Cleveland/Northeast Ohio : Innovation + Job News

For SMART Commercialization Center, MEMS the Word

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Look out, Silicon Valley! One day Lorain County could be the MEMS capitol of the world, thanks to the new SMART Commercialization Center for Microsystems on the campus of Lorain County Community College (LCCC).

MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) employ mechanical and electrical properties that can measure or actuate a response that is easily managed by conventional electronics.

The Richard Desich SMART center -- named for the Lorain native, serial entrepreneur and philanthropist -- is a multi-user, shared-source facility for commercializing sensor products, including packaging, reliability testing and inspection of Microsystems and sensors.

Scheduled to open in January of 2013, the center will offer business opportunities and job creation in high-growth industries, as well as training for LCCC students. Worldwide, MEMS constitutes a $100-billion industry. Sensors and the Microsystems incorporating them enable technology in the biomedical, alternative energy, manufacturing, aerospace and defense industries.

The center is the result of economic development initiatives and partnerships, including GLIDE, which was created by the Lorain County Commissioners, Lorain County Chamber and LCCC, and the Innovation Fund. Last fall the college received a $5.5 million Ohio Third Frontier grant through Cleveland State University’s Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering.

“The college [LCCC] created something called GLIDE, the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise, which is a suite of services for small businesses and startups . . . In the high-tech sector you often get people with great ideas who lack the business savvy to wrap the correct structure around those ideas,” says Daniel Ereditario; operations coordinator for the SMART Center.

The three-story, 46,000-square-foot facility will offer class 100, class 1,000 and class 10,000 clean rooms, general lab space and customer incubation areas. It will be connected to LCCC’s Entrepreneurship Innovation Center.

So far, fifteen companies have plans to utilize the center.

Source: Daniel Ereditario; Operations Coordinator
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Federal grants for energy, flexible electronics, could lead to more than 600 jobs in northeast Ohio

Thursday, October 06, 2011

An economic development collaboration in northeast Ohio hopes that more than $2 million in federal grants will help it create more than 600 jobs in northeast Ohio during the next four years.

NorTech, along with Lorain County Community College, JumpStart and MAGNET will work together as one of 20 high growth industry clusters selected by the Obama administration’s Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge.

The Ohio collaboration is intended to accelerate the speed to market for near-production or pilot-production prototypes in the advanced energy and flexible electronics industries. Flexible electronics includes functional films and inks, liquid crystal devices and displays, printed batteries and sensors, OLED lighting and organic photovoltaics.

Rebecca Bagley, President and CEO of NorTech – a regional nonprofit technology-based economic development organization that serves 21 counties in northeast Ohio – says the project will benefit not only her region, but the nation.

“Our national economy is made up of the interconnection of regions across the country,” she says. “This really helps accelerate some important industry areas in northeast Ohio, which then ultimately accelerates growth of the nation.”

The number of northeast Ohio companies in the cluster are growing, with 46 organizations counted within advanced energy and 28 in flexible electronics, says Karen Allport, NorTech’s VP of strategic outreach.

“This represents members of the cluster – that is, companies with which NorTech has a close relationship and are actively engaged in building the clusters in Northeast Ohio. There are many more organizations in these industries but we do not define them as members of the cluster, yet. Our job is to attract them to become a member of the cluster.”

The Ohio partnership, which was selected from among 125 applicants nationally, expects to add 630 jobs, more than $40 million in annual payroll and $38 million in capital attracted during the next four years, Allport says.

Funding to support the Ohio initiative comes from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration and the Small Business Administration.

Sources: Rebecca Bagley and Karen Allport, NorTech
Writer: Gene Monteith

Third Frontier funding helps company increase donor kidney odds, cleveland jobs

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Quality Electrodynamics (QED) was one of the local recipients of Ohio Third Frontier funding for the development of an imaging system that will improve the way doctors evaluate whether a kidney is viable for donation.

The Cleveland-based company, working with the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological Institute, CWRU, Toshiba Medical Systems and Canon, received $1 million for the development of specialty MRI coils for imaging donor kidneys before transplant to determine viability.

Currently, potentially viable kidneys are sometimes rejected for transplant, or there are complications after transplant. This technology will improve the chances of success as well as reduce the number of kidneys that are thrown away.

