, evaluate and invest in early-stage technologies that startups can take to market to benefit the aging population either directly or through care-giving organizations.

“This partnership is about promoting whole-person wellness and providing solutions that help people age successfully wherever they chose to do it,” says Scott Collins, president and CEO of Linkage Ventures.

The deal is unique in that it closely aligns the sources of “deal flow” – entrepreneurs with aging-related technology – with sources of capital that can help them grow and go to market. Linkage has 600 member communities in 39 states who are frequently approached about concepts and products that can help their 134,000 residents and 16,000 employees. With that deal flow and funds available through Linkage Ventures and CincyTech, the path for great solutions becomes easier to navigate.

Linkage also provides a rare opportunity to identify the needs of people as they age. “Our communities have built and earned a trust with this population that allows us to talk directly to them about their needs and desires,” Collins says.

This reach and relationship-building provides the ability to conduct truly transparent market research, says Mike Venerable, CincyTech’s managing director of digital, software and health tech.

“We can quickly validate the economics of a product or idea through their population,” he says.

Adds Collins: “It’s not just the investment. We’ve got the domain expertise internally, and we can do quick beta testing that marries well with the CincyTech network and expertise.”

By Sarah Blazak for CincyTech

There's a reason why Ohio Supercomputer Center's new $4.1 million,  HP Intel Xeon, processor based system has been dubbed the Oakley Cluster. Like the legendary Ohio-born sharpshooter and social advocate Annie Oakley, it's fast as hell, doesn't miss a shot and is improving the lives of Ohioans.

Just ask Ashok Krishnamurthy, Executive Director of the OSC, a facility that is funded by the Ohio Board of Regents and has been in existence since 1987. "We have more than 2,000 academic users across the state, and they're discovering new materials and developing advanced energy applications," he says. "To be competitive, we must provide the highest performance system, and this represents a new level of capability."

OSC's new supercomputer can achieve 88 teraflops, which is tech speak for 88 trillion calculations per second. Yes, in case you're wondering, that's lightning fast.

OSC's new system will help to achieve its mission of assisting academic and business users. Large companies such as Proctor and Gamble and Rolls Royce use OSC as a "second level system when they have needs beyond what their systems can support," says Krishnamurthy. OSC helps small and midsize companies develop and test prototypes virtually rather than investing in actual models, while academics use the system to complete their cutting-edge research.

"We give them access to software and expertise," says Krishnamurthy. "Once they understand the value of what this can do, it changes how they do business."

As one example, Krishnamurthy cites an Ohio company that is developing an LED projector small enough to fit inside a phone. How do they convince various manufacturers that their device can handle the projector's heat without testing every single one? That's where OSC's computer modeling comes in.

"You can simulate how the heat is dissipated," he says. "It's an easy, low-cost way to show potential customers how your design can be incorporated into their products."

OSC has also helped to develop courses for students at community colleges and four-year colleges and universities, as well as professionals who are seeking continuing education. "OSC is in a fairly unique position," says Krishnamurthy. "It is the most consistently state-funded center of its kind in the country."


Source: Ashok Krishnamurthy
Writer: Lee Chilcote