Herpes, PowerBars, and IPOs. Apple, Amazon, and acoustics. What more can you ask? Well, we’ve seen them all around town in the past three months.
It’s the end of the third quarter, and with that, I’d like to highlight my 10 favorite Xconomy Boston stories from the period. They are a mix of company profiles, news scoops, business strategy stories, executive Q&As, startup lessons, and dispatches from the border of academia and business.
A lot of biotech and healthtech news, but I suspect the pendulum will swing back toward software/hardware and other areas soon.
One more thing: these stories all have legs, far beyond what’s written here. And most aren’t the obvious stories I could have chosen—I suspect you missed a few of them the first time around.
So here we go, starting with the most recent:
1. Genocea’s Herpes Vaccine Heads For Critical Proving Ground
Genocea Biosciences is in the midst of its first clinical trial for an experimental vaccine against genital herpes. We’ll see how the results play out, but it could be a landmark approach to attacking this elusive virus.
2. Aileron Goes After Cancer’s Hard Target, P53, With Peptide Drug
Speaking of elusive, this story is a deep dive into the science of cancer—specifically, one company’s approach to turn on the “tumor suppressor” gene, p53, using a new kind of drug compound.
3. Quanttus and the Rise of Boston’s Personal Healthtech Cluster
This is a look at the growing mini-cluster of personal health and wellness startups around Boston. In particular, those with a wearable sensor component for tracking and analyzing data such as heart rate, sleep activity, and respiration.
4. Epizyme Execs Share the Secret to a Successful IPO: PowerBars
A cheeky headline, but a revealing Q&A with one of Boston’s recently public biotech companies. Covers everything from big pharma partnerships to investor relations to IPO roadshows.
5. Apple’s Boston-Area Team: Working on Speech in Nuance’s Backyard
What’s Apple doing in Boston? Working on speech technology and next-gen Siri right in Kendall Square, that’s what. This was a scoop on what the tech behemoth sees in the local talent pool—and how it stacks up against other biggies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Nuance.
6. Tillman Gerngross’s Plan to Revamp Tech Transfer at Dartmouth
A deep dive into how Dartmouth College is trying to reshape tech transfer, led by an accomplished life sciences entrepreneur who doesn’t mince words.
7. The Biotech IPO Phenomenon of 2013: Enjoy It While It Lasts
An analysis of the latest IPO craze sweeping the nation. “This IPO party won’t last long, probably no more than a few months… there will be a hangover when it ends.”
8. Amar Bose, Legendary MIT Acoustician, Dead at 83
A short tribute to the founder of Bose Corporation, an MIT icon, and the enduring spirit of how technology and business used to be done—and still can be.
9. Apple, Amazon, Samsung Targeted in Boston University Patent Suits
Hey, you can get a lot of mileage out of owning intellectual property around semiconductor technology for making LEDs and lasers. Just ask BU.
10. Harvard Professor Steps Down to Pilot Warp Drive Bio
Who leaves a tenured faculty job at Harvard to be CEO of a startup? Gregory Verdine of heavily funded Warp Drive Bio—the arrangement is a leave of absence of a few years, not a permanent one. Warp Drive is going after so-called “undruggable” disease targets. It’s one of the up-and-coming companies to watch in Boston.
