Category: National

Medigram Offers a Safe, Legal Alternative to Texting While Doctoring

Three years of medical school and hospital rotations at Stanford was enough to convince Michael Chiu that the methods doctors and nurses use to exchange updates about patients are archaic, inefficient, and sometimes illegal. Most hospitals, he explains, still depend on old-fashioned pagers to send doctors urgent alerts and other messages. But these systems can … Continue reading “Medigram Offers a Safe, Legal Alternative to Texting While Doctoring”

Never Let Anyone Make You a Carrot

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” –Paul Cezanne A couple of years ago my sister told me a story about how she came home from work to find her husband and then 5-year-old daughter playing “house” with her dolls and dollhouse. They were deep into the … Continue reading “Never Let Anyone Make You a Carrot”

Vertex Shares Drop on Mistake in Cystic Fibrosis Drug Data

Vertex Pharmaceuticals saw its stock rocket on news earlier this month that its two-drug combo treatment for cystic fibrosis showed a strong benefit in a clinical trial, but the stock is coming back down now that Vertex has come forward to report on a mistake in its own data. Shares of the Cambridge, MA-based biotech … Continue reading “Vertex Shares Drop on Mistake in Cystic Fibrosis Drug Data”

Genentech, Roche Find New Balance Three Years Post-Merger

In late 2009, I wrote a feature story for BusinessWeek that was given the clever and rather blunt headline “Can Roche Leave Genentech Alone?” It was a pressing question at the time. Roche had just laid out $47 billion to acquire the 44 percent of Genentech that it didn’t already own. For years leading up … Continue reading “Genentech, Roche Find New Balance Three Years Post-Merger”

GreenBytes Gets $12M More, Led by Al Gore’s Venture Firm

Not all the tech news coming out of Rhode Island is bad. GreenBytes, an Ashaway, RI-based data storage company, said today it has raised $12 million in Series B financing led by Generation Investment Management, a firm co-founded by Al Gore. Battery Ventures and GreenBytes management also participated in the funding. GreenBytes started in 2007 … Continue reading “GreenBytes Gets $12M More, Led by Al Gore’s Venture Firm”

Recorded Future, With New VC Round, Seeks Fortune in Defense and Finance

Wish you could use the Web to make reliable predictions about the future? Not just the performance of the stock market, say, but things like, what are my business competitors planning to do in a particular field? Where in the world will there be civil unrest in the coming weeks? What military maneuvers can we … Continue reading “Recorded Future, With New VC Round, Seeks Fortune in Defense and Finance”

NanoString Nabs Ex-Seattle Genetics Exec to Lead Diagnostic Push

Seattle-based NanoString Technologies sees itself growing from a research tool company into a more diversified player with diagnostic tests that enable more personalized cancer medicine. Now it has hired its first sales and marketing leader to take the fruit of NanoString R&D, and turn it into this potentially large new line of business. Bruce Seeley, the … Continue reading “NanoString Nabs Ex-Seattle Genetics Exec to Lead Diagnostic Push”

Safety Analyses Lead Sangart to Move Ahead with ‘Oxygen Therapeutic’

Encouraging results in a second mid-stage trial of an oxygen-carrying compound has prompted San Diego’s Sangart to draw on an additional $50 million from Leucadia National (NYSE: [[ticker:LUK]]), a diversified New York holding company that is Sangart’s majority owner. Sangart, which has been developing the compound to counter traumatic blood loss, says the additional funding … Continue reading “Safety Analyses Lead Sangart to Move Ahead with ‘Oxygen Therapeutic’”

With Orders Piling Up, Zulily Built a Shipping Arm—in 8 Weeks

When you build a fast-growing business, there are bound to be a few “oh shit” moments. Darrell Cavens, the CEO of moms-and-kids retailer Zulily, knows that feeling well. Cavens runs one of the fastest growing startups in the Seattle area, a private-sales site that has amassed more than 5 million daily e-mail subscribers since launching … Continue reading “With Orders Piling Up, Zulily Built a Shipping Arm—in 8 Weeks”

