Cleveland : Innovation + Job News

Tremco has built a successful business by providing solutions to clients looking for more efficient buildings. Now it can point to one of its own buildings as a showcase of sustainability.

The Cleveland-based company will open its newly renovated headquarters to the public on June 17 to demonstrate a myriad of green building technologies, many of which come from its own product lines or those of sister companies.

"We've been in our headquarters building for 20 some years," explains Randy Korach, president of the RPM Building Solutions Group -- Tremco's parent company. "The building was built for single tenant in 1969 or 1970, and like many buildings of that era, it was built with a different level of technology, and many of the components were beyond their useful life. Though we were providing these products and service solutions for our clients, we weren't eating the dog food, so to speak."

Last October, Tremco began a $5-million renovation to incorporate more energy efficient roofing, fa�ade, windows and building controls, Korach says. Today, the building is a model of sustainability and is working toward LEED Gold certification.

"There are lots of extraordinary features and components," Korach says. "A truly high- performance and integrated fa�ade, new modern building controls, and fantastic sustainable and green elements, including four different roofing systems."

One of those roofing systems is a vegetative roof with 14,000 plantings and several climate zones. While not part of the building, the company also installed a 1.8 kilowatt-rated wind turbine and solar arrays on its parking canopy. For employees who decide to buy electric cars, Tremco has supplied three charging stations.

"We're going to consume about 84 percent less gas and realize a 43 percent electricity reduction. The renewables will lead significantly to that. As far as total electricity consumption we expect maybe about 12 percent can be provided by our solar and wind energy that's being co-generated here on site."

Those who attend the company's open house -- and visitors or employees any time -- will be able to learn more about the green components of the renovated building.

"We've made it a learning environment, so we've got interpretive slides throughout the property so our neighbors and employees can very quickly and easily see what features are incorporated and what they're doing and much interactive information," Korach explains.

Source: Randy Korach, Tremco
Writer: Gene Monteith

Multiple sclerosis results when axons -- an extension of brain cells -- lose an essential coating called myelin, which allows neurons to communicate with each other and other parts of the body. While there are drugs available to slow the progression of the disease -- which eventually leaves a person unable to move � there is nothing on the market that can reverse the disease by restoring cells that produce the myelin.

If a Cleveland biomedical company has its way, there soon will be. Renovo Neural, a spinoff of the Cleveland Clinic, is currently helping pharmaceutical companies test new MS drugs by providing exclusive and innovative assays that analyze the potency of promising new drugs to reverse the MS process.

The company was formed in 2008 after the Cleveland Clinic received a $3-million Ohio Third Frontier grant to commercialize Renovo Neural's innovative assays. The technology is based on discoveries by Renovo Founder Bruce Trapp, chairman of the Clinic's Department of Neurosciences, and Wendy Macklin, former staff member at the Clinic's Department of Neurosciences and now professor and chair of cell and developmental biology at the University of Colorado. Trapp is now the company's chief science officer and heads its Scientific Advisory Board.

"We have two existing parts of the company," explains Satish Medicetty, Renovo's president. "In the service part of the company, we have very highly specialized assays to test new drugs for multiple sclerosis. This is the part of the company which is receiving a lot of interest in the industry right now because those are the kind of assays that are exclusively provided by our company."

The other part of the business -- the drug development arm -- is currently taking a back seat to the services side.

"We do have some intellectual property on the drug development side, so we are either looking for some licensing opportunities or partnering opportunities, or perhaps in the future if we get more funding from the state we will pursue that on a separate level as well," Medicetty says.

Renovo has just completed its first contract with a major client in tests designed to evaluate the process of generating new myelin in an animal model. 

"The client was very happy with the study and they came back to us to exend the study," Medicetty says.  Medicetty says the animail model -- which looks at MS-like brain lesions in animals -- is unique to Renovo.

The company has grown to seven full-time and two part-time employees from its initial two. Medicetty says because of interest shown by additional pharmaceutical companies, he expects that number to grow. 

Source: Statish Medicetty, Renovo Neural
Writer: Gene Monteith

As much as modern medicine understands about movement disorders, there's still so much science has yet to unravel about diseases that rob the body of control of over its movement, like Huntington's Disease and Parkinson's Disease.

Great Lakes NeuroTech, a new Cleveland-based spinoff from Cleveland Medical Devices Inc. (CMDI), is hoping to help change that with products that will help researchers unlock the remaining mysteries of the diseases and maybe, someday, help point the way to a cure.