“The program will result in a turnkey system of equipment, analysis software and clinical protocols which will be marketed to transplant centers on a worldwide basis,” says John L. Patrick, chief technical marketing officer for QED.

“Recipients of kidneys from deceased donors would benefit in several ways: Higher confidence level that the transplanted kidney can be viable and better knowledge of its condition; increase of transplanted kidneys by reducing the number of viable kidneys discarded will increase the number of patients able to benefit from transplantation.”

Patrick says the technology should be on the market in less than two years, depending on how clinical trials go. QED expects to begin hiring additional people for development of the technology in the next few months.

“In the proposal we stated that 38 jobs would be created at QED within 3 years,” says Patrick. “In fact, we believe that number to be quite conservative.”

Source: John L. Patrick
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story originally appeared in sister publication Fresh Water Cleveland.

Echogen: Turning smokestacks into power plants

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Picture the belching smokestack of a steel mill releasing heat waste into the air. Harnessing and converting that into usable energy is becoming a reality, thanks to the new Thermafficient Waste Heat Recovery Engine developed by Akron’s Echogen Power Systems.

Echogen views the engine as a game changer for steel mills, power companies and other industries that require a lot of electricity.

Echogen’s first engine, which can produce 250 kilowatts of electricity from a given heat source, was built in Lebanon, Ohio, and is in final testing stage at American Electric Power’s research center in Columbus.

“We’re moving it to another facility, this time in Akron, for a long-term endurance trial in a true industrial setting,” explains Mark Terzola, Echogen’s chief operating officer.

Echogen is currently building a much stronger engine, able to produce six to eight mega watts of electricity, according to Terzola. “We’re in late-term negotiations with potential industrial partners who need this kind of engine,” he says.

Echogen recently caught the eye of the Dresser-Rand Group, Inc., of Houston, which makes rotating industrial equipment. Dresser-Rand has invested $10 million in Echogen in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the company and will provide turbines and other parts for Echogen’s future engines.

“Dresser-Rand is the exclusive licensee for our engines to the oil and gas industry,” Terzola notes. Echogen also plans to manufacture smaller engines for companies that produce less heat waste, such as ceramics companies and glass makers.

On another front, California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory also contacted Echogen. Berkeley Lab hopes to be the first in the world to produce electricity from the earth’s heat using hydrogen and to store some of it underground, where it won’t contribute to climate change. Echogen is designing a special turbine for the project, according to Terzola. The project, which will unfold over about three years, has received $5 million of underwriting from the Department of Energy. EchoGen has received additional support from JumpStart and the Ohio Third Frontier.

““We’re only at the tip of the iceberg for this technology,” Terzola explains. “We have an outstanding team of engineers we’ve recruited from world-class organizations, and the technology we’re working with has tremendous future opportunity.”

Echogen currently has 25 employees and plans to have nearly 50 by the end of 2012.

“The early capital we received through the Ohio Third Frontier enabled us to leverage it for immediate growth that provided us with a foundation for long-term success,” he notes.

Source: Mark Terzola, Echogen Power Systems
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Fathom attributes growth to building customer revenues

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Near the end of the telephone interview, Fathom CEO Scot Lowry stops in mid-sentence.

“Sorry,” he explains. “The reason I just hesitated is that we have a gong in our big training room, and every time we get a new customer, somebody rings it. Somebody just rang it.”

By all indications, that gong has been going off regularly. The Valley View online marketing firm, which traces its roots to 1997, was named the second fastest-growing company in Cleveland in 2010, based on 2009 revenues, by the Weatherhead 100.

Lowry says that growth has come because Fathom gives customers what many online marketing firms do not: a clear indication of how marketing solutions result in revenue and return on investment.

Fathom, on the other hand, tracks both and reports it to the client. At the top of Fathom’s home page is a line that keeps a running tally of how much revenue Fathom has generated for its customers. As of Sept. 7, the year-to-date total was $147,243,733.

“Most of the companies that come to us don’t know how to turn the online channel into revenue,” Lowry says. Further, he says, most online marketing companies don’t know how to translate what they do in terms of revenue to the customer.
Instead, they tend to focus on SEO (search engine optimization) or traffic to web pages -- which Lowry says is not an indication of how many deals resulted or how many sales were made.

