Wisconsin Advanced Technology Advocates, Inc.

Quintessence Biosciences receives $986,000 research grant

By Kathleen Gallagher of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Sept. 3, 2009

A Madison drug development company said Thursday it has received a $986,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Cancer Institute.

Quintessence Biosciences Inc. will use the money to support development of more drugs based on its Evade Ribonuclease technology, the company said.

Ribonuclease is a protein that chews up RNA, the long strands of material that transmit messages for cells. The company's technology aims to kill cancer cells by destroying the link between their DNA and protein.

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Minneapolis biotech firm moving to Wisconsin

By Kathleen Gallagher of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: July 9, 2009 11:56 a.m.

Lured by the state's tax credits for investments in high-growth companies, a Minneapolis biotech start-up said Thursday it is moving to Wisconsin.

VitalMedix Inc. is developing a drug that could be used by first responders to potentially keep trauma victims alive longer. The drug, called Tamiasyn, has been tested in animals and could go into human trials as early as a year from now, said Jeffrey M. Williams, the company's president and chief executive officer.

"This sort of deal is better understood by investors in Wisconsin, and angel groups in Wisconsin are not only more aggressive, there are just a lot more of them," Williams said. The state has 22 organized angel investing groups, up from just a handful five years ago, according to the Wisconsin Angel Network.

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Stimulus stiffs biotech start-ups

Mike Ivey  —  3/11/2009 7:10 am

With all the stimulus money getting tossed around these days, you'd figure biotechnology would be near the top of the wish list.

Instead, specific funding for early stage science companies was practically written out of the $780 billion package, claims the president of Madison-based Centrose LLC.

A line inserted into the massive spending bill says $10 billion in stimulus funds provided to the National Institutes of Health are exempt from a previous requirement that 2.5 percent of NIH research money go to private companies.

"This single line stole a potential $250 million from research being conducted at small businesses," says Centrose CEO and founder Jim Prudent. "That may seem fine to some people. But to the businesses who create most, if not all, of the new non-government jobs, it's an outrage."

Prudent says NIH officials explain they've had difficulty getting enough high-quality grant proposals to meet the small-business funding mandate. They also told Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that having funding flexibility allows the agency to devote excess money to "pure science" vs. research on a specific product or application.

But Prudent says that approach is a big mistake, arguing that taxpayer dollars are better aimed at actual companies. Founded in 2007, Centrose has eight employees and a sugar-based technology that improves the uptake and potency of pharmaceuticals.

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Medical tech boosts state

Wisconsin is No. 3 nationwide in sector employment

By JOHN SCHMID
jschmid@journalsentinel.com
Posted: April 1, 2008

It delivers instant images inside the body or shrinks tumors with laser-like radiation. And according to the nation's largest and oldest technology trade group, medical technology plays a commanding role in keeping Wisconsin in the global technology race.

Wisconsin hosts the nation's third-largest cluster of medical-equipment manufacturers as measured by employment (5,800 jobs), behind No. 1 California (13,100) and No. 2 Minnesota (12,600), according to "Cyberstates 2008," an annual state-by-state overview by the American Electronics Association.

The organization, known as the AeA, focuses on electronics, telecommunications, software and information services. It excludes the proliferation of bioscience and stem-cell technology firms around Madison.

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Investigating New Developments in the Research Credit

Your company might decide to put extra cash into research and development to stay on the cutting edge. Good news: Besides maintaining a competitive advantage, your business might be able to claim the Research and Development Tax Credit. In the latest tax law, the credit was extended until December 31, 2007.

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OpGen raises millions in funds

Venture capitalists give to biotech firm

By KATHLEEN GALLAGHER
kgallagher@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Sept. 11, 2007

A Madison company that is developing products that can rapidly identify bacteria and other organisms will announce today it has raised $23.6 million in a financing led by venture capitalist firms on both coasts.

OpGen Inc.'s third funding round was led by three firms: CHL Medical Partners, Stamford, Conn.; Highland Capital Partners, whose U.S. offices are in Lexington, Mass. and Menlo Park, Calif.; and Versant Ventures, Menlo Park.

"OpGen's technology has been applied successfully many times, the market opportunity is great, so we felt it was worthwhile trying to develop an instrument to take into the hospital microbiology market," said Ron Lennox, a partner at CHL Medical Partners who will become chairman of OpGen's board.

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Biotech company planning stock sale

NimbleGen files for initial offering

By JOEL DRESANG
jdresang@journalsentinel.com

Posted: March 19, 2007

NimbleGen Systems Inc. has become the second Madison technology company in two months to file for an initial public stock offering through federal regulators.

The maker of chips used in genetic research has not yet determined the number of shares it will offer or the price range. NimbleGen has requested that its stock be listed on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol NMBL.

In its prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, NimbleGen says its proprietary technologies and services are useful for analyzing genome variation, which it says has scientific and commercial applications in developing diagnostics, therapeutics and agricultural products.

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State research tools firm earns angel financing

By KATHLEEN GALLAGHER
kgallagher@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 8, 2007

After snagging a top prize in the Governor's Business Plan Contest in 2004, a Middleton company that makes tools for drug research has landed at least $715,000 in angel investor funding.

Milwaukee-based Silicon Pastures has invested $465,000 in BioSystem Development LLC, and Marshfield Investment Partners will put in at least $250,000 more, directors of those angel investment networks said last week.

"BioSystem has a very committed founder who is committed to making the company a success, has an incredible Rolodex and knows how to get his foot in the door at pharmaceutical companies. And he has a lot of credibility because he's worked in start-ups previously," said Teresa Esser, managing director of Silicon Pastures.

BioSystem is pursuing a significant, but concentrated, potential market of big companies that do drug development, said James Hanke, director of Marshfield Investment Partners.

Scott Fulton, BioSystem's founder and chief executive officer, has bachelor's degrees in physics and applied biology and has a master's in biomedical engineering. He has more than 25 years of experience at large and small biotech companies in the Boston area.

BioSystem uses cartridges packed with small polymer beads that give drug developers a much faster way of doing protein analysis, Fulton said. Protein analysis is critical to discovering new drugs. The system allows drug researchers to do in 15 minutes analysis that now takes as long as a day, Fulton said. It also is about five times more precise, and it is automated, he said.

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Researchers seek share of seed money

Researchers seek share of seed money
220 apply for funds from UW institute
By KATHLEEN GALLAGHER
kgallagher@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 30, 2006

Researchers from a wide range of disciplines, universities, and companies such as 3M, Amgen and GE Healthcare have submitted 220 applications for $3 million in seed money from the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

The proposals include more than 1,225 potential collaborations between University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and their counterparts at other academic institutions and private industry, Andrew Cohn, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, known as WARF, said Thursday.

A committee led by Paul Peercy, dean of the UW-Madison engineering college, will evaluate the proposals by August, and invite successful applicants to submit full proposals by October 1, Cohn said.

WARF and other organizers of the planned $150 million Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery hope to create a center for interdisciplinary research, and to help commercialize discoveries.

The seed grant program is the first step toward the establishment of that center where researchers from across the UW-Madison campus can work with others from private industry and schools around the world to attack disease and other issues, and advance regenerative medicine using tools such as embryonic stem cells.

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Affinity Introduces New Service

Affinity Introduces New Service that Improves Return on Investment on Technology Investment Dollars

Milwaukee, WI – March 31, 2006 – Affinity, Inc. announced today its launch of their Technology Adoption Solution. The offering provides a process driven approach to managing and implementing necessary changes, in order to increase the use of new technology. The results are greater returns on technology investments and enhanced business performance.

Adoption has been identified, as one of the largest issues in realizing optimal benefits in technology investments. The Affinity solution enables organizations to affect the rate at which users adopt new systems. Adoption also identifies issues related to training, systems and process, providing resolve recommendations and a method to measure success.