Innovation + Job News

Last October, Cleveland's ViewRay unveiled a research radiation therapy system to the medical device community. Now comes word that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted ViewRay clearance for its radiotherapy treatment planning and delivery software, a key element of the radiation therapy system.

This is a critical step toward FDA approval of the system, according to Gregory M. Ayers, M.D. and Ph.D., president and CEO of ViewRay. "It's exciting to see such progress with a product we believe will offer an advancement in radiation therapy," he says.

Combining MRI and radiotherapy delivery, the system provides a continuous MRI during radiation treatment. This helps doctors to see exactly where the radiation is going and to deliver precise treatment.

A recent $20 million Series C financing will help ViewRay in the final stages of development for commercial distribution. For now, the ViewRay system is only used in non-human settings.

A team of physicians and researchers leads the privately held medical device company. ViewRay is currently in growth mode and building its staff in quality assurance, software engineering, clinical science and sales.


Source: Gregory M. Ayers, ViewRay
Writer: Diane DiPiero

This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland.

The flashy businesses may get the most buzz. But sometimes it's the simple, everyday product or service � offered consistently and dependably over decades � that creates the best prospects for long-term growth and success.

Magnum Magnetics, based in Marietta, is one of those businesses. The privately owned company, founded in 1991 manufactures high-quality, flexible magnetic products for a variety of commercial and retail uses.

Among the company's most common customers are commercial printers who create everything from magnetic ads and menu boards to nameplates and refrigerator magnets sold business-to-business or directly to consumers.

"We are the leading manufacturer of flexible magnets in the U.S.," says Joe Stout, company Director of Marketing and product development. "We both manufacture and develop products for the market."

Some of Magnum Magnetics more popular materials are those that can be used in printers. The company sells sheets that can be used in offset, screenprint, flexo, inkjet, and digital printers. The company also sells NatureMag™ Magnets that can be manufactured using up to 85 percent preconsumer recycled materials.

Magnum Magnetics' client base is international and the company has grown over the years to meet demand. The company started out with a 10,000 sq.-foot-facility in Marietta, where the company HQ is still located. Following several expansions, it now operates out of two facilities, with the second one in Caldwell, totaling 160,000 sq. ft.

So what's the secret behind that growth?

"I would say our focus on customer service and quality has led to our growth, and our ability to develop products that solve problems that customers have," Stout says.

Source: Joe Stout, Magnum Magnetics
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

"This is so yummy you ought to sell it" has warmed many a home cook's heart. And for more than 10 years, Ohioans with recipes and dreams have been using the Northwest Ohio Cooperative Kitchen in Bowling Green to launch their businesses.

NOCK was established by the Agricultural Incubator Foundation as a place where regional residents can access a professional-grade facility. A catering kitchen opened first, followed by a cannery in 2005 and blanching/freezing space in 2010. Many jars of barbecue sauce, boxes of chocolates and so on have rolled out of NOCK's doors over the years.

Early "graduates" have been so successful their products were sold at major retailers and at numerous regional markets. Today, 27 entrepreneurs are renting the NOCK resources for production, says manager Paula Ray.

Requirements include a deposit fee, insurance, a business plan and approval of the Agricultural Incubator Foundation board of trustees. Once approved, tenants must sign a lease, participate in an orientation and training program and agree to schedule their time.

The non-profit Foundation was formed by a group of Ohio farmers, people involved in agribusiness, educators and researchers to nurture "the development, advancement and appreciation of agricultural systems in Northwest Ohio that are economically, ecologically and socially sustainable," it states on its website.

Besides NOCK, the Foundation makes available meeting space, organic farmland, greenhouses, and a fish farm. Bowling Green State University, the Ohio State University Extension, and the Toledo-based Center for Innovative Food Technology are among Foundation supporters.

Source: Paula Ray, Agricultural Incubator Foundation/NOCK
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

"If you're told it's impossible to do, we're the right place to come," says Patrick Hood, CEO and president of Dayton-based Cornerstone Research Group.

Started in Hood's basement in 1997, Cornerstone is a research and development organization that takes advanced materials technology from molecule to commercial application -- what Hood calls "a for profit incubator."

Hood says the company, which has as many as 60 projects under way at any one time, bridges the gap between market needs and technology. While the company focuses on advanced materials, its solutions have been applied in virtually every industry segment except for IT and pharmaceuticals he says.

A good example of how Cornerstone works is Spintech Ventures, a Cornerstone spinoff that takes advantage of Cornerstone's patented shape memory polymer technology and innovative tooling to make complex composite parts. The technology was developed at Cornerstone, but the early stage Spintech will give it legs.

Hood says that the typical cost of a complexly shaped carbon composite part is about $1,000 per pound. But the cost of the raw materials is only $25 to $50 per pound. The rest of the cost comes from labor and tooling, he says. Spintech's technology can reduce typical production costs by 85 percent, he says.

Cornerstone recently was one of 44 businesses nationwide that received the U.S. Small Business Administration's Tibbets Award, given to companies and individuals that drive innovation and create jobs through the agency's Small Business Innovation Research program.

In November, the company received the Dayton Business Journal's Business of the Year award in the Community Supporter category for its community involvement.

Over the years, the Cornerstone and Spintech have benefited from awards from the Ohio Third Frontier initiative, Hood says. Together, both companies currently employ about 100.

Source: Patrick Hood, Cornerstone Research Group
Writer: Gene Monteith

Energy Focus Inc. began in California in 1985 as Fiberstars, a fiber optics firm specializing in architectural lighting such as that used to illuminate underwater spaces in spas and swimming pools.

Today, the company is headquartered in Solon, the Fiberstars brand is an Energy Focus division and the parent company is zeroed in on new LED products for both military and commercial applications.

The company moved to Ohio in 2006 because of a well-trained workforce and a bevy of northeast Ohio research and commercial entities related to lighting, says Julia Dolsen, the company's marketing manager.

"Then, in 2007, we changed the corporate name from Fiberstars to Energy Focus," Dolsen says. "And with that, we changed our core focus a little bit away from this architectural lighting division to really concentrate on R&D."

Much of the R&D in recent years has resulted in new lighting solutions for the military, she says. However, "a lot of the product we've developed for the military we've then been taking and commercializing."

That's what's happened with a new lighting fixture the company is developing with the help of a $1-million Ohio Third Frontier award, she says. Energy Focus, in collaboration with Replex Plastics, Ohio State University and Lighting Services, Inc., will use the money to develop a photovoltaic system for exterior building lights. The solar-powered wall pack being developed is designed to reduce the hefty costs that large buildings currently incur to illuminate exterior grounds, she says.

"Most of the wall packs out there use metal halide lamps," she says. "They use between 250 and 400 watts in energy consumption per fixture."

If a building like a Wal-Mart has 50 such fixtures around its outside, those lights could burn as much as 20,000 watts per day -- translating to hefty electric bills.

"So what we're proposing is that, with a solar-powered pack, you would save that money."

Besides Ohio, Energy Focus has offices in California and the U.K. It employs about 70 companywide, with about 30 in Ohio.

Source: Julia Dolsen, Energy Focus
Writer: Gene Monteith

The next time you find yourself getting a little hot under the collar, you might want to consider a cooling system from Akron-based manufacturer Polar Products, Inc.

From hospital operating rooms to the war-torn streets of Afghanistan and Iraq, Polar cooling systems help people perform better in warm environments by lowering body temperature, the company says. Body-cooling vests let surgeons and U.S. troops operate more effectively and in greater comfort. Polar's systems have even protected the sensitive electronics found in unmanned spy submarines while they were moving by ship in tropical climates.

But of the myriad of applications, William Graessle, president and owner, says his company derives the most satisfaction from improving the quality of life for those diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the vast majority of whom develop an intolerance to heat.

"We manufacture a number of body-cooling systems, vests, neck wraps, and other things that allow people with MS to get out and see a Little League Game, go to Disney World, or just go outside with their kids," says Graessle. "It's fun working with people you truly help."

Besides the body-cooling systems, Polar designs and manufactures hot and cold therapy products to relieve pain and discomfort. But the body-cooling systems -- which are also used by police, racecar drivers, and mascots -- are the most exciting part of the business, says Graessle.

Sales have increased an average of 20 percent annually for the last three years, and four jobs were added last year, bringing the number of employees to about 20. The company hopes to add three more positions this year.

Graessle says he was excited when he received an inquiry for body-cooling vests from a Finish general in the field. His excitement diminished somewhat when he learned the whole Finish contingent numbered only 80 troops . . . make that 80 "cool" troops.

Established in 1984, Polar Products, Inc. was acquired by Graessle in 2000.

Source: William Graessle, Polar Products
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Founded in the 1960s as a machine tool distributorship, Pressco Technology Inc. has come a long way.

"In the mid-80s we were contracted by Crown Cork & Seal to develop machine vision for one of their end-making plants. Today, we are a high-speed, online vision- and sensor-based company for high-speed manufacturers in the U.S. and abroad," says Fritz Awig; VP engineering and operations.

Pressco supplies turnkey high-speed vision inspection systems to the food and beverage industry, aluminum extrusion manufacturing, and the postal sorting sector. By continuously investing in new technologies, the Cleveland company is well positioned to provide vision-inspection equipment as well as intelligent process-control products.

"Pressco's main product is a modular platform of electronics and software to which we can attach a variety of sensors, whether they're vision-based, camera-based, with analog or digital sensors that read various information about the manufacture of a product," Awig says. "Our Intellispec [vision platform] system gathers that information, analyzes that information, makes 'accept' and 'reject' decisions, provides process-control information and feeds it into the high-speed plant network for collecting manufacturing and defect data."

To date, the company has shipped more than 5,000 turnkey systems to more than 60 countries. About 60 percent of its production is shipped overseas. The company employs between 140 and 150 people, with 10 jobs to be added this year.

Based on an adaptable, modular design, the platform's central processor can manage up to eight high-speed cameras spread across multiple lanes. Each inspection module is designed to withstand the rugged environment of a manufacturing facility. The lighting and optical components provide maximum performance for the desired inspection, and additional modules can be purchased as inspection needs grow and change.

Family-owned since 1966, Pressco has grown between 10 and 14 percent annually over the last six years. 

"As Don (Corcoran, the company's president) likes to say, 'No matter how good or bad the economy is, people are still going to eat and drink,'" says Awig.

Source: Fritz Awig, Pressco Technology Inc.
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

The enterprising use of social media by two of its students helped serve as a catalyst for Cleveland's Virginia Marti College of Art & Design to become a major player in the social media education scene in Northeast Ohio.

Valerie Mayen attended fashion design classes at the College in 2008. She subsequently created a line of clothing and accessories that she named Yellowcake and began promoting her work on the Internet and with social media. The buzz helped bring her to the attention of the producers of Lifetime TV's "Project Runway," and she was a contestant on the eighth season of the hit show in 2010.

Mike Kubinski received a graphic design degree from VMCAD in 2007. He also started his business -- C.L.E. Clothing Company, promoting positive messages about Cleveland -- online, and used social media to build it.

Both Mayen and Kubinski won Arts Entrepreneur and Innovation Awards from the Council of Smaller Enterprises in 2010.

In October, Michael DeAloia, Cleveland's unofficial "Tech Czar" and one of the founders of the city's Social Media Lab (SML), contacted Geof Pelaia, VMCAD's director of marketing. DeAloia was looking for a new home for the Lab, which had originally been hosted at Cuyahoga Community College.

"Michael wanted to collaborate with us to develop educational social media programming," recalls Pelaia. Aware of the positive results that two of VMCAD's students had achieved through social media, Pelaia felt that partnering with the Lab would be a good fit for the College.

VMCAD began offering weekday evening classes and Saturday seminars as part of its continuing education curriculum. They're taught by DeAloia and an array of social media and marketing professionals in the region.

"We adjust course content to respond to emerging trends, so we're staying on the cutting edge of social media," Pelaia explains. "We're accommodating our students, working professionals and budding entrepreneurs by equipping them with social media knowledge. We feel that the social media education we're doing is actually economic development."

Source: Geof Pelaia, Virginia Marti College of Art & Design and Valerie Mayen, Yellowcake
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Lorain County Community College is on a roll.

Earlier this month, the Elyria institution was picked as one of 10 community colleges to participate in a national business incubation model. And this week, the White House endorsed Innovation Fund America, which LCCC will develop as part of its involvement in the incubation initiative.

The virtual incubator, a pilot funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, was announced as part of President Obama's Startup America Partnership. Startup America is designed to increase the success of entrepreneurs through collaborative initiatives among businesses, institutions of higher learning, private foundations and others.

According to an LCCC news release, the virtual incubator initiative "will be implemented in collaboration with the American Association of Community Colleges and the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship. Eventually it will include other partnerships through a national network of small business incubation centers, like the Great lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE) on the LCCC campus."

GLIDE is a business incubation organization serving a 21-county area of northeast Ohio.

According to the news release, "the virtual incubator network will work to increase the capacity of community colleges to service their startup business community." They will do that by studying and implementing best practice and will "demonstrate ways for established business leaders and emerging small business entrepreneurs to work together to help grow local businesses."

On Tuesday, the White House gave its thumbs up to the launch of Innovation Fund America, which LCCC says is modeled after its own innovation fund. The national innovation fund will be part of the incubator pilot and will help high-tech entrepreneurs across the country access "funding and talent when they need it most," LCCC says.

The Lorain County Community College Innovation Fund is supported by both private and public sources, including the Ohio Third Frontier.

Attempts to reach LCCC officials for additional information were unsuccessful.

Source: Lorain County Community College

Winners of a new entrepreneurial contest will have the opportunity to develop a novel idea or product that embodies the innovative spirit described in President Obama's State of the Union address. Cleveland's recently launched Manufacturing Mart has announced a competition called "The Export Experiment," a new-product competition designed to grow business for American component manufacturers.

To be eligible, a product must be manufacturable in the United States and designed for a niche market in a foreign country. In addition, it must solve a scalable problem and be patent-pending or patented.

The cost to enter the competition is $25, and the deadline is April 30, 2011. See additional details here.

A commercialization grant worth $5,000 will be awarded to the top three winners. The grant can be used for a number of development services outlined by the Manufacturing Mart. One free year of exhibition space at the Manufacturing Mart, a landing page on the mart's website and two press releases are also part of the awards package.

The Manufacturing Mart opened its doors at The Galleria on December 1 of last year. Currently, the mart occupies 3,500 square feet of exhibiting space for manufacturing resources; another 6,000 square feet are scheduled to open later this year. The mart caters to engineers, inventors and business professionals who want to locate innovative manufacturing options in Greater Cleveland.


Source: The Manufacturing Mart
Writer: Diane DiPiero

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This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland

Increasing supplier diversity is something businesses often want to do, but sometimes find difficult to achieve.

Entrepreneur Rod Robinson found that out during his time as chief procurement officer for Cincinnati Bell. He also worked to solve that same problem working with large corporations, when he founded Accel Advisors, a procurement and supplier diversity consultant firm, in 2005.

Today, Robinson, along with diet fitness website founder Chris Downie, has now turned to the web to more efficiently link professional minority and women-owned suppliers to the companies looking for their services and products.

Robinson and Downie, founder of the popular Sparkpeople, have recently launched connXus.com, which aims to link corporate buyers and diverse suppliers quickly and affordably.

"The reason connXus exists is because there really isn't anything out there like this. Rod spent years cultivating strategic resources and procurement programs for Fortune 500 companies, and many records out there are incomplete and fragmented. It's really hard to find good resources," said Sandi Straetker, a spokeswoman for the company.

ConnXus is working to bridge that gap. The site, which launched in December, has posted more than $10 million in bid opportunities. The company estimates they'll post 100 to 150 supplier opportunities, worth $40 to $60 million, by year's end.

The site is designed to offer a wide variety of opportunities for small, medium and large service and product suppliers, Straetker said. Companies join the site as buyer members, and pay a $19.95 a month membership fee. ConnXus is currently offering a 60 day fee-free trial offer for new members.

Minority-owned and women-owned businesses can create a free profile. There are more than 100 service and product categories available from legal, accounting and other professional services to transportation and manufacturing.

To help assure supplier quality, customers can add performance ratings to a supplier's profile through the site's propriety rating system. The better the supplier's rating, the higher it will rank in a corporate buyer's search. ConnXus recently was awarded a $40,000 CincyTech Imagining Grant to help it develop the technology.

"With connXus.com, companies can easily integrate supplier diversity into their normal sourcing process, reduce costs and increase quality," Robinson said in a release announcing the site.

Source: Sandi Straetker, PRiority Public Relations LLC
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on twitter @feoshiawrites

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This story originally appeared in Soapbox.

Rathindra Bose has been looking for a better anti-cancer drug for nearly 30 years. Now, his discovery of a compound that beats back ovarian cancer in mice without the toxicity, weight loss and hair loss of other drugs has been snapped up by a New York biomedical company for possible commercialization.

Bose, professor of biomedical sciences at Ohio University in Athens, as well as VP of research and dean of the graduate college, says continued testing on the new class of anti-cancer compounds will continue for at least a year before clinical testing in humans can take place. But he's excited by the prospects of a new treatment for cancer patients whose options are currently limited.

Bose's new compounds, called phosphaplatins, are a combination of phosphate and platinum. The three most widely used anti-cancer drugs also contain platinum, but can have devastating side effects, including liver disease, he says. Consequently, doses typically must be kept low, he says.

Most platinum-based drugs work by killing cancer cells directly by binding with the DNA inside a cell's nucleus, he says. But, they also react with vital enzymes, causing toxic side effects.

Phosphaplatins are designed to promote tumor suppression genes within the body rather than to kill cancer cells directly. Because they do not bind with a cell's DNA, they do not appear to carry the toxic effects of most platinum-based drugs, he says.

"With mice, there has been no hair loss that we have seen," Bose says." They're as playful as normally we see for the control group. And, they don't lose their appetite as compared to other platinum drugs."

Ohio University has licensed Bose's new class of compounds to Phosplatin Therapeutics, which is paying $600,000 for further experiments leading, all hope, to eventual commercialization.

While Bose says the new compounds may have applications for other forms of cancer, his team has focused on ovarian cancer because later stages of that disease are so difficult to treat with current drugs.

Source: Rathindra Bose, Ohio University
Writer: Gene Monteith

From an office at a business incubator in southeastern Ohio, Alan Schaaf's barely two-year-old tech company is involved in the people-vs.-president drama unfolding in Egypt -- albeit passively.

Schaaf is founder and the only fulltime employee of Imgur (pronounced like "imager"), a site to share pictures across social networks, blogs, and online communities for free. The recent OU graduate and a part-timer work from the Ohio University Innovation Center in Athens.

Every day over 100,000 people use Imgur to upload innocuous things like snapshots of dogs, clever cartoons and graphics of all sorts. They make their visuals accessible via Imgur's gallery as well as Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo and Google.

But sometimes, as has happened lately, there's a reminder why there's a "world" in www.

Schaaf says Imgur usually has about 3,000 visits per week from people in Egypt. Recently, despite riots and interruption of Internet and related network services, that number dipped to 500.

Uploads related to the unrest have included things like screen captures of Al Jazeera's coverage of damage at the Egyptian National Museum, pictures of Egyptians holding tear gas canisters, posters that say "Mubarak Must Go" and related sentiments, and a typewritten letter, purportedly from inside Egypt, protesting the communications blackouts and urging freedom of speech.

Even before this, Time magazine's "Newsfeed" service spotlighted Imgur's top 10 images of 2010 in a story, and called Imgur "repository of all things meme-y and click-y."

