Innovation + Job News

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.

SuGanit Systems wants to be among the first to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass � the inedible parts of plants � and the Ohio Third Frontier Commission is betting it will be successful.

In February, SuGanit, founded in Reston Va., but now growing its presence at the University of Toledo's Center for Technological Entrepreneurship and Innovation, received a $2-million Ohio Third Frontier grant to build a pilot plant using a new pretreatment process that breaks down the tougher parts of plants so that they can be converted into sugars, fermented, and made into ethanol.

It's the third Third Frontier Grant that the company has received or shared since its founding in 2006, says President and Founder Praveen Paripati.

The partnership with the University of Toledo, which developed an early technology for pre-treating cellulosic biomass, has led to continued development of the process and a collaboration that should result in a pilot plant by the end of the year, Paripati says.

Cellulosic materials, unlike edible products, typically take a long time to convert into sugars using existing methods, Paripati says.

"If we don't do some preprocessing it can take a few weeks to a few months to break the biomass down," he says. "So the trick is to find a mechanism by which you can break it down. And break it down without producing a lot of bad side effects. The innovation comes in an ionic liquid pretreatment technology that makes it possible for enzymes to break down biomass into sugars efficiently, within 24 to 36 hours."

The pilot plant is intended to scale up the technology to process about half a ton to one ton of biomass a day. 

"The next scale would probably be 40 to 50 tons a day, a scale which would end up producing a million gallons of cellulosic ethanol or other products. And a larger commercial scale would be anywhere from 500 tons to 2,500 tons a day."

The company currently has four employees at UT and at its Toledo laboratory. Additionally, Paripati says Third Frontier and U.S. Department of Energy grants have enabled SuGanit to fund three students workers. SuGanit plans plans to add eight more as it develops the pilot unit and reaches full operation.

Source: Praveen Paripati, SuGanit Systems
Writer: Gene Monteith

Seeing her dog's paws discolored and irritated from harsh lawn chemicals, Chris Scott realized that she wanted to make changes to her own cleaning products business to make it friendly to the environment.

Res-Q Cleaning Solutions developed GOBioBased cleaning products in 2002 using plant-based solutions that contain no petrochemicals. Over the last year sales have jumped more than 100 percent as awareness of green products has increased.

"Our sales were strong even during the downturn," says Scott, who has owned the Reynoldsburg-based business with her husband, Steve, since 2000. "But this year it's really snowballed. We will exceed our sales goals."

The company makes cleaning solutions for industry, households, and zoos. They also manufacture all-natural shampoo for small pets and livestock. All packaging is recyclable as well.

In addition to selling their GOBioBased brand, Res-Q also manufactures cleaning solutions for independent labels.

GOBioBased is distributed across the U.S., says Scott, and she is investigating requests from European businesses to sell the brand as well.

Scott says she expects continued growth over the next several years as awareness of green products rises further and government regulations prompt more businesses and consumers to purchase green cleaning products.

Scott plans to add at least two more employees to her current five by the end of the year.

Source: Chris Scott, Res-Q Cleaning Solutions
Writer: Val Prevish

Composite Technical Services is among innovative U.S. companies that aspire to create an environmental and economically sustainable future.

The company, founded by CEO Enrico Ferri in 2009, is built on technology licensed from partner Cimtech labs, SEPMA and VEM in Italy. It develops bio-based resins, flame retardants, composite gas cylinders and filament winding machines for commercial use.

CTS has seven employees and one intern. They are hiring two new employees and a second summer intern, Talentino said. The company is located in the National Composite Center in Kettering, near Dayton. In 2010, the company received a $25,000 tech grant from the Dayton Development Coalition.

Composite Technical Service's first product line is ExaPhen, a resin that comes from cashew nut shells that can be used in a wide range of applications, from plastics, epoxy hardeners to adhesives and coatings. A second product line, Nanofire, is a line of liquid flame retardant additives that is targeting at the PVC industry.

"We extract the liquid from a cashew nut shell and that liquid gets purified and synthesized into a number of different products. It is like petroleum in that it has the high performance and variety to be used in a number of industries but with the added benefit that Mother Nature already engineered, the phenolic structure that makes the product inherently flame resistant. We are continually looking for other sources," said company Business Development Director Debra Talentino.

The company, which is heavy into research in development, is seeking out other natural sources that industry creates by-products or "waste" to raw materials that can be turned into products for everyday use.