The company, still based at Cleveland Medical's Euclid Avenue campus, was formed with a mandate to market and manufacture the parent company's already burgeoning clinical motor assessment and therapy systems, while focusing on the research and development of the next generation of systems.

"The way Cleveland Medical was set up, there were three divisions -- one for sleep disorder monitoring systems, one for movement disorders and another for research," says Maureen Phillips, sales and marketing manager for NeuroTech. "There were so many disciplines, it was hard for us to concentrate on any one. Being spun off allows us to focus on the work being done on movement disorders, and make an impact there."

The new company's first target is Parkinson's Disease, the degenerative disorder of the central nervous systems that results in uncontrollable tremors and, in extreme cases, tremors so prevalent its victims are unable to move at all. Already, NeuroTech products such as KinetiSense, Kinesia and Kinesia HomeView are in use at leading national research centers and clinics, helping researchers and doctors monitor signals sent from the brain to the body, and the body's reaction to those signals.

NeuroTech products, including portable and wireless monitors, allows doctors to monitor patients both in clinical settings and at home, 24 hours a day.

"They can give doctors the total picture of what patients experience on a day-to-day basis," says Phillips, adding that it also helps current treatments. "Using that information, we're not only learning more about the disease, we're able to change medications, change dosage or change when current patients take medications, depending on how their body reacts to different treatments. The ultimate goal is better and more accurate information, which will allow us to improve the quality of life, even though they're living with this disease."

Source: Maureen Phillips, Sales and Marketing Manager
Writer: Dave Malaska

For 26 years, Nanofilm has been creating formulas for cleaning products and optical coatings in Valley View. Similarly, SDG Inc. in the Cleveland Clinic's Innovation Center has spent the last 16 years developing nanotechnologies in the medical and healthcare fields.

Until recently, the two were unaware of the each other's existence. Then, at a nanotechnologies networking meeting run by Polymer Ohio, Nanofilm's president and CEO Scott Rickert and SDG co-founder and senior vice president Robert Geho crossed paths. The meeting was the beginning of partnership in which each company brings their talents to the table to develop new products.

In early May Nanofilm and SDG Inc. signed a comprehensive joint development and licensing agreement to develop and commercialize nano-formulas that combine the two companies' technologies. Among the planned projects is development of technology to control the release and toxicity of bio-active agents at the nano-scale. Potential applications include longer lasting anti-bacterial surface treatments.

"I'm very excited about this," says Rickert. "Up until this point we have not had any way to do anything unique in the medicine and healthcare markets. We both have experience in the technology, but didn't know the other one's areas. This will allow us to take polymer films and make bioactive products that make our lives better and safer."

Rickert sees huge growth potential in the partnership. "It's going to be huge," he says. "Every time we come out with a new product announcement I see us hiring 20 more people." Rickert says they hope to announce their first new product development sometime this year.

Source: Scott Rickert
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story originally appeared in hiVelocity's sister publication, Fresh Water Cleveland

IT Martini was created three years ago when the opportunities for IT professionals to connect in central Ohio were few and far between, says John Bishop.

Today, thanks to Bishop and co-founder Aladin Gohar, IT Martini -- a social and professional gathering for the tech-oriented -- not only has helped build a more robust network around the Columbus area, but has caught on in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Indianapolis, with more cities on the way.

"If you go back to 2008, it was a different kind of environment for professionals and for technology professionals beyond that," Bishop says. "And what I noticed in conjunction with Aladin Gohar was that there weren't a lot of opportunities for technology professionals to meet each other and engage one another as an industry."

That summer, Bishop and Gohar held the very first IT Martini. Two hundred people showed up to hear a speaker, socialize and connect. This month, IT Martini is celebrating its third year with a May 26 event expected to draw 1,000.

The format for an IT Martini event is straightforward, Bishop says.

"We try to stay as interactive as possible," he explains. "So we put on panel discussions and we tend to have panel discussions run concurrently with the social aspect of the event in a separate, segregated space. That way, people who want to be social can participate in the social aspect of the event, and if they want to participate in a little bit more of a discussion, presentation, industry-best-practice type of activity we have that for our attendees as well."

As IT Martini began to catch on locally, a sponsor in 2009 asked that an event be held in Cincinnati, Bishop says.

"And then last year we started to do not just Columbus and Cincinnati, but Cleveland and Indianapolis."

An IT Martini in Nashville is in the works, and there also seems to be interest in West Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin, Bishop says.

