Here are four key elements that people here in Michigan should think about as we seek to create a thriving hub of innovation and entrepreneurship:
1. Management: Michigan needs be more attractive for startup management to live and work. The state should work aggressively to lure top management talent to Michigan.
2. Investors: While Michigan has an outstanding cadre of small venture capital groups and seed investors, there are no groups large enough to lead large financings (like the Lycera deal). Such investors are largely on the East or West coasts. These coastal groups should be encouraged to open offices in Ann Arbor, which is arguably the ‘tech capital’ of the state. By having a presence here in the state, potential investors will see more of the technology that’s here, and they’ll see it progressing on a more frequent basis. Establishing these relationships will pay long term dividends.
3. Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC): There is a growing recognition that many programs the state runs to help create businesses and jobs have not worked as well as initially hoped. The state should consider re-investing a pool of funds to create an independent venture capital fund that can lead Michigan-centric startup deals that will attract other VCs from the coasts who can form syndicates. Top venture capitalists should be hired to manage the Michigan-based fund. In the end, such fund could pay for itself, make a return for the state, and stimulate growth of new jobs in Michigan.
4. Education: The entrepreneurial spirit is alive in Michigan, in the research universities and beyond. However, very few entrepreneurs understand how to raise money, how venture capital works, how to spin out businesses, etc. U-M, Wayne State, and MSU should follow the lead of institutions like Stanford and MIT in educating entrepreneurs, which will make them more competitive and successful in the entrepreneurial arena.
[Editor’s note: To help launch Xconomy Detroit, we’ve queried our network of Xconomists and other innovation leaders around the country for their list of the most important things that entrepreneurs and innovators in Michigan can do to reinvigorate their regional economy.]
Author: Gary Glick
Gary D. Glick obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1988, studying organic chemistry under the direction of W. Clark Still. He then completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University where he studied bio-organic chemistry in the laboratory of Jeremy R. Knowles. In 1990, Dr. Glick started his career as a faculty member at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he is now the Werner E. Bachmann emeritus professor of chemistry. He still maintains an active lab focused on metabolic control in the immune system and the development of new drugs for the treatment of autoimmunity and cancer.
Dr. Glick is the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Boston-based IFM Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of first-in-class small molecules targeting the innate immune system for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory disease. Prior to founding IFM, he founded Lycera Corp, a leading biopharmaceutical company developing novel small molecule immunodulators for autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Dr. Glick’s research interests are in drug discovery and development for autoimmune diseases and cancer; chemical-induced apoptosis; nucleic acid structure, folding and recognition; and molecular recognition of nucleic acids by proteins. He has served and continues to serve on numerous boards and committees, including the Bioorganic & Natural Products Chemistry Study Section of the National Institutes of Health and the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Arthritis Foundation, Michigan Chapter. He serves on several editorial boards, is Editor-in-Chief of Biopolymers, a leading journal publishing in the areas of biochemistry and biophysics, and was recently a counselor to the American Chemical Society Division of Biological Chemistry.
Dr. Glick’s scientific contributions have been recognized with a number of different awards including, an Arthritis Investigator Award from the National Arthritis Foundation, a Junior Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society, a Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, a Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, two Research Excellence Awards from the University of Michigan, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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