Source: Debra Talentino, Composite Technical Services
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

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

Businesses looking for information or project partners now have an easier way to connect with industry experts, federal labs, universities, Ohio's Edison and Wright centers and even other for-profit companies.

OMNI, managed as a joint venture between the Ohio Department of Development and the Board of Regents and spearheaded by Cincinnati-based TechSolve -- the Ohio Edison Center responsible for assisting manufacturers primarily in the aerospace and defense industries -- was rolled out in a "soft launch" to limited users late last month. When fully populated, the portal will serve as a clearinghouse for a vast array of information and resources as well as a space for collaborative work.

TechSolve President Gary Conley says the key to the service is an advanced search function and collaborative capabilities built by Ohio Third Frontier recipient Zakta, of Cincinnati.

OMNI will make it possible for a user to find help he or she may need more quickly by tapping a data base of Ohio experts and resource links. A company with a particular problem can post a "challenge," which will automatically be sent to OMNI participants who have expertise in that area, Conley says.

"Or, if I have a particular technology, I can search the challenges and send an e-mail and say 'I can help,'" he adds.

The parties can then connect privately outside of OMNI -- or work together real-time using shared space on OMNI � to tackle the challenge. Each OMNI participant also has the option to keep his or her space private, organizing into folders information found on the web or passed along by others, or to open up those articles, images or videos to share with everyone.

Conley says OMNI solves a problem that has existed for a long time -- how businesses can find resources to help with technological obstacles or other issues. Hard copy directories were static and stayed on shelves, Conley says. OMNI will be flexible and agile, with an ability to add resources constantly.

At last count, OMNI had 1,200 individuals and nearly 500 companies in the data base. The portal currently is populated with aerospace and advanced materials resources, with biotech to come soon.

Source: Gary Conley, TechSolve
Writer: Gene Monteith

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

The University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio was founded five years ago by Ohio's 15 research universities. The goal: to advance the cause of clean energy in Ohio in a collaborative way.

Since then, the Toledo-based organization has worked with a wide array of academic, government and business entities to further business-university partnerships in advanced energy and to encourage dialog on energy issues facing the state.

"The whole idea behind the alliance was to facilitate collaboration among the universities in their efforts to do research," says Jane Harf the UCEA's director. "And it's not the ivory tower research -- it's development and deployment. We really want to see these technologies make it to the marketplace -- commercialization and technology transfer."

While the organization started with the 15 research institutions, it has expanded its membership over the years to several community colleges and organizations like the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio. Institutions such as the NASA Glenn Research Center and EWI (formerly the Edison Welding Institute) -- are also members.

Harf says that as part of its work, UCEA has engaged in a number of projects related to clean energy advancement, including a study on business and university collaborations, focus groups with businesses to assess the challenges and opportunities for clean energy and programs supporting the state's nine university-based Advanced Energy Centers of Excellence.

On April 26 and 27, the organization will hold it's fifth annual conference in Columbus, where it will showcase the work being done at those centers and work being done by students -- and at which it will offer breakout sessions on  a variety of topics including energy projects under way in Ohio, intellectual property issues surrounding university-business partnerships, policy issues around advanced and alternative energy and the opportunities and challenges of doing business in Ohio.

Also at the conference, the UCEA will roll out a new database that Harf says will provide advanced energy companies and others with current information about individual researchers and the work they do, programs of study available to those who are seeking degrees in alternative energy and on facilities and equipment available to businesses to further their technology development.

To register, go here. 

Source: Jane Harf, UCEA
Writer: Gene Monteith

AssureRx, a Mason-based personalized medicine company, has just closed on an $11 million Series B round of financing.

The company, founded in 2006, was formed to license and commercialize personalized medicine technology research from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Mayo Clinic.

Claremont Creek Ventures and Sequoia Capital led the round, which included existing investors Cincinnati Children's, Mayo Clinic and CincyTech. A new investor has joined as well, Allos Ventures.

AssureRx is developing next-generation medicines, recently bringing to market its first product GeneSightRx, a test that measures and analyzes genetic variants in psychiatric medicine - in other words, how individuals respond to the drugs they get. The test, administered through a cheek swab will help doctors determine the appropriate drug and dosage for each patient's individual needs, which could lessen side effects in patients.

The test is based on pharmacogenetics, or the study of how genetic makeup influences a person's reaction to drug treatments.

