We were buzzing this week with news from the boardrooms at big pharma companies, introductions to the life sciences personalities presenting at our XSITE innovation forum, and profiles on emerging health IT companies.
—IBM declared medicine authentication company Sproxil the winner of its Boston SmartCamp, a day-long competition for companies working in “smart” technology, which uses IT to make things in the physical world more efficient. Somerville, MA-based Sproxil is working with manufacturers to produce scratch-off labels with unique product codes for medicine in developing countries like Nigeria, where the counterfeiting of drugs is a big problem. Consumers text the code to Sproxil, which confirms whether the product they’re about to buy is the real thing or not. (Sproxil will also be presenting at the Xpo segment of XSITE, so be sure to come and check it out.)
—Ryan took a look at Eldersync, a Boston startup developing a Web-based system for coordinating communication between home nursing agencies, doctors, patients, and their families. Healthcare workers can use the Eldersync technology to schedule visits, verify via text if they’ve seen a patient, and file patient notes using home Internet devices.
—We dished a bit about the biotech presence you can expect at the annual Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneurship (XSITE) next week. Luke noted that Alkermes, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, ImmunoGen, and Mersana Therapeutics are among the successful Boston-area life sciences companies that will be represented at panels and keynote chats throughout the day. Ryan discussed the mobile health panel, which will showcase how organizations from Healthrageous to the MIT Media Lab are innovating at the intersection of healthcare and technology.
—Cambridge, MA-based drugmaker Genzyme (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GENZ]]) announced its board of directors had nominated Dennis Fenton, who spent 25 years at Thousand Oaks, CA-based Amgen (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMGN]]), to a seat on the board. Genzyme’s 10 board members are all up for reelection at the company’s annual meeting on June 16. Later in the week, the company announced it had reached an agreement with Carl Icahn, the investor who has been loudly lobbying to get four spots on the Genzyme board. Genzyme will appoint two of Icahn’s choices in exchange for his support of the company’s 10 nominees, including president and CEO Henri Termeer, whose removal Icahn had previously called for. The additions of