Source: John Bishop, IT Martini
Writer: Gene Monteith

Cleveland's Sharie Renee is passionate about unused magazines, annual reports and brochures.  The founder and CEO of Cosmic Bobbins uses them to do something positive for people, the planet and profits.

Renee gets old publications from companies and organizations. "I then 'upcycle' the paper by getting it transformed into one-of-a-kind accessories with parts of the organization's logo and design appearing on them," she explains.

The transformation is done for Cosmic Bobbins by residents of a small, low-income town in Mexico, using an indigenous technique of folding and weaving decorative paper. Renee first learned of the traditional craft while visiting Mexico.

She has had the residents create pencil holders for University Circle from its old annual reports and make scissors cases for Paul Mitchell hair stylists using the company's old brochures. The Cleveland Botanical Gardens sells Cosmic Bobbins' purses -- made from the organization's old newsletters -- in its gift shop.

"We're giving organizations back their paper waste remade into something beautiful and desirable," Renee explains.

Cosmic Bobbins isn't just about upcycling paper into colorful accessories, however.

"We're giving back to the world one magazine at a time," she explains.

Renee does so by paying the Mexican artisans a fair wage for their work. She also employs up to 38 clients of United Cerebral Palsy of Cleveland, who sort the paper by color or size in a sheltered work environment. By providing fair wages to both groups, she's helping relieve poverty and create jobs.

Renee has a clear vision for Cosmic Bobbins. "We're committed to creating a global community with a focus on sustainability and social good, where people are meaningfully employed and there's a spirit of hope," she explains.

Source: Sharie Renee, Cosmic Bobbins
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Thanks to an innovative effort by a firm spun off from the Cleveland Clinic in 2009, hospitals can now track their best practices, determine their most efficient use of research dollars and program funding, and monitor best patient outcomes by tapping into trend-spotting software that has long been used by other industries.

Population Explorer, a product of Cleveland-based Explorys Inc., uses data-crunching software similar to the kind of technology used by large, fast search engines such as Yahoo! and Googlem thereby giving healthcare systems a new perspective on the mountains of information accumulated on patient care.

"In almost every other industry, this kind of technology has been in use for a long time," explains Explorys President and Chief Technology Officer Charlie Lougheed. "It allows them to see trends and correlations that you can use to make a difference in patient's lives. It lets hospitals become more efficient, offer better care and in most cases, do it less expensively."

Explorys doesn't examine individual patient information, instead looking at the outcomes of care and how hospitals arrived at decisions that resulted in the best outcomes for patients. The result is a roadmap to improved, efficient care.

Born from a smaller prototype that the Cleveland Clinic started building five years ago, Population Explorer took off when the hospital brought in two "big data" veterans in early 2009. Lougheed and Stephen McHale (now Explorys' CEO) had founded Everstream Inc., a data analytics company focused on media trends, in 1999, later selling it to a Georgia company for $15 million. When the duo took over the new project, they immediately started expanding the scope of the clinic's software. Months later, Explorys was spun off to commercialize the system. Since then, its growth has been explosive.

It now mines trend information from not only the Cleveland Clinic, but University Hospitals and MetroHealth hospitals in Cleveland, Akron-based Summa Health System, as well as MedStar Health in Columbia, Md. Other national health care providers are due to come online soon as well, reports Lougheed.

Others have taken notice, too. Gartner Inc., a leading information technology research and advisory company based in Connecticut, recently named Explorys as one of five of its "Cool Vendors in Life Sciences" winners for 2011.

After starting with 10 employees and a modest budget, Explorys has already expanded to 25 employees. Lougheed expects the company to double its staff again by the end of the year, with further growth planned for next year.

Source: Charlie Lougheed, President & CTO
Writer: Dave Malaska

JumpStart Ventures has added yet another company to its investment portfolio, committing $250,000 to SPR Therapeutics of Beachwood.

The investment represents JumpStart Ventures' 76th investment in its 54th company.

SPR, a year-old spinoff of NDI Medical, LLC, is commercializing its proprietary neurostimulation therapy for pain relief, JumpStart says. The company's first product, the SMARTPATCH System, will serve the pain market using its Intramuscular Nerve Therapy. The external stimulator delivers an electrical signal to the SMARTPATCH electrode to stimulate the target nerve within the muscle, thereby exercising the muscle to treat the pain.

In the announcement, Michael Lang, the JumpStart Venture Partner working with the company, noted that "Neurostimulation is a growing market being driven primarily by technology advancements that enable improved clinical outcomes. This field is of considerable interest to medical device manufacturers and, since the leadership of SPR Therapeutics is well-versed in neurostimulation, the company is positioned to move quickly down the commercialization path."

SPR Therapeutics has received federal Small Business Innovation Research grants and a $100,000 grant from the Innovation Fund of Lorain County Community College.

Source: JumpStart Ventures

Dimple Dough may seem like a funny name for a company, but it really does make sense, according to Shawn Barrieau, Dimple Dough's CEO.

"In 2004, I moved to Cleveland from Seattle with my wife and kids for a new job. With the holidays approaching, we had to think about sending gifts and pictures of the kids to relatives," he recalls. "I thought about how cool it would be if you could put a picture on a gift card. I did some research and ended up forming a company in 2006 to offer software that enables retailers to put photos on gift cards to personalize the experience. In effect, we're putting smiles on cash. Hence the name Dimple Dough."

Dimple Dough has grown considerably since then -- from two to 22 employees.

Working with processing, printing and fulfillment, and ecommerce partners, Dimple Dough now offers a comprehensive cloud-computing card management platform to help retailers and banks manage every aspect of their gift card programs.

"We offer creative features and platforms, including customization, ecommerce, smart phones, corporate cards, eGifts and social media," Barrieau explains.

Clients include American Express, Nike and AMC Entertainment.

Dimple Dough recently tackled the brave new world of virtual gift cards.

"We have a top-tier retail customer that just moved its rewards program from plastic gift cards to electronic gift cards," Barrieau says. "We did all the strategy and implementation for them and will soon be delivering more than six million eGifts to their data base. By helping them go from plastic to virtual gift cards, we're saving them millions of dollars in printing and postage costs. It's also good for the environment."

Dimple Dough receives Ohio Technology Investment Tax Credit assistance through the Ohio Third Frontier initiative, Barrieau notes.

"That has definitely helped us grow."

Source: Shawn Barrieau, Dimple Dough
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Thermalin Diabetes, a JumpStart Ventures portfolio company, recently closed $2.85 million in Series A investments, paving the way to the further development of short, medium and long lasting insulin analogs by Case Western Reserve Medical School Dr. Michael A. Weiss.

The announcement includes a second $250,000 investment from JumpStart, and exceeds Thermalin's original target by $1 million.

"Having this round closed is great," says Thermalin CEO Rick Berenson. "I'm very excited about the progress. I'm looking forward to being able to report further progress."

The company is now moving immediately into Series B, in which the hope is to raise another $8 million.

"With that we should be able to get through [the first] phases of studies."

The patents on existing insulins on the market are due to expire in 2013 and 2014, so the interest in Thermalin's developments is huge worldwide. Weiss' work centers around developing insulins that are more stable and effective on a more timely basis.

Thermalin has developed about 40 different analogs. The funding will allow the company to continue testing to determine which analogs to commercialize.

Insulin is a $14 billion a year market -- the largest volume drug market in the world. Insulin sales are expected to double in the U.S., triple in Europe and increase 12-fold elsewhere in the world as the disease reaches epidemic levels.

Thermalin employs six full time scientists at the Cleveland Clinic's Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center. The investment allows for additional key hires, including a senior scientist.

Source: Rick Berenson, Termalin
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland.

A Juventas Therapeutics spin-off is working to simplify therapies needed for wound repair, helping the patient and bringing down the cost of the treatment.

SironRX Therapeutics develops therapies under license from Juventas and The Cleveland Clinic. Its main product, clinically tested JVS-100, encodes Stromal cell-Derived Factor-1 (SDF-1), which is produced by the body in response to tissue injury. SDF-1 activates natural repair processes that prevent cell death and recruit stem cells to the damaged organ.

"In the process of developing the product for Juventas, we discovered the same product had an application in dermal healing . . . We spun that off into a different company in 2010," says Rahu Aras, CEO of Siron RX.

"There are a lot of companies out there, developing drugs based on extracting your cells and re-delivering them to damaged tissue. This process of isolating and re-delivering those cells is quite expensive and logistically challenging. What we're doing is delivering a drug to the organ that's damaged that gets your body to send its own stem cells so we no longer have to go through that extraction and re-delivery process," says Aras. FDA approval for the new treatment may not come for another four or five years.

SironRX will initiate a Phase II clinical trial this year to evaluate the efficacy and safety of JVS-100 in accelerating wound repair and preventing scarring. Clinical studies have shown that the drug is well tolerated and safe. The company is raising funds for a Phase II clinical trial in 2012.