Schaaf declined to discuss his company's revenue, but said "it's profitable enough to hire a full time employee or two in the coming months. The plan is to grow the company and expand its online reach as a social entertainment site."

Source: Alan Schaaf, Imgur
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

A newly-launched initiative to create a more robust entrepreneurial American economy has tapped the expertise -- and name -- of Cleveland-based JumpStart.

JumpStart America, a new nonprofit organization also based in Cleveland, is one of 21 national partners announced last week with the launch of Startup America, a private sector answer to President Barak Obama's National Innovation Strategy.

JumpStart America is the only Ohio-based national partner and will draw on entrepreneurial approaches developed by JumpStart, a venture development organization that provides counsel and funding resources to promising new businesses in northeastern Ohio, says Cathy Belk, JumpStart's chief relationship officer. While the two organizations are separate entities, JumpStart America is expected to do nationally what JumpStart has done on a smaller scale, Belk says.

As northeast Ohio's coordinating body for the Ohio Third Frontier's Entrepreneurial Signature Program, JumpStart has invested $20 million in 52 companies, which in turn have raised more than $140 million in follow-on capital and created more than 800 jobs, JumpStart says. As part of that, JumpStart has brought together at least a dozen philanthropic and private industry funding partners, says Belk.

More recently, JumpStart has been sharing some its expertise and experience with organizations throughout the Midwest as part of its JumpStart Community Advisors initiative.

"That is kind of the model of what the JumpStart America work will be," says Belk.

Belk says JumpStart CEO Ray Leach is leading the team that will develop a governance structure for JumpStart America. The process is expected to take three to four months.

Formation of the group will not only benefit the nation but Ohio, Belk says, noting that "it puts (Ohio and northeast Ohio) on the national stage. One of the other great benefits is that national philanthropy will be aggregated in Ohio, and by virtue of Ohio being recognized as offering best practices in this particular area, I think this can be great for the sustainability of the Ohio (entrepreneurial) ecosystem we've been building."

Cincinnati-based accelerator The Brandery was named last week as a new partner in the TechStars Network -- another national partner in the Startup America initiative that operates accelerator programs in New York City, Boston, Seattle and Boulder, Colo.

Source: Cathy Belk, JumpStart
Writer: Gene Monteith

David Schiraldi, a polymer industry veteran and chair of Case Western University's Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, calls it the "best product concept I've run into in my career."

Now, Schiraldi's company, Solon-based Aeroclay, is working to commercialize its advanced material made of clay, milk and water -- what he and his students refer to as "a dirty milkshake."

The technology was born at Case Western and licensed to Aeroclay, for which Schiraldi is chief science officer. Discovered by accident, the product with the same name as the company is lighter, greener and more versatile than petroleum-based polymers, he says.

The process sounds deceptively simple: Mix clay, milk and water in a blender, freeze dry it in a mold, and voila -- a material that, depending on the formula used, feels like Styrofoam, cork, balsa wood or other materials commonly used in industry. Aeroclay's polymer content -- some 40 different polymers are possible at present -- is derived from casein, the protein found in the milk.

One of the big advantages of Aeroclay is that "when you're half dirt, you don't burn very well or barely burn at all," Schiraldi says. "If you insulate something with polystyrene foam and you get a short circuit, your house burns down. With this, we can take a propane torch to it for five minutes and nothing happens."

Because the material doesn't rely on petroleum, Aeroclay is environmentally friendly. Additionally, using milk as the source for polymer-producing protein could benefit the dairy industry, Schiraldi says.

While Schiraldi says petroleum-based products will be cheaper than Aeroclay for some time, he says the product is poised to find its way into niche markets attracted to its other properties. He says the company, formed last April, is negotiating with a number of Fortune 100 firms, has joint development agreements with a couple of large companies, and expects commercialization near the end of the year.

Most of the company's revenue is likely to come from licensing deals rather than on-site production, Schiraldi says. Aeroclay currently employs six, but will grow as the business expands, he predicts.

Source: David Schiraldi, Aeroclay
Writer: Gene Monteith