Fathom grew from a small web development firm called Vendor Tech, which eventually merged with IT consulting firm Fathom IT in 2004. The next year, after e-mail distribution and pay-per-click management services were added, the company spun off Fathom SEO. In 2006, Fathom SEO added video production and marketing services and built a recording studio.

As a comprehensive online marketing firm, the SEO tag no longer defined the company, Lowry says.

“Today we have an incredibly powerful array of capabilities, and we dropped SEO from the company name because of that,” he says. “And we’ve been in the process of communicating to the world that SEO isn’t enough. You’ve got to look at a complete matrix approach at using all forms of online (marketing). And that isn’t based on what we have, it’s based on what the client needs.”

The flagship product is called Your Top Salesperson, described as a “complete, fully customizable online marketing service that delivers results that matter to your business.”

Employment has followed revenues. With only 20 employees five years ago, the company now has 130 -- 20 of them coming from the recent acquisition of Columbus-based Webbed Marketing, which provides complementary services and has deep expertise in social media.

Lowry says Fathom is hiring, with 12 open spots at present.

Source: Scot Lowry, Fathom
Writer: Gene Monteith

LeanDog's lean, agile tools build customer base, 1000 percent growth

Thursday, September 08, 2011

LeanDog has taken lean practices well beyond the manufacturing realm, where techniques like Kaizen originally made their mark. Today, the Cleveland firm, which helps organizations in virtually every industry take waste out of their IT operations, has hit its stride, growing sales more than 1000 percent since 2007 and landing at 311 on Inc.’s annual list of America’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies.

CEO and founder John Stahl says what his firm of 36 employees does is promote “culture change.”

“We teach them (clients) how to fish,” he says, “by helping them build a lean and agile culture.”

The fishing analogy seems appropriate, given that LeanDog is housed on a boat in downtown Cleveland -- right next to a mothballed WWII submarine (the U.S.S. Cod).

Stahl and co-founder Jeff Morgan learned about agile software development after years of serving a variety of IT organizations, Stahl says. Helping organizations streamline their operations has spurred happy customers to increasingly seek software development services from LeanDog, contributing to revenues that Inc. reported at $2.5 million last year, up from $214,801 in 2007.

Stahl says LeanDog’s hallmarks are “extreme transparency and a personal brand,” noting that his firm does no advertising.

Meanwhile, Stahl says the company is helping fuel the Cleveland startup scene by hosting Startup Weekend and Cleveland GiveCamp, in which IT professionals develop software for charities during a 72-hour period.

The company has plans to expand its Columbus operations in the near future -- it currently has eight employees there -- as well as possibly adding offices in Pittsburgh and Salt Lake city.

Stahl says his company is hiring, with 20 to 30 open spots currently.

Source: John Stahl, LeanDog
Writer: Gene Monteith

More than 300 expected at first Advanced Energy B2B Conference and Expo

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Ohio may not have the sunshine or constant wind found elsewhere, but there's no doubt about it. Advanced and alternative energy is becoming a big deal in Ohio.

The growth of the industry is the catalyst for Nortech's first ever Advanced Energy B2B Conference and Expo Sept. 14 and 15 in downtown Akron, says Karen Allport, vice president of strategic outreach for the tech-based economic development organization serving northeast Ohio.

“Ohio has a very strong manufacturing base, innovative research facilities and a highly skilled workforce,” she explains. “In fact, we have more than 400 organizations, large and small, engaged in advanced energy research and manufacturing.”

Ohio leads the Great Lakes in offshore wind development, with wind farms throughout the state. Major studies are being conducted on fuel cells and photovoltaics, and Northeast Ohio is teeming with top-notch national and international manufacturers and research institutions.

Allport ticks off names of some Ohio companies involved in advanced energy.

“FirstEnergy is the nation’s fifth-largest investor owned electric utility,” Allport points out. Others include Eaton Corp., Lincoln Electric, Babcock & Wilcox, Cliffs Natural Resources, GE Lighting, Parker Hannifin, and the Timken Company, she notes. She also mentions ongoing energy research at Kent State University, the University of Akron, and Case Western Reserve University.

Consider this: Ohio is fourth in the country in the number of clean energy jobs, with 35,267 employees working in the state’s advanced energy industries. Ohio is sixth in the nation in number of clean technology businesses, for a total of 2,513 clean energy companies. We’re also seventh nationwide in the total number of clean energy patents filed -- 309 patents over the past decade.