This financing will allow the AssureRx to expand sales and marketing for GeneSightRx, and fund other product development work.

"Our goal is to build the leading medical informatics company providing pharmacogenetic and other treatment decision support products to help physicians individualize the treatment of patients with neuropsychiatric and other disorders," said James S. Burns, president and CEO of AssureRx.

Sequoia Capital, is a Menlo Park, Calif., start-up venture capital fund for seed stage, early stage and growth companies. Claremont Creek Ventures is based in Oakland and invests in healthcare/ IT, energy conservation and security markets.

"AssureRx has enormous potential as an early leader in the transformation of neuropsychiatric treatment toward individualized patient treatment. GeneSightRx and future treatment decision support products hold the promise for faster, better patient outcomes and less costly care for psychiatric conditions such as clinical depression, anxiety disorder, and schizophrenia."

Writer: Feoshia Henderson
Source: CincyTech

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

This story originally appeared in Soapbox.

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.

TechTol Imaging is building a business based on a faster, less expensive way to create 360-degree rotational and 3D imaging.

TechTol claims a patent-pending system which it calls "the first -- and only -- in the world that instantly captures and then creates 3D rotational images for use with any computer-based system."

TechTol's imaging studio and software can turn out 360-degree or 3D images in a matter of minutes or seconds, says Phil Cox, managing member and founder. More typical industry methods can take hours at best and weeks at worst because of time needed to edit, he says.

Rather than taking a series of photos as an object spins on a turntable -- the industry's standard aproach -- TechTol captures simultaneous images of a stationary object from multiple angles. Because all the photos are from the same moment in time, changes in expression or movement of limbs do not affect the quality of the final image -- thus vastly reducing the need for editing.

The company, which is headquartered on the Owens Community College's Toledo campus, recently rolled out 3DTOAD.com, an online image database designed to provide educational institutions with a vast number of 3D images when schools don't have the real thing on hand.

"Think of an example like a skull rotating that the instructor has control over in the classroom and can turn the skull around and point to different attributes and can teach from that," Cox says. "It also can be viewed by the student at home, so there's a variety of applications there that can be employed, and you can generate CDs that can be compatible with the course syllabus."

While education is the company's main focus -- it has been providing Owens with images and says it is nearing an agreement with Bowling Green State University -- it also provides 360-degree rotational and 3D web imaging for consumer products.

The company was formed in 2008 and was assisted early on by a $50,000 Ignite Grant from the Regional Growth Partnership's Rocket Ventures . The company, an LLC, has 13 partners who all contribute to the operations in some way, Cox says.

Sources: Phil Cox, managing member and Zak Ward, VP of visual operations, TechTol
Writer: Gene Monteith

Approaching retirement after 36 years at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Leonard Kohn decided he wasn't quite finished with his goal to improve life for people suffering from tough-to-treat diseases.

That's why he founded Interthyr Corporation in Athens to develop tests and medicines for endocrine diseases, autoimmune-inflammatory diseases and cancer. The company got its start with a $900,000 Ohio Technology Action Fund grant. He moved from Maryland to Athens, Ohio to set up a research laboratory at Ohio University. There he continued the work he'd started at a nonprofit research foundation he helped start in Maryland.

"I had reached the possibility of retirement at NIH, and wanted to do something useful in terms of development of a product for translational medicine," or turning research into something that could make a difference in patient's lives, Kohn said. "I decided the Edison Biotechnology Institute and the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine afforded me an opportunity to pursue those goals."

Interthyr Corporation specializes in research related to dozens of endocrine and autoimmune-inflammatory diseases including diabetes, Graves' Disease, rheumatoid arthritis, as well as cancer. The company is also conducting research in certain equine diseases.

In 2008, the nine-person company moved to the Ohio University Innovation Center.

Interthyr Corporation, along with Athens-based Diagnostic Hybrids, recently developed Thyretian, which detects the underlying cause of hyperthyroidism directly linked to Graves' disease.

"(Thyretian) is a gold standard, and is commercialized within the United States and now moving abroad," Kohn said.

The company's work has drawn a $2.6 million grant to develop a new drug that could treat pancreatic cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Source: Leonard Kohn, Interthyr Corp.
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

The Ohio Ambassador Program is getting a facelift and a new home as the initiative expands to better tell Ohio's story.