Michigan VC Report Highlights Positive Trends

On the heels of Renaissance Venture Capital announcing earlier this month that it had its first close of $60 million on its second fund, the Michigan Venture Capital Association (MVCA) released its annual report on the state of Michigan’s venture ecosystem. Its findings? More venture capital—a 64 percent increase in the past five years—and more … Continue reading “Michigan VC Report Highlights Positive Trends”

From Career Ladder to Jungle Gym: Reid Hoffman Speaks at Babson

Seniors graduating last weekend from Babson College, the entrepreneurship-focused campus just outside Boston, were treated to a commencement speech from someone who’s got to be one of their biggest heroes: Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder, executive chairman, and former CEO of LinkedIn. (He’s also an author, a venture investor with Greylock Partners, a member of numerous … Continue reading “From Career Ladder to Jungle Gym: Reid Hoffman Speaks at Babson”

Twitter’s Former CTO Talks About Joining CornellNYC Tech

Greg Pass is bringing more technology “street cred” to the team that is establishing the applied science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island in New York. The former chief technology officer of Twitter on Wednesday was named the founding entrepreneurial officer for CornellNYC Tech, a $2 billion school to be built in the city. The … Continue reading “Twitter’s Former CTO Talks About Joining CornellNYC Tech”

Rooftop Farming Startup UrbanHarvest Wins UW Student Competition

Why pay for produce to be trucked up from California when you’ve got rooftops that could be converted to greenhouses? That’s the question posed by UrbanHarvest, a startup company founded by two University of Washington students. And as of today, they’ve got a few thousand more bucks in their pockets to help make the dream … Continue reading “Rooftop Farming Startup UrbanHarvest Wins UW Student Competition”

Xconomist of the Week: Evan Snyder—Stem Cell Reality Check

San Diego Xconomist Evan Snyder has been called a “stem cell revolutionary” and is regarded as a father in the field of stem cell research. When we talked in his office at San Diego’s Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, he told me he isolated the first neural stem cell in the mid-1980s, as well as the … Continue reading “Xconomist of the Week: Evan Snyder—Stem Cell Reality Check”

Can Pocket (née Read It Later) Become the TiVo of the Web?

On the iPhone, the first page of the home screen—the one you see when you wake up the device—has room for only 20 apps, counting those in the dock. The iPad home screen holds 26. For me, that means the home screen is prime real estate, reserved only for the apps I use most often. … Continue reading “Can Pocket (née Read It Later) Become the TiVo of the Web?”

Good for Some, Good for All

The recent Facebook IPO has brought to the front pages an issue that many ordinary investors have been asking themselves for a long time: “Is the system fair?” In Facebook’s case, legitimate questions have arisen about why Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan, Facebook’s lead underwriters, all reduced their internal revenue estimates for that … Continue reading “Good for Some, Good for All”

DeVos’ Start Garden Aims to Give Grand Rapids a Jolt

A young member of a prominent Michigan family known for its wealth, its power in political circles, and its philanthropy has launched a new endeavor to try to stoke the flames of entrepreneurship in West Michigan. The DeVos family looms large in Michigan, particularly in Grand Rapids, the second-largest city in the state. They are … Continue reading “DeVos’ Start Garden Aims to Give Grand Rapids a Jolt”

Nokia Joins X Prize in $2.25M Wireless Health “Sensing Challenge”

When the X Prize Foundation’s Peter Diamandis took the stage in San Diego this morning at the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA) annual convergence summit, he said it was the perfect audience for announcing the foundation’s newest competition—the “Nokia Sensing X Challenge.” The challenge, organized through a partnership with the Finnish wireless device manufacturer, is offering … Continue reading “Nokia Joins X Prize in $2.25M Wireless Health “Sensing Challenge””

Amazon’s Shareholder Spectacle and the Fight Over Seattle

Amazon.com’s remarkable growth is remaking the face of downtown Seattle, on a scale far different than any company before it in this city. Today, the e-commerce and cloud-computing pioneer felt some of the growing pains. Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting devolved into a bizarre standoff with liberal political activists, who hijacked the typically staid gathering to … Continue reading “Amazon’s Shareholder Spectacle and the Fight Over Seattle”

Recorded Future, Liquid Metal Battery Raise VC Rounds

Two Boston-area companies that don’t do a lot of talking in the media are making some noise today. They don’t have much in common, except that each is working on a really big technological problem in society with a pretty novel approach (and they’re getting some funding news out before the holiday weekend). As usual, … Continue reading “Recorded Future, Liquid Metal Battery Raise VC Rounds”

Could Virtual Nanotransactions Solve the Mobile Payments Problem?

Very few people in the mobile industry will disagree that mobile payments are today’s biggest challenge for developers. In the Apple universe, there is a strong solution to the problem: Apple simply requires users to register their credit cards before they can use any services. But this approach only works for a very small segment … Continue reading “Could Virtual Nanotransactions Solve the Mobile Payments Problem?”

SD Life Sciences Roundup: Takeda Consolidates, Startups Raise Cash

It’s been a busy week for startup funding, with Obalon Therapeutics, Aperio Technologies, Topera, and Ivera Medical closing on financing deals. We’ve also got drug development news from Ocera Therapeutics and MediciNova. —Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical said it’s closing its center of excellence in South San Francisco, which has been focused on developing early stage antibody … Continue reading “SD Life Sciences Roundup: Takeda Consolidates, Startups Raise Cash”

EMC, Ember, Spindle, Yottaa, & More Boston-Area Deals

A bunch of small-ish deals (and some not so small) to catch up on from the past week… —Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]) has acquired Syncplicity for an undisclosed price. The cloud-based file management startup, based in Silicon Valley, will be integrated into EMC’s Information Intelligence Group. The move is viewed as helping EMC compete … Continue reading “EMC, Ember, Spindle, Yottaa, & More Boston-Area Deals”

Halo Gathers $1.1M From Patient Groups for Muscular Dystrophy Drug

At first glance, the $1.1 million financing announced by Halo Therapeutics on Tuesday looked like your average case of a biotech startup scraping together enough money to get its early-stage compound into pivotal human trials. But this funding was anything but average. That’s because the money came from 12 nonprofit foundations pursuing a common goal: … Continue reading “Halo Gathers $1.1M From Patient Groups for Muscular Dystrophy Drug”

MediciNova Misses Primary Goal in Mid-Stage Trial of IV Asthma Drug

It was clear that San Diego’s MediciNova (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MNOV]]) had a lot riding on the outcome of a mid-stage trial of the company’s lead drug candidate, bedoradrine sulfate. As I reported recently, MediciNova has been developing the compound to treat acute asthma attacks that are not responsive to standard therapy. So shareholders registered their disappointment … Continue reading “MediciNova Misses Primary Goal in Mid-Stage Trial of IV Asthma Drug”

What’s New With Loveland Technologies, Axonia, 3D Biomatrix?

Don’t you hate it when you read an article about a promising new company and then you never hear anything about it again? We do too, which is why we’ve checked in with Loveland Technologies, Axonia Medical, and 3D Biomatrix for updates on the state of their operations, new milestones, and future plans. Loveland Technologies: … Continue reading “What’s New With Loveland Technologies, Axonia, 3D Biomatrix?”

Analytic Software Wins Janssen Prize to Reduce Hospital Readmissions

A team developing analytic software that scores patients for the risk they pose to being readmitted within 30 days after being discharged from a hospital is the winner of the inaugural Janssen Connected Care Challenge. The prize is sponsored by Janssen, a unit of New Brunswick, NJ-based Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: [[ticker:JNJ]]) . Kim Park, … Continue reading “Analytic Software Wins Janssen Prize to Reduce Hospital Readmissions”

Thomas Massie, SensAble Founder and MIT Grad, Wins GOP Primary in KY

The votes have been tallied, and the winner of the Republican primary in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district is…Thomas Massie. With 45 percent of the popular vote, Massie, a Tea Party constitutional conservative, fended off a couple of establishment-backed competitors in the race. That means he will be the heavy favorite (in the red state) to … Continue reading “Thomas Massie, SensAble Founder and MIT Grad, Wins GOP Primary in KY”

MakeDirect Turns $2M Series A Round from DFJ into a Fresh Start

Taking another crack at building a company, Duy Huynh thinks MakeDirect, his latest New York-based startup, can scale up quickly by breaking old traditions in manufacturing. The company’s e-commerce site lets consumers buy furniture direct from the factory, but moreover, Huynh is shaking up his own strategy to exploit opportunities for growth. MakeDirect’s site launched … Continue reading “MakeDirect Turns $2M Series A Round from DFJ into a Fresh Start”

Ra Pharma Pours $8.6M Into Discovery Tech and New Rare-Disease Drug

Today Ra Pharmaceuticals CEO Doug Treco will make a presentation at a conference in Las Vegas that will cap off the Cambridge, MA-based company’s weeklong unveiling. On May 16, Ra announced it had closed an $8.6 million tranche of its $27 million Series A round. And today Treco will be describing the four-year-old company’s technology … Continue reading “Ra Pharma Pours $8.6M Into Discovery Tech and New Rare-Disease Drug”

TripAdvisor Q&A: The Future of Travel and the Social Web

TripAdvisor has been thinking about social technologies for a while now. Back in 2006, the Newton, MA-based Web company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TRIP]]) rolled out a new social network, called Traveler Network, to help its users connect and share travel reviews with each other. The firm’s CEO and co-founder, Steve Kaufer, helped lead the project from beginning … Continue reading “TripAdvisor Q&A: The Future of Travel and the Social Web”

Seattle Genetics Follows the Science, Taking on Rare Lymphoma No. 3

Sometimes when a drug hits the market, it can take on a life of its own. Researchers start using their imaginations—and their own grant money—to pursue applications the drugmaker itself might never have envisioned. And sometimes, those researchers make important new discoveries, which can provide the company with a running start on a potentially lucrative … Continue reading “Seattle Genetics Follows the Science, Taking on Rare Lymphoma No. 3”

San Diego BizTech Roundup: Qualcomm, Helix Wind, and ‘Skqueak’

Here’s a potpourri of San Diego tech news, large and small, fresh from the local fields of innovation. —San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]), the world’s biggest manufacturer of wireless chipsets, said it has renewed its global QPrize venture investment competition for the third time. The $1 million pool is almost double the total pool Qualcomm … Continue reading “San Diego BizTech Roundup: Qualcomm, Helix Wind, and ‘Skqueak’”

San Diego’s Free EvoNexus Tech Incubator Gains Qualcomm Expertise

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]), the San Diego wireless technology giant, says today it is joining forces with EvoNexus, the free tech incubator operated by the nonprofit industry group CommNexus. The move adds a new dimension of business and technical expertise to EvoNexus, which relies heavily on volunteer tech executives and others to help mentor entrepreneurs enrolled … Continue reading “San Diego’s Free EvoNexus Tech Incubator Gains Qualcomm Expertise”

7 Xpo Startups at XSITE on June 14 (and Looking for a Few More)

Here at Xconomy we are coming down the home stretch of preparations for our biggest annual event: XSITE 2012, on June 14 at Babson College. That’s (gasp) just over three weeks away. XSITE 2012 is our fourth annual full-day conference and celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship—involving not just startups, but also big companies, universities, and … Continue reading “7 Xpo Startups at XSITE on June 14 (and Looking for a Few More)”

Shifting Code Program Helps Retrain MI Professionals for IT Jobs

According to Monster.com, there are currently 841 open software and IT development jobs in Michigan. Compare that to 319 jobs in manufacturing, 487 in healthcare, and a dismal 46 in creative and design. It’s something I hear often in my line of work: There is a severe shortage of software development talent in Michigan, and … Continue reading “Shifting Code Program Helps Retrain MI Professionals for IT Jobs”

Bay Lights Project Turns to Tech Leaders to Bridge Funding Gap

“What if we thought of it as a canvas, rather than a bridge?” That’s the question that occurred to Ben Davis as he was sitting outside the San Francisco Ferry Building one Saturday morning in September 2010, gazing at the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Not long after, he got a chance … Continue reading “Bay Lights Project Turns to Tech Leaders to Bridge Funding Gap”

Yottaa, Looking More Like Akamai, Gets $9M for “Anti-Lean” Approach

Coach Wei has been busy lately. The founder and CEO of Boston-based Yottaa is busy running a tech company on two continents. Not only that, but he’s trying to pioneer a new approach to building an enterprise software and Web infrastructure company—one that can iterate and release products almost as fast as a consumer Web … Continue reading “Yottaa, Looking More Like Akamai, Gets $9M for “Anti-Lean” Approach”

Bye, SocialEyes: Startup Drops Video Chat, Goes Mobile with Sidecar

SocialEyes, a startup with roots in RealNetworks and financial backing from Bellevue, WA’s Ignition Partners, is changing directions. The company unveiled a group video-chat service tied to Facebook just last spring. But the startup left that product in the dust a few months later, after realizing there wasn’t a clear path to making it work … Continue reading “Bye, SocialEyes: Startup Drops Video Chat, Goes Mobile with Sidecar”

Undaunted by Wall Street “Penalty Box,” Keryx Focuses on Kidney Drug

On April 2, shares of New York-based Keryx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:KERX]]) fell a stomach-churning 65 percent to $1.74 after the company announced that a late-stage trial of its colon cancer drug failed. But CEO Ron Bentsur was unfazed. In fact, he was so confident in the company’s other drug candidate—a treatment for kidney dialysis patients—that … Continue reading “Undaunted by Wall Street “Penalty Box,” Keryx Focuses on Kidney Drug”

Wireless Health Summit Showcases Incentive Prizes as Tool for Change

About 275 technologists and healthcare industry executives are gathering in downtown San Diego tomorrow as the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA) convenes its Seventh Annual Convergence Summit at the Grand Hyatt. “The overarching theme of the summit this year is ‘How do we move from innovation to institutional and personal adoption of the tools and technologies … Continue reading “Wireless Health Summit Showcases Incentive Prizes as Tool for Change”

Ember CEO: Silicon Labs Acquisition for $72M Is “Right Thing for the Company”

It seems like it takes most tech companies about 10 years to run their course—if they survive the first few years, that is. Boston-based Ember is no exception. The wireless-networking firm said today it is being acquired by Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SLAB]]) of Austin, TX, for an initial price of $72 million plus earnouts. Silicon … Continue reading “Ember CEO: Silicon Labs Acquisition for $72M Is “Right Thing for the Company””

Google Makes Room for Cornell Engineering Campus at its NY Offices

The $2 billion applied science and engineering college campus planned for New York is still years away from opening its doors, but Google stepped in today to give the project a head start. Google CEO Larry Page hit the city this morning to announce his company would let CornellNYC Tech occupy 22,000 square feet at … Continue reading “Google Makes Room for Cornell Engineering Campus at its NY Offices”

99designs Crowdsources Its Own New Website Design

Crowdsourcing design startup 99designs is putting its own product to the test with a competition to redesign its homepage. The company, which connects businesses in need of design help with freelancers willing to compete for design work, wrote a request of its own, asking its 158,000 registered designers to revamp its site for a chance … Continue reading “99designs Crowdsources Its Own New Website Design”

Sue Siegel Leaves MDV to Run $6B GE Health Unit

Sue Siegel, one of the leading venture investors in the field of personalized medicine, is leaving her gig as a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures to join GE as the CEO of its $6 billion healthymagination unit, which is seeking to foster innovations that lower healthcare costs. Siegel, 52, was the president of Santa … Continue reading “Sue Siegel Leaves MDV to Run $6B GE Health Unit”