The company has already raised $10.5 million in venture capital and grant funding, according to Aras. SironRX has only 1.5 FTEs  and Juventas 5, but both companies together could soon employ as many as 15 to 20, Aras says.

Juventas Therapeutics was formed in 2007.

Source: Rahu Aras; CEO, SironRX
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Access Mobility, Inc., has its roots in healthcare IT consulting. But today, the Cleveland-based firm is a strong player in mHealth (mobile health), having spun off from Exential.com in 2008 to focus its energy on mHealth software.

"We basically combined our healthcare technology experience with the mobile environment and came up with CellepathicRx," explains CEO Greg Muffler.

CellepathicRX software is a flexible, customizable platform designed to serve the mobile healthcare market. The company credits 10 years of technology, knowledge, and regulatory-compliance experience for its ability to enhance most healthcare-related mobile tasks.

"We focus on using mobile communication to get healthy and stay healthy. We start with mobilizing patient resources . . . We work with a lot of retail pharmacy chains for the mobilization of their brands and to provide more ubiquitous patient access, not only online but in the gap between online and in-store, which is important to a retail environment," says Muffler.

"Another focus is medication adherence, sometimes called medication compliance, using a mobile platform, for what we call 'improved patient outcomes.' To make sure people are taking their medications as prescribed," he explains.

"Lastly, we follow up with mobile health and wellness applications for continued, direct, and very intimate communication with patients via our secure, HIPAA-compliant mobile platform."

Muffler, a Cleveland native, declined to disclose figures but he is optimistic about the company's future. AMI has 11 full-time employees and four to six part-time or contract resources, and Muffler thinks a doubling of staff within the next 12 months is not out of the question. Initial funding was raised internally, with help from some angel investors. Now, the company is considering a second round, to include venture capital.

The startup reached what Muffler describes as "light revenue" in 2009, while 2010 was much more significant. "We will continue to report projections that are very aggressive over the next several years. The market opportunities are in line with the fast-growth software firms," says the ebullient CEO.

Source: Greg Muffler; CEO, Access Mobility Inc.
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

When it comes to sustainability, we are all lifelong students. Cleveland's higher education institutions are not excluded from this learning process. In fact, area colleges and universities spent a year reflecting upon on-campus sustainability initiatives and ways to improve current practices.

The Collegiate Sustainable Practices Consortium (CSPC) brought together six local colleges and universities to talk about best practices regarding energy, water, food, building and other areas of sustainability. Led by David Kruger, director of Baldwin-Wallace's Institute for Sustainable Business Practice (ISBP), the group included B-W, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Community College, John Carroll and Oberlin.

Kruger noted in a summary of the consortium that "with its highly industrialized, manufacturing base, [our region] carries a long legacy of sustainability-related challenges: slowly declining employment in several economic sectors; a large environmental and carbon footprint from our manufacturing base; continued population decline in our urban core and in our region at large; and an aging infrastructure."

A recently released report shows what some local higher learning institutions have implemented regarding sustainability:

Baldwin Wallace's Ernthausen Residence Hall became the first residence hall in Ohio to have a geothermal heating and cooling system. . B-W has gone so far in its green initiatives to remove light bulbs from vending machine to conserve energy.

Cleveland State University has been investing in efficient lighting, solar power, mechanical upgrades and recycling programs. The school has been promoting student involvement in its sustainability efforts.

Cuyahoga Community College has six commissioned projects aiming aim for LEED Silver Certification. Tri-C has also developed its own customized green building standards for new construction and renovation projects.


Sources: B-W, CSU, Tri-C, Institute for Sustainable Business Practice
Writer: Diane DiPiero

This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland.

While the verdict is still out on how powerful the Medical Mart and Convention Center will be to Cleveland's economic growth, the construction that's currently going on is definitely bringing jobs to the area. The Medical Mart reports that more than 200 construction workers are currently on site.

The numbers are impressive for small business enterprise (SBE) companies, with more than 25 SBE subcontractors hired for specific jobs thus far.

Job creation for the construction project is being coordinated by MMPI, the Medical Mart management company; Cuyahoga County; Minority Business Solutions; and Turner Construction Company. Together, these entities have hosted five SBE certification and outreach events, the last of which resulted in 175 interview opportunities for SBE contractors.

There is much work to be done for these employees. Demolition of various buildings is ongoing, with more than 100 trucks hauling away concrete to be recycled each day.


Source: Medical Mart and Convention Center
Writer: Diane DiPiero

This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland.