Bor-Wen Wu says he had the North Star in mind in 2006 when he founded San Diego’s Polaris Group, a small holding company with a promising lead drug candidate for treating liver cancer, malignant melanoma, and other related cancers. As an explorer in science, Wu says, “I need a North Star to tell me where … Continue reading “San Diego’s Polaris Moves to Late-Stage Test of Drug for Liver Cancer and Other “Arginine-Dependant” Tumors”
Category: National
See You Tonight at “The Maker Revolution: From Workbench to Business”
When people talk about the barriers to entrepreneurship coming down, it doesn’t just apply to Internet startups anymore. These days, it’s getting easier and cheaper for any creative person to get access to the design software, machine tools, and other technology they need to turn their ideas for physical products into real businesses. Just look … Continue reading “See You Tonight at “The Maker Revolution: From Workbench to Business””
Seattle Biomed Nabs $9M Gates Foundation Grant to Speed Up Malaria Vaccine Effort
Seattle Biomed isn’t wasting any time putting the whole systems biology idea to work. The nonprofit global health research center is announcing today it has nailed down an $8.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to use systems biology techniques to identify new biomarkers that could become building blocks for a new … Continue reading “Seattle Biomed Nabs $9M Gates Foundation Grant to Speed Up Malaria Vaccine Effort”
NYU-Poly Varick Street Incubator Taps Into Student Talent and Helps Startups Grow Up
While working in technology transfer and in the Brooklyn-based incubator at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Bruce Niswander says he saw a disconnect between the “high supply of talented, energetic students,” and hiring struggles at startup companies. “One of biggest challenges for a small business is identifying talent that’s affordable and available,” says … Continue reading “NYU-Poly Varick Street Incubator Taps Into Student Talent and Helps Startups Grow Up”
KEW, Led by Millennium Co-Founder, Seeks to Bring Big-Time Cancer Care to Community Clinics
A new cancer care startup called KEW Group has been quietly operating in the Boston area and entered advanced talks to raise a sizable amount from venture investors. With an ensemble cast of founders from Harvard and elsewhere, KEW plans to provide community oncology clinics with information technology-supported services to make evidence-based medicine, such as … Continue reading “KEW, Led by Millennium Co-Founder, Seeks to Bring Big-Time Cancer Care to Community Clinics”
Immune Design, Developer of New Vaccines, Adds Former Elan President as New CEO
Immune Design aspires to become a bigger company, and now it has recruited a CEO from a bigger company. The Seattle-based vaccine developer is announcing today that its new chief executive is Carlos Paya, the former president of Elan, the Ireland-based biotech company which has significant operations in South San Francisco. Paya is replacing Immune … Continue reading “Immune Design, Developer of New Vaccines, Adds Former Elan President as New CEO”
eBay Acquires Where, Bluebird Calls In $30M, Humedica Gets $20M, & More Boston-Area Deals News
EBay’s $135 million acquisition of the mobile startup Where took the spotlight this week, but we also saw headlines of financings for New England-area firms in the IT, cleantech, and life sciences spaces. —Cambridge, MA-based Bluebird Bio pulled in $30 million in Series C financing from new investor ARCH Venture Partners and existing backers Third … Continue reading “eBay Acquires Where, Bluebird Calls In $30M, Humedica Gets $20M, & More Boston-Area Deals News”
Social vs. Manufacturing: Differences in American and Scandinavian Startup Culture
Are Americans more social and Scandinavians more interested in making things? These questions came to my mind when we recently compiled our annual list of Sweden’s 33 most innovative startups at Ny Teknik, a Swedish weekly magazine covering business, technology and science news. The companies in the finished list, as well as those (several hundred) … Continue reading “Social vs. Manufacturing: Differences in American and Scandinavian Startup Culture”
The 5min Story in 5 Minutes, As Told By Spark Capital’s Alex Finkelstein
Got five minutes? Here’s an eye-opening example of how markets are analyzed, how VC deals are won, how startups are built—and a little bit about what might have been. New York-based 5min Media, a video syndication company, started in 2007 as a portal for how-to videos, and became a top video-content aggregator before getting bought … Continue reading “The 5min Story in 5 Minutes, As Told By Spark Capital’s Alex Finkelstein”
MK Capital Receives First Commitment From $120M Venture Michigan Fund II
Venture Michigan Fund II, a $120 million state-financed limited partnership designed to stimulate early stage venture capital, said Tuesday it will commit an unspecified amount of dollars to MK Capital. MK Capital, the Chicago-based venture firm which specializes in digital media, software, and education technology, is the first venture firm to receive money from the … Continue reading “MK Capital Receives First Commitment From $120M Venture Michigan Fund II”
KQED Takes a Technological Step Toward Killing the On-Air Pledge Drive
If you’re a loyal public radio listener like me, you understand the special torture of pledge drive season. You grumble as your favorite shows get interrupted several times per hour by announcers pleading for your cash (the difficulty being that they may actually need it more than ever, if GOP efforts to strip NPR’s federal … Continue reading “KQED Takes a Technological Step Toward Killing the On-Air Pledge Drive”
Al Gore’s Favorite Waste-to-Energy Company On Deck for Xconomy May 19 Event
Poke around a little bit here on the West Coast, and you can find some fascinating people working on big alternative fuel ideas that are below the public radar. You’d never know it, but one of the brains behind one of Al Gore’s favorite alternative fuel companies is right here in Seattle, and will be … Continue reading “Al Gore’s Favorite Waste-to-Energy Company On Deck for Xconomy May 19 Event”
From Crowdfunding to Jobs? IndieGoGo Seeks to Boost Startup America By Corraling Small Investments
The Startup America Partnership wants to make sure the little guy doesn’t get forgotten. That’s why San Francisco-based IndieGoGo turned up on a new list of companies contributing to the high-profile national job creation initiative last week. One of the first “crowdfunding” platforms, IndieGoGo helps individuals and organizations raise non-equity funding for their projects online. … Continue reading “From Crowdfunding to Jobs? IndieGoGo Seeks to Boost Startup America By Corraling Small Investments”
Service-Now Names Software Industry Veteran Frank Slootman as CEO
When I met in January with Service-now.com founding CEO Fred Luddy, he said the company that provides software-as-a-service for IT management has enough momentum to carry it through an IPO. Today, if I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, the San Diego company took an important preliminary step in that process by naming Bay Area software … Continue reading “Service-Now Names Software Industry Veteran Frank Slootman as CEO”
OrganizedWisdom Recruits Experts to Filter Health Information on the Web
When I met OrganizedWisdom co-founder Unity Stoakes for lunch on April 22, he had been awake for 40 hours, embroiled in a manic effort to recover from a massive Amazon cloud breakdown the day before, which nearly brought his site to a standstill. OrganizedWisdom is a health-information aggregator in New York that relies on cloud-computing … Continue reading “OrganizedWisdom Recruits Experts to Filter Health Information on the Web”
FDA Says Vertex Drug a Wee Bit More Effective Than Advertised; Stock Climbs
The FDA often finds a few flies in the ointment when it digs through new drug applications, but in the case of Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VRTX]]), its new hepatitis C drug looks a bit better under close scrutiny. Shares of Vertex climbed more than 10 percent after FDA briefing documents on the new … Continue reading “FDA Says Vertex Drug a Wee Bit More Effective Than Advertised; Stock Climbs”
Sean Tunis, Former Medicare Guru, on What Biotechies Gotta Do the Next Five Years
There are a lot of biotech entrepreneurs out there who are living by yesterday’s rules. The idea was you really had to design and execute a bang-up clinical trial for your new drug or device, win FDA approval, market the heck out of it, and count the money. If that sounds like your idea of … Continue reading “Sean Tunis, Former Medicare Guru, on What Biotechies Gotta Do the Next Five Years”
Joi Ito Will Put MIT Media Lab Back on World Stage, Says Maes-Watch for Hiring Binge
The overnight consensus from the twittersphere is that Joichi Ito—a globetrotting Internet entrepreneur, investor, activist, and blogger with few academic credentials—was a daring and unconventional choice to lead the 26-year-old MIT Media Lab. And that, says search committee leader Pattie Maes, is exactly the effect the lab wanted to achieve. The Media Lab “has always … Continue reading “Joi Ito Will Put MIT Media Lab Back on World Stage, Says Maes-Watch for Hiring Binge”
Amazon’s Cloud Crash, Under-the-Radar Inventions, Zillow’s Trend-Setting IPO, & More in the Seattle-Area Tech Roundup
As we dive into a new week in Seattle, Amazon Web Services‘ big cloud computing crash is still reverberating. The server-farm failure took out countless small sites and apps that rely on Amazon’s (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMZN]]) market-leading service, and the company got low marks for its communication while attempting to fix the problem over several days. … Continue reading “Amazon’s Cloud Crash, Under-the-Radar Inventions, Zillow’s Trend-Setting IPO, & More in the Seattle-Area Tech Roundup”
Zapoint Charting Out “Skills Maps” of 300 Big Companies
Zapoint, a Cambridge, MA-based maker of career management software, is taking an unusual approach to getting the attention of HR departments. The company announced last month that it is compiling the data generated by social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to put together what it calls “skills maps” of the workforces at roughly 300 … Continue reading “Zapoint Charting Out “Skills Maps” of 300 Big Companies”
Joi Ito Named to Take Over MIT Media Lab
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology news office has confirmed a New York Times scoop today revealing that ubiquitous technology entrepreneur Joichi “Joi” Ito has been named the next director of the MIT Media Lab—an institution famed for giving its industry sponsors, and the outside world, a perpetual window into the future of computing and communications. … Continue reading “Joi Ito Named to Take Over MIT Media Lab”
Paul Allen, the Quiet Billionaire with Fingerprints All Over Seattle, Shows the Hometown Crowd a Bit of Himself
Even in his hometown, Paul Allen can seem like an enigma. His influence is everywhere, from sports teams to politics to real estate development. But because of his famously private ways, Allen is only occasionally seen and very rarely heard. That made last Friday’s long public interview at Town Hall an interesting event. It was … Continue reading “Paul Allen, the Quiet Billionaire with Fingerprints All Over Seattle, Shows the Hometown Crowd a Bit of Himself”
Serial Entrepreneur Jeff Williams To Lead Life Magnetics
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Arboretum Ventures in Ann Arbor, MI, is once again teaming up with serial CEO Jeff Williams to try to spin a University of Michigan-bred company into investor gold. This time Williams will lead Life Magnetics, a startup developing a desktop diagnostic device that uses disposable cartridges to rapidly … Continue reading “Serial Entrepreneur Jeff Williams To Lead Life Magnetics”
San Diego’s Q1 VC Activity Might Not Be So Bad After All
The MoneyTree snapshot of first-quarter venture activity that we reported 10 days ago showed a dire decline in venture investments in the San Diego region so far this year. But the local picture looks a lot better in data for the same period that came in recently from Dow Jones VentureSource. The information from Dow … Continue reading “San Diego’s Q1 VC Activity Might Not Be So Bad After All”
Arbor Photonics Raises $200,000 In Follow On Financing
Arbor Photonics has raised $200,000 from the sale of equity, according to SEC documents. The University of Michigan spinoff, based in Ann Arbor, MI, is seeking a total of $617,153 in follow-on financing, the documents say. Investors include RPM Ventures, the university’s Frankel Commercialization Fund, and Michigan’s 21st Century Job Fund, according to RPM Ventures … Continue reading “Arbor Photonics Raises $200,000 In Follow On Financing”
HealthTap, Qwiki, Bo.lt: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
Last week saw an unusual number of acquisitions and several interesting company launches in the San Francisco / Silicon Valley corridor. —San Francisco-based HealthTap opened its health information site to the public. Focused initially on pregnant women and new moms, the site is designed to provide users with personalized health tips and background information on … Continue reading “HealthTap, Qwiki, Bo.lt: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
The m-Qube Mafia: Mobile Execs Lead Efforts at BuyWithMe, Clovr Media, Paydiant, and More
Silicon Valley has the PayPal mafia. Seattle has the Qpass mafia. Boston, for its part, has many interesting and influential tech company/family trees—DEC, PTC, and iRobot come to mind—but one of the more underrated ones is the m-Qube mafia. For those who don’t know, m-Qube is the Boston-area mobile marketing and applications company that started … Continue reading “The m-Qube Mafia: Mobile Execs Lead Efforts at BuyWithMe, Clovr Media, Paydiant, and More”
“Ready or Not,” Greentown Labs Startups to Move In This Week, With $75K for Retooling Boston Space
It’s moving week for the companies launching Greentown Labs, the new cleantech incubator in the seaport area dubbed Boston’s “Innovation District” by Mayor Tom Menino. The space at 337 Summer Street still looks more or less like a construction site, but the companies helping to get the incubator off the ground will be moving in … Continue reading ““Ready or Not,” Greentown Labs Startups to Move In This Week, With $75K for Retooling Boston Space”
Smartphone Demand Powers Qualcomm Results, Soitec Makes Case for Solar Project, West Wireless Recasts Its Mission, & More San Diego BizTech News
The director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center says digital information is increasing exponentially, which is helping to fuel demand for smartphones and tablet computers, and that is driving Qualcomm’s financial performance. We’ve got a week’s worth of details for you here. —San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) is on a phenomenal tear. Driven by increased … Continue reading “Smartphone Demand Powers Qualcomm Results, Soitec Makes Case for Solar Project, West Wireless Recasts Its Mission, & More San Diego BizTech News”
Fashion Site Gilt Looks Beyond Discounted “Flash Sales” and Embraces the Upscale Men’s Market
The founders of fashion e-tailer Gilt Groupe, Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and Alexis Maybank, are quite aware that they have competitors popping up on the Web all the time. (Last week, Xconomy New York identified seven other fashion-related Web startups in New York City alone.) But the inventors of the fast-growing Gilt believe they can stay … Continue reading “Fashion Site Gilt Looks Beyond Discounted “Flash Sales” and Embraces the Upscale Men’s Market”
New York: The Next Innovation Hub
New York has long been synonymous with Wall Street, Madison Avenue and the Garment District, flagship markets for the city’s economic lifeblood that attracts an endless and competitive pool of talent to fuel its growth. When it comes to technology and innovation on the other hand, most entrepreneurs and startup companies have historically turned their … Continue reading “New York: The Next Innovation Hub”
Vertex, Merck Step Up to the Public Stage With Hepatitis C Drugs This Week
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is heading down the home stretch in its bid to transform treatment of hepatitis C, and this week the public will get an up-close look at the risks and benefits of its drug that could change the standard of care for millions of people. Cambridge, MA-based Vertex (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VRTX]]) will have its big … Continue reading “Vertex, Merck Step Up to the Public Stage With Hepatitis C Drugs This Week”
VCs Turn Up The Heat on FDA to Get Faster, More Predictable
The FDA felt the heat in the 1990s when AIDS activists marched in the streets, shouting about how bureaucratic foot-dragging meant that patients died while waiting for approvals of experimental drugs. The FDA listened. It started clearing more new drugs for sale, and completing safety and effectiveness reviews faster than before. Now it’s venture capitalists, … Continue reading “VCs Turn Up The Heat on FDA to Get Faster, More Predictable”
Things Fall Apart: Amazon’s Epic Cloud Failure Reveals Shortsightedness by Some Other Well-Known Tech Companies
As this week’s massive failure of Amazon Web Services cloud-computing infrastructure continued to roil the Web today, a few things were sadly clear. Perhaps most striking of all: Major service providers and websites—companies with enough money and talent to avoid the problem—didn’t spend nearly enough energy planning for the inevitability of a breakdown. Yes, it’s … Continue reading “Things Fall Apart: Amazon’s Epic Cloud Failure Reveals Shortsightedness by Some Other Well-Known Tech Companies”
Xconomy’s Michigan 2031 Forum: The Juice Is Worth The Squeeze
What’s the best way to snap a state out of a post-industrial, Rust Belt funk? Get together about a dozen of your smartest and most successful friends and neighbors and ask them to envision a vibrant high tech economy twenty years into the future. That’s exactly what Xconomy did last week with Michigan 2031, our … Continue reading “Xconomy’s Michigan 2031 Forum: The Juice Is Worth The Squeeze”
Scientists Must Change Their Culture to Bring About Better Healthcare
What do science, culture, and policy have in common? In order to improve the quality and affordability of health care, all three have to change. This message is central to Sage Bionetworks‘ mission and the theme from this year’s Sage Commons Congress held April 15th and 16th in San Francisco. What’s the problem? Biology is … Continue reading “Scientists Must Change Their Culture to Bring About Better Healthcare”
BayBio’s Annual Conference, Tweet by Tweet
Most biotechies haven’t yet embraced the whole Twitter thing like techies, but I’m starting to see more curiosity in life sciences. I saw it this week, as I experimented by writing about the BayBio annual conference entirely through tweeting. Twitter, for the skeptics out there, is actually a lot more than a silly place to … Continue reading “BayBio’s Annual Conference, Tweet by Tweet”
Zillow’s IPO: As the Market Comes Back to Life, Is this Deal the Bellwether of a New Boom?
Trying to read too much significance into any single event in business can be a dicey proposition. But when we’re talking about a well-known Seattle tech company IPO—something the innovation community here hasn’t seen in quite a while—it’s worth chewing over what the development could say about the months and years ahead. The IPO filing … Continue reading “Zillow’s IPO: As the Market Comes Back to Life, Is this Deal the Bellwether of a New Boom?”
Join Me for an Evening with Microsoft’s Qi Lu on the Future of the Web, May 11
Meet Dr. Qi Lu (see photo, right). I have met him before, but it was at a backyard barbecue, and I didn’t want to grill the man about the future of search and the Web in that setting. But this is different. Lu, the president of Microsoft’s online services division (his first name is pronounced … Continue reading “Join Me for an Evening with Microsoft’s Qi Lu on the Future of the Web, May 11”
Could a Game Be the Answer to Your E-mail Woes?
E-mail is the great savior and scourge of our time. We couldn’t get much done without it. Yet as regular readers know, I have an ongoing feud with my inbox. I’ve declared e-mail bankruptcy (twice), I’ve adopted tools like Taskforce that help turn e-mails into to-do list items, and I’ve tried filtering options like Gmail’s … Continue reading “Could a Game Be the Answer to Your E-mail Woes?”
Planting Seeds for Massachusetts’ Future
Massachusetts has a long, honorable history of proactively investing in its own long-term economic success. A great example occurred 150 years ago this month, when the Massachusetts legislature funded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), creating one of the nation’s first land grant colleges. In 1861, Governor John Andrews and the legislature likely did not … Continue reading “Planting Seeds for Massachusetts’ Future”
Ariad Extends Licenses, Amgen Osteoporosis Drug Meets Trial Goals, Corindus Partners with Philips, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News
Big name biotechs in New England made news this week with revenue reports, clinical results, and news on licensing agreements. —Cambridge, MA-based Ariad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAD: [[ticker:ARIA]]) said it extended licenses to its cell-signaling regulation technology to three groups, each of which will use it for different purposes: Houston, TX Bellicum Pharmaceuticals (experimental cancer vaccine and cell therapies), … Continue reading “Ariad Extends Licenses, Amgen Osteoporosis Drug Meets Trial Goals, Corindus Partners with Philips, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News”
Former Pfizer R&D Chief Urges Big Pharma To Go Small
Dr. Peter Corr thinks the business model that underpinned Big Pharma for years is irrevocably broken. And he should know. Dr. Corr, a former global research and development chief for Pfizer, witnessed firsthand how big corporations approached product development, which, he says, was not particularly impressive. In fact, it was downright dysfunctional, Dr. Corr says. … Continue reading “Former Pfizer R&D Chief Urges Big Pharma To Go Small”
Please Don’t Go! Microsoft Boosting Pay Across Company After Watching Silicon Valley Encroach on Its Turf and Talent
Looks like Microsoft is officially tired of having people poached by the Silicon Valley raiders setting up shop in its backyard. CEO Steve Ballmer’s new memo on employee compensation changes, in wide circulation this morning, looks somewhat like the Redmond, WA-based software giant’s version of Google’s abrupt companywide raise-and-bonus combo of late last year. Microsoft … Continue reading “Please Don’t Go! Microsoft Boosting Pay Across Company After Watching Silicon Valley Encroach on Its Turf and Talent”
The Lean LaunchPad at Stanford—Class 6: Channel Hypotheses
The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment with a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. With two weeks and two more updates to go, this post is part six. Parts one through five are here, Syllabus is here. While we’ve been pushing hard on the teams, this week the teaching team was about to … Continue reading “The Lean LaunchPad at Stanford—Class 6: Channel Hypotheses”
Social Shopping Sites Storm NYC, Offering Everything From Indian Goods to Makeup
On Monday, I wrote about three new websites that are part of a plethora of online fashion-based startups in New York City. A Forrester analyst described the phenomenon using the dreaded “B” word: “bubble.” Here’s a list of all the companies I’ve found in NYC. Let me know if I missed any, and if you … Continue reading “Social Shopping Sites Storm NYC, Offering Everything From Indian Goods to Makeup”
West Wireless Repositions Itself as an Impartial Arbiter, Amylin Makes Headway in Europe, VCs Debate Viability of Venture-Backed Biotech, & More San Diego Life Sciences News
While overall venture funding in San Diego was off dramatically during the first quarter, three life sciences deals disclosed last week suggest that a turnaround is underway. We’ve got those details and more. —By making a few management changes, shedding some commercial initiatives, and distancing itself from Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]), San Diego’s West Wireless Health … Continue reading “West Wireless Repositions Itself as an Impartial Arbiter, Amylin Makes Headway in Europe, VCs Debate Viability of Venture-Backed Biotech, & More San Diego Life Sciences News”
Bo.lt Lets Anyone Clone and Rewrite Web Pages; The Elephant in the Room is Copyright
From its beginning, the World Wide Web has been a deliberately transparent, copyable medium. I’m not just talking about the fact that it’s easy to copy and paste text or images from a website; in almost every browser since Mosaic, users have also had the ability to click the “view source” menu item to see … Continue reading “Bo.lt Lets Anyone Clone and Rewrite Web Pages; The Elephant in the Room is Copyright”
Biogen Shares Jump on Good News on Revenue, Oral MS Drug
Biogen Idec’s (NASDAQ:[[ticker:BIIB]]) stock price is soaring this morning after the Weston, MA-based biotech company reported a bump in first quarter revenue and new details about a successful late-stage clinical trials for its oral multiple sclerosis drug. Shares of Biogen were up more than 22 percent to $105.83 as of 10:23 am Eastern time. The … Continue reading “Biogen Shares Jump on Good News on Revenue, Oral MS Drug”
It’s So Easy, a Fourth Grader Can Do It: Wiggio 2.0 Collaboration Software Aims to Take on SharePoint, Basecamp, Dropbox, & More
Boston entrepreneur Dana Lampert says he tests every new feature for his collaboration software, Wiggio, in a fourth-grade classroom. “If they can’t do it, we don’t put it out,” he says. “We’re kind of the anti-SharePoint [Microsoft], the anti-Wave [Google]. We don’t want to just add bells and whistles. We really focus on user experience.” … Continue reading “It’s So Easy, a Fourth Grader Can Do It: Wiggio 2.0 Collaboration Software Aims to Take on SharePoint, Basecamp, Dropbox, & More”