There’s an international component to the Advanced Energy B2B Conference and Expo as well, according to Allport.

“We have a mayor’s association involved whose members want to showcase advanced energy activities in their communities, so they’re in touch with groups in India and Great Britain to generate interest in collaboration,” she explains. “Our overall goal with this energy conference and expo is to provide programs and exhibits that drive opportunities for commercial activities,” Allport notes.

With more than 300 people from all over Ohio and nationwide expected to attend and all 70 exhibit spaces already sold out for the upcoming conference, perhaps the combination of advanced energy + the state of Ohio will finally gets its due.

Source: Karen Allport, Nortech
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Heartlab's $18.4-million financing paves the way for faster growth

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Cleveland HeartLab is moving quickly in the prevention and detection of cardiovascular disease. The company, spun off from the Cleveland Clinic in 2009, is a clinical laboratory and disease management startup that has developed a series of diagnostic tests for determining the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The company, which has grown from eight to 80 employees in two years, just completed an $18.4 million Series B financing round with Excel Venture Management and HealthCare Ventures, both out of Boston.

The investment will allow Cleveland HeartLab to expand -- both in employees and market acceptance. In addition to its current offerings, the company plans to introduce additional diagnostic tests in 2012. "The goal is to eliminate the threat of vascular inflammation," he says.

"The funding allows the company to double in size again," says Jake Orville, president and CEO. "And we've just committed to moving off [the Clinic's] campus to the Health Tech Corridor."

Orville predicts the company will double again in the next two years, adding positions in management, sales, marketing, and research and development. He attributes his company's growth to a talented, dedicated staff.

"We have the gift of really good novel technology," he says. "Combine that with really good people and a really good business plan."

Source: Jake Orville, HeartLab
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story originally appeared in sister publication Fresh Water Cleveland.

iGuiders wants to give retailers 300-400 percent conversions to sales boost

Thursday, August 25, 2011

If you were an online retail channel and could increase your conversions to sales by 350 to 400-percent, with a minimum investment in time and cost would you do it?

iGuiders, a Cleveland startup company with an interactive online shopping and search application, is betting you would. And, so far, iGuiders Founder & CEO, Jodi Marchewitz, has reason to believe.

iGuiders are interactive, decision-making applications that launch a Guided Shopping Experience ™ (GSE) directly from a link embedded into any digital marketing initiative, including social media, ads, websites and e-mails. Given the customer's responses to a series of questions, the application guides the customer to the product or service that best fits their needs -- providing a virtual personal shopper.

Marchewitz says billions are lost in online sales each year simply because people cannot easily find what they're looking for. iGuiders are built specifically for each company, according to a set of questions and answers provided by the client, and are designed to lead the customer directly to purchase.

The company was founded by Marchewitz in 2008, with a grant from Cleveland's Civic Innovation Lab. iGuiders subsequently received two rounds of angel funding from JumpStart Ventures and has already served heavyweight clients such as Mattel, Kodak, Sports Authority, NFL, NHL, NBA, NASCAR and Skull Candy.

Now, iGuiders has signed with Value Click, as its exclusive ad network partner and has presented iGuiders demos to 70 of Value Clicks top clients. "We've given them the runway," Marchewitz says, "and we're excited about the potential Value Clicks brings to our exposure to the market."

The company has also grown from 4 to 6 employees. "Because we created the app so that no coding is required, we are able to hire entry-level staff and bring them up to speed quickly," Marchewitz says. "Our most recent intern was writing iGuiders after one day."

And the growth potential for iGuiders? Let's just say that Marchewitz is optimistic:
"It's really a no-brainer for marketers when we can build the iGuiders in less than a day and increase their conversions immediately."

Source: Jodi Marchewitz, iGuiders
Writer: Dana Griffith

Ohio TechAngels grows to largest angel group in U.S.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Ohio TechAngels may not have been Ohio's first angel fund, but since its founding in 2004 it has grown to become the largest -- not just in Ohio, but in the entire United States.

Earlier this month, Entrepreneur pegged the Columbus-based investment group as the largest in the country with 282 members, ahead of Los Angeles's Tech Coast Angels, with 263 members.