Initiated about a year and a half ago by the Ohio Department of Development, the Ambassador Program signed some 1,600 volunteer ambassadors to carry the message about what it's like to live and work in Ohio.

Now, the effort is moving under the auspices of the Ohio Business Development Coalition to take advantage of new communication channels.

"We are going to be implementing social media into the Ambassador Program, which I think is going to make a huge difference in terms of engaging people and in the potential impact of the program," says Ed Burghard, OBDC's executive director.

OBDC is a nonprofit organization funded with public and private sources that designs and implements marketing efforts for the State of Ohio. Burghard says the Ambassador Program is an important way to highlight what OBDC likes to call "the state of perfect balance" -- an environment in which residents have time to pursue both professional and personal aspirations. He believes that by creating a dialog across social media channels, that message will build over time and extend to wider audiences.

"We want to create a community where the folks who want to tell the story can come and be given the tools to make it easy to tell that story," he says. Ambassadors will be kept up to date on relevant developments within the state, information they can pass along to others, and easy-to-execute assignments, Burghard says.

"We have no expectations that somebody is going to decide to drop $20 million to build a facility in our state because they read somebody's Tweet," he says.

But, as more people search online for information about states and communities, "you would hope some of the (information) we are most interested in having people read would come to the forefront."

Source: Ed Burghard, Ohio Business Development Coalition
Writer: Gene Monteith

The company that pioneered proton beam therapy is bringing its technology to Ohio.

Loma Linda, Calif.-based Optivus Proton Therapy, Inc., along with partner American Cancer Treatment System, soon will begin building a $170-million research and treatment campus in near Dayton that could initially put 2,000 Ohioans to work.

Late last year, the State of Ohio announced a seven-year, $600,000 tax credit for the project. It will be the first Ohio facility for Optivus and one of only eight such treatment centers in the nation, says Jenny Camper, Optivus' Columbus-based spokeswoman.

Camper says the company plans first to build a research/development and production center on the 23-acre campus near the new Austin Interchange in Miami Township. That facility will be followed by a treatment center at which patients will receive radiation therapy using the proton beam technology, she says. Construction, which has not yet begun, will be completed over the next two to three years, she says.

Proton beam therapy was pioneered by Dr. James Slater, whose son Jon heads the company. Because it can pinpoint cancer cells more accurately than some other forms of radiation therapy, it is sometimes used to fight tumors in sensitive areas like the spinal cord, eyes and the brain. While the company says the campus will primarily serve those in the Cincinnati-Dayton corridor, it will draw patients from outlying regions as well.

Optivus estimates that 2,000 temporary jobs will be created between now and 2013, with 800 jobs from 2014 forward.

The day after Optivus and its partners announced the project last May, Kettering Medical Center announced a collaboration with American Shared Hospital Services to build an $80-million proton beam center near Dayton.  While some have questioned the need for two such centers where none existed before, Camper says Optivus believes the two centers will, in the long run, complement one another.

Source: Jenny Camper, Optivus Proton Therapy
Writer: Gene Monteith

Every hour of every day more information than one company could ever process zooms across the world at the speed of light. That's why Balanced Insight Corp., in Cincinnati, has developed new software that aims to more quickly make sense out of the information most important to businesses.

Balanced Insight's Consensus is designed to help IT departments do more with less. The software more quickly and efficiently allows IT professionals to pull out needed data, arrange it and distribute it, using fewer resources reducing costs in the process.

"The world is becoming a big hunk of data," says Tom Hammergren, founder and CEO of Balanced Insight. "Users want to get better access to this data, and inside of IT departments there are people tapped for repurposing this data. But there are not enough people to fulfill the demand of what users want. Our whole focus is to take that process and really do it better, faster and cheaper."

The product also speeds the data delivery process by speeding collaboration and automating IT data gathering processes.

"When you get into business intelligence there are 10 tech platforms that have to be brought together, and you have to have 10 humans that understand each platform. We move that demand on understanding those technologies out of humans and into the software. We take manual, laborious processes and automate them." Hammergren said.

Consensus is used in a wide variety of industries including financial services, transportation, healthcare, manufacturing and utilities. Clients have included Subway, Nike and Fifth Third bank.

Balanced Insight introduced Consensus in 2008, and is a CincyTech portfolio company. CincyTech has invested $350,000 in it.

Source: Tom Hammergren, founder and CEO of Balanced Insight
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites