cincinnati/southwest ohio : Innovation + Job News

Using proprietary new monomer chemistry, Bioformix, has carved out a based of sustainable products using natural raw materials, such as plant products.

Based in Blue Ash, Bioformix' new class of "benign monomers," resins and polymers could be used in a range of plastics and adhesives.

Unlike other competitive product initiatives that are limited to a single chemical structure or require tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in new technology investment for each product, the Bioformix platform uses existing capital infrastructure and know-how, thus radically reducing the costs to initiate and grow the business, says Adam Malofsky, president and CEO.

Initial markets include high value-added adhesives, coatings and sealants and Bioformix has already initiated several retail partnerships for sale of their products. These adhesives would be aimed at the consumer marketplace for use in ordinary home applications, says Malofsky.

Bioformix was founded by Malofsky, Bernard Malofsky, CTO and chief scientist, and Steve Levin of Acara Global, who now serves on Bioformix's board of directors and was the initial seed investor.

The company has raised $1.05 million in venture capital funding from the Queen City Angels and CincyTech.

Malofsky says he expects to be producing and selling products in the next 24 to 36 months. By the end of 2011 he says he plans to hire eight to 10 employees. In the next five years, he expects to have added 30 to 45 professional jobs in the Greater Cincinnati area, and within 20 years he predicts the company could be producing 10 to 30 million metric tons of product, essentially a multi-billion dollar venture.

Source: Adam Malosfsky, Bioformix
Writer: Val Prevish

Dan Meyer, President and CEO of Comet Solutions, credits incentives from the state of Ohio among reasons the New Mexico-founded company opened its executive offices to Cincinnati, growing in the process.

Comet Solutions uses virtual modeling to test a variety of products for functionality and durability prior to manufacturing. Incorporated in 2001, the company moved its headquarters to Cincinnati suburb Blue Ash after in 2008 after being awarded $1.4 million in incentives from the Innovation Ohio Loan Fund. The company also received Ohio Job Creation Tax Credits valued at more than $400,000.

"We were attracted to the type of incentives Ohio had that would help companies like ours grow," Meyer said. "It really was life saving. The Innovation Ohio Loan Fund allowed us to continue to invest in our product software development and to advance our product."

Comet Solutions' six-person executive team is in Ohio, including the heads of corporate development and customer support. Excluding Meyer, who worked remotely in Ohio for the company prior to receiving incentives, all the executive team members have been hired within the last year or so, and were hired from the Ohio area.

Though the company's original software developers remain in New Mexico, the future of the company's growth is in Ohio. Comet Solution plans on hiring customer support employees and engineers who will work out of the Blue Ash office within the next year, Meyer said.

Comet Solutions works with advanced manufacturing companies with a special emphasis on the aerospace and defense sectors. Though the company's client base is global is scope, Ohio's cluster of advanced manufacturing and aerospace industries made the state an attractive place to relocate, Meyer said.

"There is a lot of talent here and people who know this industry well," he said. "And many of our clients are in the Midwest, just a few hours' drive from Ohio."

Source: Dan Meyer, Comet Solutions
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

On the crowded shelves of supermarkets and department stores, it's not always enough for a product to be great. It also has to look great. Creative, or just plain pretty, packaging can make a beverage, beauty or food product stand out. And an eye-catching packaging can lead to increased sales.

The people at StratusGroup in West Chester, Ohio, have built a vibrant and growing business out of designing premium packaging techniques. The company was built by Cincinnati natives Robert Curran and his son Curtis in 1992. The pair started the business shortly after Robert sold his first to international label conglomerate CCL.

"We explore all that's in the marketplace, and find the most up-to-date technology (clients) could use for packages," says Christopher Corgiat, Marketing Manager for StratusGroup. He said there often is a "gap" of understanding between designers, who create the look of package labels, and converters, who use paper, plastic, dyes and equipment to print them. It's a gap that StratusGroup works to fill.

The company develops and manufactures packaging solutions for clients in the food, beverage, health and beauty and pharma sectors, counting Fris Vodka, Wild Turkey bourbon, Seagrams gin, Hall's, Kroger and TGI Friday's among its clients. It specializes in pressure sensitive labels, paper board packaging and print technology and has evolved along with the fast-changing and highly competitive packaging industry.

The company employs 125, a number that has doubled in the past five years. There are plans to hire more sometime later this year.

Source: Christopher Corgiat, StratusGroup
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Formed on the heels of a Facebook group that grew to almost 20,000 members in less than two weeks, the Secret Cincinnati web portal is nearing official launch, chock full of submissions by "secret agents" about the best aspects of the city.

"The way this came about was kind of a . . . challenge that my business had constantly undergone," says Chris Ostoich, founder of Blackbook, a Cincinnati-based company that connects employees who are relocating to Cincinnati with the resources to make them feel at home. "As an example . . . we had a female Procter & Gamble brand manager that had made a very specific request through our platform, which was she was seeking an African-American OBGYN. That's just tough information to find."

Enter Joe Pantruso, a serial entrepreneur involved in Internet security businesses who gave Ostoich an article describing the explosive growth of a London-based Facebook page focused on the best-kept secrets of that city.

"That morning, probably 15 minutes after Joe gave me that article, I started the Facebook page Secret Cincinnati," Ostoich says.

That was in late February. In the coming days, when membership ballooned, it became evident that the Facebook group would be inadequate as an interactive medium. Ostoich, Pantruso and web developer Sean Biehle put out a call for those who were interested in "building a business over a weekend." More than 100 people applied; 25 were selected. The Secret Cincinnati web site was born.

Currently in beta testing with a tentative launch date of late May or early June, the site already has attracted interest from other cities "and we're trying to work out a licensing strategy right now for that," Biehle says.

Sources: Chris Ostoich, Joe Pantuso and Sean Biehle, Secret Cincinnati
Writer: Gene Monteith

Schools strapped for space and cash, but which have a growing need to provide science students with adequate, up-to-date laboratory equipment, can succeed if they have access to a specialized system that enables resource sharing. That's the theory behind MeasureNet Technology Ltd.'s patented networks.

The key to Measurenet's innovation is the belief that lab hardware and instrumentation don't have to be physically duplicated at each student's work station. The work stations can be networked to a single, centralized, system that allows users to monitor, collect, store, and disseminate laboratory data, as well as share specified laboratory instruments. The energy saving and environmentally friendly design MeasureNet created earned it an Ohio Governor's Award for Excellence in Energy Efficiency in 2002.

The network "makes it possible for students to do a lot of different operations they couldn't do before," says Measurenet's Estel Sprague. Plus, students can access what they need from the network when they are back in their dorms, the library, or elsewhere.

The Cincinnati-based company had its roots in the late 1990s, when Sprague and Robert Voorhees, working at the University of Cincinnati, became part of a team that devised a way to help undergraduate students in chemistry labs use electronic data collection and analysis. With early support coming from UC, the National Science Foundation, and Proctor & Gamble, the project was eventually spun off to become a private company and incubated at the Hamilton County Development Co. in Norwood.

Today, Voorhees and Sprague are Measurenet's president and vice president, respectively.

Customers include vocational and secondary schools throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and even in Saudi Arabia. The company has one fulltime employee, several representatives, and uses co-op students as it continues to grow.

Source: Estel D. Sprague, MeasureNet Technology Ltd.
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

It just got easier for Ohio colleges to collaborate with Procter & Gamble on research projects, thanks to a groundbreaking master agreement between P&G and Ohio's 14 state universities.

The agreement, announced April 22, is expected to lead to more P&G-university partnerships and increased commercialization of new technologies. But it also is seen as a template for agreements between the Ohio university system and other research-driven entities, says Noah Sudow, associate director economic advancement for the Ohio Board of Regents.

"I think our biggest next step is going to create that model that we can market to all business and say 'hey, we'll sign this with you right now,' Sudow says. "The goal is . . . to show how we can utilize the power of the university system to work with businesses."

The agreement, which governs treatment of intellectual property, licensing rights and when researchers can publish their findings, is the first of its kind in Ohio and may be the first in the nation, parties to the agreement say.

The five-year pact eliminates the need to negotiate agreements one-on-one with each university, drastically reducing the time needed up front, "where you could spend months negotiating (the rules) for what turned out to be two to three weeks of work," says P&G's Nick Nikolaides, university liaison for P&G global business development. "Getting rid of that up-front part and putting the focus on the project work really ought to catalyze more strategic collaborations in the long term."

The master agreement is patterned after a 2005 agreement with the University of Cincinnati.  Nikolaides says P&G invested nearly $20 million in university research projects across all business lines between 2006 and 2009, and the agreement should lead to additional investments with an increasing number of universities.

Sources: P&G: Nick Nikolaides, Chris Thoen (director, global open innovation) Rich Eggers (associate director global business development) and Mary Ralles (external relations manager, global business development); Board of Regents: Noah Sudow
 
Writer: Gene Monteith

Most wide-eyed college freshmen, venturing from dorm to classroom to lab to library, think their campus � whatever its location � is a huge, immersive environment.

But at Miami University in Oxford, the Huge Immersive Virtual Environment is, truly, boundless.

The HIVE is a facility where high-tech hardware and software enable researchers to work in a simulated space ("virtual environment"). The computer science and psychology departments collaborate on it.

The National Science Foundation recently gave HIVE's creators, David Waller, associate professor of psychology, and Eric Bachmann, associate professor of computer science and software engineering, $312,672 to upgrade the facility to support multiple users.

For the computer science side, the upgraded HIVE will let researchers develop, evaluate and compare 3D user interfaces, develop algorithms for collision detection and multi-user redirected walking, explore the use of inertial sensors for position tracking in portable virtual environments; and develop tools for collaborative computing environments.

For the behavioral research side, HIVE will help researchers improve understanding of how humans learn and remember large spaces and of the social dynamics of users who cohabit a computer simulation.

Why is a virtual environment better than the real one for such work? Well, as Waller, Bachmann and colleague Andrew C. Beall of the University of California write in a technical paper about HIVE, virtual environments "are not bound by the constraints of the real world, such as three-dimensionality, Euclidean geometry, and adherence to the law of gravity."

Besides the NSF and the university, previous support has come from the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program at the Army Research Office.

Sources: Miami University, National Science Foundation
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

A new Ohio high-tech company aimed at helping osteoporosis patients soon will launch at Cincinnati's life science company incubator  BIOSTART.

OsteoDynamics, a partnership of Integrated BioScience Solutions, and BIOSTART, will build on new technology that two University of Cincinnati professors created to test bone strength.

Professors Amit Bhattacharya and Nelson Watts, who developed the technology based on the concept of "Bone Shock Absorbance," plan to advance a new diagnostic tool testing a patient's bone fracture risk.

In February, OsteoDynamics, which will be managed by Integrated BioScience Solutions, signed an agreement to license Bone Shock Absorbance technology from UC. OsteoDynamics also received $125,000 in seed financing from Southern Ohio Creates Companies. The company will be based at BIOSTART.

"This is a promising technology, developed through a productive partnership between Drs. Watts (M.D.) and Bhattacharya (Ph.D.) that draws on their respective clinical and engineering experience," says Carol Frankenstein, president of BIOSTART. "Their invention has the potential to improve treatment for women who suffer bone loss following menopause. BIOSTART is pleased to play a part in developing OsteoDynamics."

The noninvasive test measures how the energy from a heel strike is absorbed and dissipated. It's a new way of testing that measures bone quality and appears to be a better indicator of fracture risk than traditional tests.

"With that information, we can then provide them with more effective medications and other interventions that have already been proven to reduce fracture risk. Initial clinical data indicates that Bone Shock Absorbance may be the diagnostic technology that can achieve this goal," said Bhattacharya, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health.

Sources: University of Cincinnati, BIOSTART
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Pop quiz: Frogs are good for making (choose one): (A) Handsome princes, (B) Muppets
(C)Biofuel. The answer, according to a University of Cincinnati research team, is (C). Sorry, Kermit.

The Cincinnati team used plant, bacterial, and fungal enzymes to make a special foam � like that made by the semi-tropical Tungara frog to develop tadpoles � to produce sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide. Those sugars can be converted to ethanol.

This procedure may trump plant photosynthesis to create sugars because it uses no soil, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments.

The journal Nano Letters published these findings of UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Carlo Montemagno, Research Assistant Professor David Wendell and student Jacob Todd online last month and plans to use it for a cover story this fall.

Other media attention is starting to steamroll. The research also has been featured on HeatingOil.com, PhysOrg.com and BioFuels Watch.com, to name a few.

Science blogger David Bois, writing on Tonic, called it "a breakthrough."

"The innovation, astonishingly, appears to be even more efficient than nature itself, at least in terms of the amount of solar energy going in compared to the amount of energy contained by the output hydrocarbons. . . . Actual plants are required to expend energy for reproduction and survival. The lab creation doesn't have such requirements, and accordingly can put all of the incoming solar energy work into making hydrocarbons."

Maybe it's easy being green after all.

Source: Wendy Beckman, University of Cincinnati
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

Austin Allison began selling real estate in high school, and by 24, anticipated a technological need in his business that soon could pay big dividends.

Allison, CEO and co-founder of DotLoop, launched a software product that takes the real estate transaction process online. The Blue Ash-based company's namesake software was developed by Allison and tech expert Matt Vorst, another Cincinnati area entrepreneur and another company co-founder.

DotLoop is an online, collaborative transaction environment for brokers, realtors, buyers and sellers. Among its features is utilizing electronic signatures and storing and making easily available documents in a secure space. It's designed to eliminate mounds of paperwork, be user friendly and simple for everyone to use.

"Why hasn't anyone done this yet? I don't know. I'm glad they haven't. My guess is nobody has yet been able to do it right. You can't say the money isn't there," said Allison about the product.

The company was launched in 2008 with four people; today the company employs 20. After a short time in Beta, the company launched the software at the National Association of Realtors Convention in San Diego. Back then, Allison projected $500,000 in revenues for 2010. But this spring he revised those revenues slightly upward -- from $2 million to $5 million.

"We are the iPhone of real estate. The differentiator with DotLoop is our collaborative environment, merging three web commerce disciplines into one service: online forms, transaction management and electronic signatures," Vorst said.

DotLoop has 500 registered agents and contracts with more than 30 brokerage firms.

Source: Austin Allison, CEO and co-founder of DotLoop.com
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Starting this summer you may see them zip past you on the road, glide up to parking meters and idle at the corner stop sign. But one place you never will see certain owners take their Chevrolet Equinox, Saturn Sky or Pontiac Solstice is the gas station.

Three-year-old Amp Electric Vehicles of Blue Ash has begun taking orders for conversion of those cars' platforms from traditional gas to emission-free electric power. The first deliveries are expected this June � ahead of its retail competitors, according to the company.

Amp will demonstrate its converted cars at the New York Auto Show next month.

"In the conversion process we remove all of the combustion engine related components. We then replace (them) with two direct drive electric motors and our battery array. In placing the 100 percent electric drive train, we place it so the weight distribution is within 1 percent of the original combustion engine weight. In that way we are able to maintain the original handling characteristics and safety features," Amp executive J.D. Staley says.

The Equinox � which can be seen in the Amp showroom in suburban Cincinnati � will reach a top speed of 90 miles an hour, and will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in approximately eight seconds, with a charge voltage of either 110V or 220V. It will travel up to 150 miles on a single charge. Cost is about $50,000, after government incentives.

Staley says Amp had a 312 percent increase in employees year over year in 2009. "We are continuing to grow a bit so far this year. As we ramp up to full production we will be in need of additional skilled and unskilled labor."

Source: J.D. Staley, Amp Electric
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

The City of Cincinnati is emerging as a U.S. leader in tackling global climate change through its Green Cincinnati Action Plan, an effort to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions 8 percent by 2012 and 80 percent by 2050.

The plan, which City Council passed in 2008, recently got a major boost with a $500,000 Climate Showcase Community Award from the Environmental Protection Agency. The city's Office of Environmental Quality was awarded the highly competitive grant that will be paid out over three years. In addition, the EPA will highlight the city's efforts � which include 80 specific steps to reduce emissions � as an example for other cities looking for ways to clean up pollution. Currently more than 1,000 U.S. cities have some sort of plan to curb emissions.

"Our Green Cincinnati Action Plan is a collaboration among dedicated citizens, community organizations, and businesses in our region. Our partners all realize that making Cincinnati a 'Green City' is essential to making Cincinnati a successful city," said Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory.

Cincinnati was one of just 20 cities awarded the grant out of a total of 450 applicants. It will allow the city to continue to move forward on its ambitious plan. Recommendations include buying hybrid buses, encouraging car pooling, increased bus use and a regional rail system.

"This funding will provide a tremendous boost to fulfilling the vision and programs in the Green Cincinnati Action Plan" said Larry Falkin, director of the City of Cincinnati's Office of Environmental Quality.

Source: City of Cincinnati
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Cincinnati Children's Hospital has opened a ground breaking $600,000 stem cell facility, in a 650-square-foot space that has room to grow.

The Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility opened in January, and is the first of its kind in Ohio, Indiana or Kentucky. Researchers from Cincinnati Children's and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine are working together, studying the cause � and possible new organ and tissue replacement treatments � of a myriad of diseases.

Known as "induced pluripotent stem cells," these cells come from patients who have a disease. It's an emerging technology and these cells have the theoretical ability to become more than 200 different cell types found in humans.

"This technology is a bit like the internal combustion engine in terms of how it will drive future advances in stem cell biology," explains facility director James Wells. "It allows us to use cells from patients to study what goes wrong at the genetic and cellular level to cause their disease -- whether it's muscular dystrophy, diabetes or any number of degenerative diseases. This technology could allow us to fix genetic defects and use these cells to generate healthy cells and tissues to treat or cure the patient."

Researchers have already developed pancreatic cells that make insulin, retinal cells of the eye, nerve cells of the brain, intestinal cells, and liver cells.

The facility offers training in the generation and use of pluripotent stem cells for scientists to take to their own labs. It also offers cell line maintenance and other of pluripotent stem cell services. The facility is poised to grow along with demand for its services.

"Given the rapidly developing pace of this technology, it's easy to envision a day where pediatric hospitals like Cincinnati Children's will be able to provide services for generating and banking pluripotent stem cells from specific patients for future therapeutic use," Wells said.

Sources: Cincinnati Children's Hospital, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

According to Mark Heiman, president of Tulong, the typical cotton-garment manufacturing process works something like this: A subsistence farmer in a developing nation plants genetically modified cotton seed. While growing, the foliage is showered with a steady diet of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, which have a nasty habit of tainting nearby waterways. Ever thirsty, the plants gulp fresh water that might otherwise be used to grow food. Extensive energy is then expended to harvest, ship, process and prepare the cotton for use in garments.

Now, toss about a fifth of the finished material straight into the trash.

"When patterns are cut and garments are made, about 15 to 20 percent of the actual cotton fabric goes straight into the waste stream," explains Heiman. "We recapture this cutting room waste for use in our Repair The World® brand apparel."

In a mechanical process called garnetting, the recycled cotton fabrics are reduced to fiber state and blended with polyester thread made from post-consumer PET plastic bottles. The finished material is used to make sustainable casual clothing for men and women. Tulong's first products are expected to be available in spring of this year.

Tulong, headquartered in Loveland, currently employs four full-time staffers. As fulfillment orders pick up, additional administrative and sales employees will be added. Heiman also estimates that 25 new jobs will be added to the garment production facilities it uses in South America.

The name Tulong comes from the Filipino word for "help." Heiman says that the company adheres to the "triple bottom line" approach to business. "While we are a for-profit company, a portion of that profit goes back to developing nations in the areas of education, healthcare and microfinance -- the kind of things that help people become self-sufficient. This is the true definition of sustainability."

Source: Mark Heiman, Tulong
Writer: Douglas Trattner

Besse Medical Supply in West Chester has accomplished what many small, family-run startups dream of: becoming part of a Fortune 26 company while holding onto family tradition.

Besse Medical Supply started out as a Cincinnati corner pharmacy in 1948, eventually growing into a business supplying medical products to local physicians. Today, as a division of the  AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group, part of the Fortune 26  AmerisourceBergen Corp., Besse Medical Supply continues that business model on a larger scale.

Besse is one of the nation's leading distributors of vaccines and biologicals, brand name and generic injectables and pharmaceuticals, diagnostic test kits, surgical supplies and more. Customers include physician's offices, specialty groups, clinics, occupational health facilities and health departments.

Besse employs 100 in West Chester, most in customer service, and has a shared distribution center in Louisville, Ky.

Mick Besse, company president and general manager, credits Besse's investment in technology � assuring that products get where they need to go, quickly and safely � and commitment to customers among its reasons for success. Much of the business has gone online, Besse said.

"Our investment in technology has gone to improving service to our customers, to support our vision of being partner to our healthcare providers and manufacturing partners," Besse said.

Source: Mick Besse, Besse Medical Supply
Writer: Feoshia Henderson