Genentech has been saying for years that it has confidence in a supercharged version of its hit breast cancer drug, and today it cleared a major hurdle on the way to making it a reality. The South San Francisco-based company, a unit of Roche, said today that trastuzumab emtansince (T-DM1) passed its biggest clinical trial … Continue reading “Genentech, ImmunoGen ‘Smart Bomb’ for Breast Cancer Clears Big Hurdle”
Category: National
Searching for a VC Heart of Gold at Rock Stars of Innovation Summit
Reading between the lines, it seemed as if Chuck McDermott was trying to set the tone—or maybe just the backbeat—for San Diego’s “Rock Stars of Innovation Summit” when he chose a 1979 John Stewart hit as the closing song for Tuesday night’s VC jam session. McDermott, who is a general partner in the Boston office … Continue reading “Searching for a VC Heart of Gold at Rock Stars of Innovation Summit”
Steve Blank Hands A New Owner’s Manual to Startup Founders
If you look closely at the cover of Steve Blank’s new book, The Startup Owner’s Manual, you’ll see that it shows an exploded view of the transmission from an automobile engine. Leonardo da Vinci invented the exploded view more than 500 years ago, and it has stayed with us as a visualization tool, because it’s … Continue reading “Steve Blank Hands A New Owner’s Manual to Startup Founders”
Genoa Pharma Aims To Satisfy Big Pharma’s Hunger for IPF Drugs
One of the hot areas of drug development these days can be filed under the header of “deadly lung scarring condition we don’t understand very well.” But the scientific knowledge of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is improving fast, and a new San Diego startup called Genoa Pharmaceuticals is betting it can satisfy Big Pharma’s hunger for … Continue reading “Genoa Pharma Aims To Satisfy Big Pharma’s Hunger for IPF Drugs”
Boston FIRST Robotics 2012: Rebound Rumble in Pictures
March usually brings droves of cheering fans to big arenas for basketball games, so the scene at Boston University’s Agganis Arena last Saturday seems fitting for the season. Except it was squat robots, not tall athletes, that were shooting hoops. The event was the Boston edition of FIRST Robotics, a worldwide robotics building competition for … Continue reading “Boston FIRST Robotics 2012: Rebound Rumble in Pictures”
Blueprint Health Graduates First Class at Demo Day
A new NYC incubator, Blueprint Health, started up in January with a goal of fostering entrepreneurship in an often-overlooked corner of the booming technology sector: health IT. Today the incubator, part of the TechStars network, held its first demo day, which attracted an standing-room-only audience of 500 venture capitalists and health IT professionals. Blueprint Health … Continue reading “Blueprint Health Graduates First Class at Demo Day”
Late Add: John Mendlein Joins “Reinventing Biotech” Lineup April 3
We already have a jam-packed lineup of creative entrepreneurs at next week’s big Xconomy event, but hey, you know what they say about the more the merrier? That’s what I figured this week when John Mendlein, one of the more successful biotech executives on the West Coast, agreed to be one of the speakers at … Continue reading “Late Add: John Mendlein Joins “Reinventing Biotech” Lineup April 3″
Wayne State Launches Pre-Seed Fund For Student Tech Startups
Wayne State University has launched a new pre-seed fund supporting student-run tech startups, the first of its kind in Detroit. The Warrior Fund, which is made possible through a grant from the Michigan Initiative for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, will be administered by the tech transfer office and Blackstone Launch Pad. A total of $25,000 is available … Continue reading “Wayne State Launches Pre-Seed Fund For Student Tech Startups”
Announcing XSITE June 14: Evernote, Uber, Zaarly, IBM’s Watson, & More
Innovators, start your engines. The economy is ramping up, and so is the innovation scene here in Boston and across the U.S. For the past three years—starting with the theme “The Recovery Starts Here” when the economy was still in the tanks back in mid-2009—Xconomy has held a full-day event each June called XSITE, the … Continue reading “Announcing XSITE June 14: Evernote, Uber, Zaarly, IBM’s Watson, & More”
Roche Raises Illumina Takeover Bid to $51/Share
Roche has raised the stakes in its ongoing hostile takeover bid for San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ILMN]]) The Switzerland-based healthcare giant said it has raised its offer to $51 a share for Illumina, a 15 percent premium over its original offer in January of $44.50 a share. The new bid values Illumina, the market leader … Continue reading “Roche Raises Illumina Takeover Bid to $51/Share”
Oncothyreon Grabs $47M in Stock Offering
Seattle-based Oncothyreon has raised a lot more money to run clinical trials of its experimental cancer treatments. The company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ONTY]]) said today it has raised $47 million from an underwritten stock offering, in which it sold 11.75 million shares to investors at $4 apiece. The company could end up getting another $7.1 million if … Continue reading “Oncothyreon Grabs $47M in Stock Offering”
Can Willow Garage’s “Linux for Robots” Spur Internet-Scale Growth?
Robot builders have a lot to learn from Internet entrepreneurs. That’s one of the main arguments you’ll hear from the engineers at Willow Garage, a unique startup in Menlo Park, CA, that’s developing hardware and software for a new generation of personal robots. You can’t name a single Internet company, they say, that would have … Continue reading “Can Willow Garage’s “Linux for Robots” Spur Internet-Scale Growth?”
Kibits Cuts Through the Chatter with New Micro-Social Network App
Please, Lord, not another social-networking app that helps you connect with 500 more people you don’t actually want to talk to. Or that adds yet more information overload to your life. OK, since it’s Matt Cutler and Dave Greenstein, the former NetGenesis guys, let’s take a closer look. Their free mobile app is called Kibits, … Continue reading “Kibits Cuts Through the Chatter with New Micro-Social Network App”
LiquidGrids Re-Launches Social Media Analytics for Health Industry
San Diego-based LiquidGrids, which unveiled a beta version of its healthcare-focused social media analytics less than five months ago, is re-launching its business today after overhauling its technology. The startup was known as Swarmology when founder Malcolm Bohm outlined the concept for me in November. “We were getting confused with the plethora of other ‘swarms’ … Continue reading “LiquidGrids Re-Launches Social Media Analytics for Health Industry”
MAP Pharmaceuticals Gets Rare Benefit of the Doubt With Migraine Drug
Biotech companies that bet the farm on a single drug usually get crushed when the FDA says ‘No’ to that molecule. It’s the time investors usually shoot first, and ask questions later. But the folks at Mountain View, CA-based MAP Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MAPP]]), have to count themselves fortunate this week. In a rare case for … Continue reading “MAP Pharmaceuticals Gets Rare Benefit of the Doubt With Migraine Drug”
Third Rock’s Mark Levin: ‘Ultra-Super Positive’ on Biotech Innovation
Mark Levin co-founded Boston’s Third Rock Ventures in 2007 with the goal of funding life sciences discoveries through the Valley of Death—when early-stage startups are no longer eligible for federal grants but they haven’t progressed enough to attract the attention of VCs. Third Rock has launched and incubated eight startups, including Foundation Medicine, Warp Drive … Continue reading “Third Rock’s Mark Levin: ‘Ultra-Super Positive’ on Biotech Innovation”
Four to Watch in Mobile Payments: Google, Apple, Amazon, & PayPal
It’s not happening just yet, but in the next few years we’ll start to see much wider adoption of mobile phone-based consumer payments in the U.S. It’s kind of a numbers game at this point—there just aren’t enough phones in the market right now enabled with near-field communications technology that will make paying for groceries … Continue reading “Four to Watch in Mobile Payments: Google, Apple, Amazon, & PayPal”
Accelerator Gets New Chief Scientist, David McElligott
The Accelerator, the place that starts more biotech companies than any other outfit in Seattle, has had a changing of the scientific guard. David McElligott, the chief scientific officer at one of Accelerator’s portfolio companies, Groove Biopharma, has been promoted to the role of chief scientific officer at Accelerator. He replaces Pat Gray, who announced … Continue reading “Accelerator Gets New Chief Scientist, David McElligott”
Nokia and Microsoft Try to Woo New York Developers to Windows Phone 7
[A previous version of this story inferred that Fresh Digital Group developed the TVPyx app. Viafo created the app.] It is no secret that Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems dominate the smartphone realm. But Microsoft and phone maker Nokia are marching in lockstep together in a bid to disrupt the near duopoly of … Continue reading “Nokia and Microsoft Try to Woo New York Developers to Windows Phone 7”
Amylin Booms on Report it Rejected Bristol’s $3.5B Takeover Bid
San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMLN]]) saw its shares boom today after it reportedly turned down a $3.5 billion takeover bid from New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: [[ticker:BMY]]). Amylin shares rose 48 percent to $22.72 at Noon Eastern time today after Bloomberg News said Bristol privately bid $3.5 billion, or $22 a share, to acquire … Continue reading “Amylin Booms on Report it Rejected Bristol’s $3.5B Takeover Bid”
Sermo Taps Revolution Health Veteran Tim Davenport as CEO
Sermo, the Cambridge, MA-based provider of an online community of physicians, announced today that it has hired Tim Davenport as its new CEO. Davenport is the former president of Revolution Health, the consumer health website launched by AOL founder Steve Case and later merged with Everyday Health. Davenport also has experience as former CEO of … Continue reading “Sermo Taps Revolution Health Veteran Tim Davenport as CEO”
The Most Interesting Y Combinator Winter 2012 Startups
The signs that Y Combinator‘s winter 2012 demo day yesterday was going to be packed began with the traffic jam on the Highway 101 offramp in Mountain View. Simply turning left to cross the Shoreline Avenue overpass to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View took me about 25 minutes. By the time I arrived … Continue reading “The Most Interesting Y Combinator Winter 2012 Startups”
UpTo: The Social Calendar App That Learned From Plancast’s Missteps
Have you ever jumped online to check your Twitter feed only to see that your friend just posted a Foursquare check-in at a restaurant you left twenty minutes ago? And then been frustrated that you hadn’t known ahead of time that your friend was going to be dining in the same spot as you? After … Continue reading “UpTo: The Social Calendar App That Learned From Plancast’s Missteps”
On-Ramp Wireless, Learning From the Past, Says Its System Is Ready
San Diego’s On-Ramp Wireless was founded in 2008 to develop low-power, low data rate wireless networking technology. The idea was that such technology could be used to provide low-cost monitoring of electric power grids and similar infrastructure that extends across thousands of square miles. Now the company is ready to roll out its technology, including … Continue reading “On-Ramp Wireless, Learning From the Past, Says Its System Is Ready”
DynaTrace, Expanding Within Compuware, Looks to Drive Growth for a Giant
When a big tech company acquires a smaller one, there is some bloodletting to be expected—and the smaller company’s products often will get marginalized, if not axed completely. Not so for Waltham, MA-based dynaTrace Software, which is now part of Detroit software giant Compuware (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CPWR]]). Since the $256 million acquisition last July, Compuware has … Continue reading “DynaTrace, Expanding Within Compuware, Looks to Drive Growth for a Giant”
New York Social Game Makers Go Mobile to Grow in a Post-Zynga World
Online social games started out as popular distractions for the masses on Facebook. But these days how often do you actually play “Mafia Wars”? While some doubts have been raised by industry insiders about the early model for attracting players to social and casual games, a handful of companies in and around New York’s lesser … Continue reading “New York Social Game Makers Go Mobile to Grow in a Post-Zynga World”
Boston’s Deal News: Tracelytics, Tesaro, & A New Innovation Center
This week’s New England dealmakers included a venture capital firm, an e-commerce site, a biotech startup, software makers, and even the city of Boston. —Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners announced it had closed $200 million for its third investment fund, after three months of courting its limited partners. —Shoptiques, a New York-based fashion tech company whose … Continue reading “Boston’s Deal News: Tracelytics, Tesaro, & A New Innovation Center”
Affymax, Takeda Win Approval of Anemia Drug to Challenge Amgen
[Updated: 3:20 pm ET/12:20 pm PT] Affymax completed its surprising comeback today, as it won FDA clearance for its first marketed drug, a product for anemia that will be the first to rival a 23-year-old monopoly held by Amgen. Palo Alto, CA-based Affymax (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AFFY]]) and its partner Takeda Pharmaceuticals today won FDA approval of … Continue reading “Affymax, Takeda Win Approval of Anemia Drug to Challenge Amgen”
Theraclone’s Cliff Stocks Joins “Reinventing Biotech” Lineup Apr. 3
Theraclone Sciences was founded back in 2005, when biotech companies with hot platform technologies could sometimes be excused for thinking they could raise unlimited sums of venture capital. That’s certainly not true anymore, but Theraclone, an early stage antibody drug discovery shop, is still alive and kicking seven years later without raising limitless piles of … Continue reading “Theraclone’s Cliff Stocks Joins “Reinventing Biotech” Lineup Apr. 3″
Alliance of Angels: How Yi-Jian Ngo Sifts for Startup Gold
When he worked at Microsoft, Yi-Jian Ngo got to work on high-profile projects like the Windows Azure cloud-computing platform and the hosted version of Microsoft Office. But when he left Redmond to dive back into early stage companies, Ngo had to spend some time gaining a little on-the-ground experience. And so he found himself north … Continue reading “Alliance of Angels: How Yi-Jian Ngo Sifts for Startup Gold”
Just In Time for Tax Day, Task.fm Offers Instant Expertise
Turn back the clock to mid-April, 2011. The IRS deadline is approaching fast, and the founders of a Mountain View, CA-based startup called Task.fm are scrambling to finish their personal tax returns. “In true startup fashion, we did it at the last minute, and we had a couple of questions we couldn’t answer,” says co-founder … Continue reading “Just In Time for Tax Day, Task.fm Offers Instant Expertise”
CloudLock Nabs $8.7M for Cloud Security Tech
Last year, CloudLock CEO Gil Zimmermann told Xconomy about his decision to focus his business entirely on protecting company data shared in the cloud through services like Google Apps. Seems like it was a good move. Today the Waltham, MA-based company (FKA Aprigo) is announcing that it raised $8.7 million in Series B financing from … Continue reading “CloudLock Nabs $8.7M for Cloud Security Tech”
DecisionView Looks to Help Speed Up Pharma’s Painfully Slow Trials
For years, real-time analytics have helped people to see patterns in data about traffic, weather, and the stock market. The pharmaceutical industry has plenty of ways it could benefit from real-time data feedback, and one of the obvious ones is in finding bottlenecks that slow down patient enrollment in the clinical trials that cost the … Continue reading “DecisionView Looks to Help Speed Up Pharma’s Painfully Slow Trials”
Ad Tech Startup Visual IQ Adding NY Presence, Eyes Funding Round
Local startup Visual IQ‘s story begins with co-founder Manu Mathew’s frustrations as a marketer trying to understand how to best spend an advertising budget. He left his job managing the Boston office of the ad firm Carat to take “that marketer’s problem and turn it into a technology, data-driven solution,” he says. Visual IQ launched … Continue reading “Ad Tech Startup Visual IQ Adding NY Presence, Eyes Funding Round”
EcoCar 2 Competition Offers Students the Chance to Drive Future of Hybrid Cars
Students from 15 universities—including Wayne State University—are currently battling it out in the EcoCar 2 competition, which is sponsored by General Motors, the U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, and 20 other industry and government entities. It offers participants the chance to gain real-world automotive engineering skills as they strive to improve the fuel … Continue reading “EcoCar 2 Competition Offers Students the Chance to Drive Future of Hybrid Cars”
San Diego Tech Roundup: Flud, Verve, and a “Swiss Cheese” Job Market
Here’s the important technology news from the past week: —The latest jobless numbers for San Diego County remain unchanged—at 9.3 percent—from January to February, according to data released Friday by the California Employment Development Department. While unemployment in San Diego has declined from 10.2 percent a year ago, job creation is still anemic and the … Continue reading “San Diego Tech Roundup: Flud, Verve, and a “Swiss Cheese” Job Market”
The iPhone Before the Apple iPhone
Ask most people to tell you the story of the iPhone, and you’ll likely hear about how an innovative computer company took the traditional telephone, combined it with the Internet, and came up with an attractive and low-cost device that pioneered a new category of touch screen hardware, appealing not just to the tech savvy, … Continue reading “The iPhone Before the Apple iPhone”
PATH Names Former Tech Exec Steve Davis as New CEO
PATH has turned to Steve Davis, the well-known technology executive and global health leader, to be its new president and CEO. The Seattle-based global health nonprofit said today that Davis, the former CEO of digital image company Corbis and a global director at the consulting firm McKinsey, will replace Chris Elias in PATH’s top job … Continue reading “PATH Names Former Tech Exec Steve Davis as New CEO”
Ford Chooses Palo Alto as Site of New R&D Lab
In January, Ford Motor Company announced it would build its first-ever West Coast R&D center in Silicon Valley. On Friday, Ford announced it has chosen downtown Palo Alto as the place to build it. The new location will join research divisions already located in Dearborn, MI; Aachen, Germany; Nanjing, China; and Tel Aviv, Israel. In … Continue reading “Ford Chooses Palo Alto as Site of New R&D Lab”
Aveo’s Ha-Ngoc to Interview Third Rock’s Mark Levin at April 4 Forum
Mark Levin, co-founder of Boston’s Third Rock Ventures, is one of the nation’s premier life sciences investors. Tuan Ha-Ngoc, founder and CEO of Aveo Pharmaceuticals, is one of the country’s leading biotech executives. Now, we are pleased to announce, the two will come together on April 4, when Ha-Ngoc will moderate a keynote chat with … Continue reading “Aveo’s Ha-Ngoc to Interview Third Rock’s Mark Levin at April 4 Forum”
Covestor Looks to Disrupt Investment Industry with “Mirror” Marketplace
If you’ve got $50K or $500K to invest with a financial advisor, you might want to check out Covestor. And well, even if you don’t, the New York-based company tells a pretty interesting story of one effort to make the field of money management more transparent. Covestor has built an online marketplace for consumers to … Continue reading “Covestor Looks to Disrupt Investment Industry with “Mirror” Marketplace”
Some Tongue-in-Cheek Fantasy Baseball (and Biotech) Picks
Baseball season starts this week, which means it’s time for me to spend too much time and energy on fantasy baseball. This is a strange little hobby in which millions of people use a combination of real-time data, news, and intuition to pick an imaginary team of baseball players that they hope will beat the … Continue reading “Some Tongue-in-Cheek Fantasy Baseball (and Biotech) Picks”
Cloud Software Startup Opscode Adds $19.5M to Fuel Growth
More money is pouring into Seattle-area enterprise computing startups. Today’s exhibit is Opscode, a cloud-computing software provider that just scored $19.5 million in new venture financing. The funding round, led by Bellevue, WA’s Ignition Partners, will help Opscode grow its engineering team, which already has a branch office in Raleigh, NC. Previous investors Battery Ventures … Continue reading “Cloud Software Startup Opscode Adds $19.5M to Fuel Growth”
Computer Science Legend David Waltz, MIT and Columbia Vet, Dies at 68
David Waltz, a legend in computer science who made major contributions to artificial intelligence and information retrieval and has strong ties to the Boston and New York areas, has died at the age of 68 of brain cancer, according to the New York Times and other reports. Waltz was a veteran of the early Cambridge, … Continue reading “Computer Science Legend David Waltz, MIT and Columbia Vet, Dies at 68”
An Evangelist Makes the Case for Google+
Guy Kawasaki, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor who first rose to notoriety as chief evangelist for Apple back in the early days of the Macintosh, has found something new to evangelize. He’s just published an e-book about Google+ called What the Plus: Google+ for the Rest of Us. At a trim 180 pages, including … Continue reading “An Evangelist Makes the Case for Google+”
Glaxo and J&J’s Shrewd Move Will Help the Biotech Ecosystem
Index Ventures made news recently when it announced a new €150 million fund to invest in early-stage, life science companies. With many venture firms scaling back or exiting the business entirely, any successful fundraising is good news. However, two aspects made the announcement from Index particularly noteworthy: first, the fund is focused on early-stage innovation, … Continue reading “Glaxo and J&J’s Shrewd Move Will Help the Biotech Ecosystem”
Movies via USB Drive? Digiboo’s Download Kiosks Land in Seattle
We’re suddenly living in the age of the digital kiosk. If cashing in your coins or renting DVDs wasn’t enough, there’s now apparently a fancy-cupcake dispenser and a computerized coffee machine that spits out decent java. So it’s not much of a stretch for the people at Digiboo to think air travelers will want to … Continue reading “Movies via USB Drive? Digiboo’s Download Kiosks Land in Seattle”
Zipline’s Moai, Already Earning Revenue, Opens Up for More Devs
While the latest class of mobile, social, location-discovery hopefuls continues spelunking for actual users, the mobile gaming sector keeps plugging along and collecting, you know, revenue. Today’s example is Zipline Games, the Seattle-based startup that makes its own games, as well as the Moai game-development platform. Although it’s a young company, Zipline has already been … Continue reading “Zipline’s Moai, Already Earning Revenue, Opens Up for More Devs”
UCSD Proposes Innovator Space as Entrepreneurial Life Sciences Hub
Officials at UC San Diego are seeking to build a new “Center for Innovative Therapeutics” that would serve as a hub for a variety of academic research collaborations, as well as an incubator for accelerating private life sciences startups. University officials described their proposal for the first time at the end of an annual cancer … Continue reading “UCSD Proposes Innovator Space as Entrepreneurial Life Sciences Hub”
Life Sciences News: Slow-Growing Valuations & Merck/Ariad Drug
Funding news, FDA updates, and valuations data made up the New England life sciences news this week. —Waltham, MA-based Kala Pharmaceuticals is developing drugs with special coatings that break through the body’s thick mucus to treat conditions like cystic fibrosis and ocular disease. It just came out of a two-year-long stealth mode, announcing a $6.2 million … Continue reading “Life Sciences News: Slow-Growing Valuations & Merck/Ariad Drug”