Cleveland-based North Coast Angel Fund also made the top 10 list, coming in fifth with 180 members. Ohio was the only state with two angel groups in Entrepreneur's top 10.

John Huston, who formed Ohio TechAngels in 2004, says there never was a plan to grow the group to any particular size.

"I moved back to Ohio from Boston, where I was a banker, and after a year I was bored," he remembers. "What I missed was working with CEOs."

But when he looked for an angel fund in which to become involved, he could find none in central Ohio, he says. So, to learn how to start his own, he enrolled in a boot camp run by Ohio's first angel fund -- Cincinnati-based Queen City Angels.

Since then, Ohio TechAngels has offered three funds and made 53 investments in 33 Ohio-based, tech-related companies, Huston says.

He says Ohio's angel environment has four things going for it. First is the Ohio Technology Investment Tax Credit, which gives angel investors a 25 percent tax credit for investing in Ohio-based tech startups. Second is the Ohio Third Frontier's Innovation Ohio Loan Fund, which lends money to early stage companies.

"If you're an investor, that's non-dilutive capital, which increases return for shareholders," Huston says. "It provides access to debt before any commercial bank will lend to them. Half of the companies we've invested in have been able to borrow under that program."

A third strength of Ohio's angel environment is what Huston calls "a great infrastructure of incubators" that are equipped to assist early stage companies in ways that help them succeed. And fourth are the pre-seed grants provided by the Third Frontier, he says, noting that a substantial part of Ohio TechAngel's three funds -- some $6 million -- has consisted of state grants that include money from the Third Frontier.

In the end, Huston says, it's not about how many members Ohio TechAngels has, but how many companies they help.

"The myth is that angels are a bunch of geezers with a lot of money who are trying to make a lot more money," he says. "What we're really trying to do is make meaning -- by building entrepreneurial wealth."

Source: John Huston, Ohio TechAngels
Writer: Gene Monteith

Promising artificial lung development can mean long-term mobility for patients

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A team of researchers has developed an artificial lung that uses regular air, not pure oxygen, and is portable, marking a huge step forward for people with acute and chronic lung disease. The research is a result of collaboration between Case Western Reserve University and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.

"The most significant finding is that we have demonstrated a small scale, prototype artificial lung," says Joseph A. Potkay, research assistant professor in CWRU's department of electrical engineering and computer science. "It represents a major leap forward toward a self-contained, portable or implantable device that would use ambient air, rather than oxygen cylinders, and would thus give patients full mobility."

Current artificial lung systems require heavy tanks of oxygen, limiting patients' portability -- and they can be used only on patients at rest. Also, the lifetime of the system is measured in days. This new prototype is much smaller in size -- equivalent to a natural lung.

"These results prove that constructing a device with features similar in size to those found in the natural lung can result in large improvements in efficiency over current alternatives, thereby enabling portable devices," says Potkay. "This technology will be used in portable heart lung machines and portable systems for the treatment of acute and chronic lung disease or as a bridge to transplant."

Potkay and his team began developing the lung in early 2008 and will begin animal testing in two years. Human trials should begin in 10 years. The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Lung disease affects over 200 million people worldwide.

Source: Joseph A. Potkay
Writer: Karin Connelly

Canton's Entrepreneur Launch says job number one is jobs

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Despite the name, the City of Canton's Entrepreneur Launch has no intention of landing a homegrown version of Bill Gates on the Moon. It's all about jobs.

Derek Gordon, project manager for the city, would love to discover the next Diebold or Timken, but he will be satisfied giving seed money to a startup that is likely to create new jobs. The program, which is part of the JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network, has $100,000 in grants for a company or companies with the most promising business plans. The funding mechanism for the program is Community Development Block Grants provided by the state.

Canton's mayor, William J. Healy II, had the initial idea for the program, which he hopes will stimulate jobs. While no one has claimed any of the money yet, the application process only opened last month. The project's website is administered by ystark!, which Gordon describes as "the premiere young professional organization in Stark County."

Joe Schauer, the outgoing chairperson of ystark!, serves as chairman of the Launch Commission, which was established in June. The commission, comprised of community members, local entrepreneurs, the Chamber of Commerce, Canton's department of development and others, is responsible for selecting the winning application/s.

The city plans to replenish the fund every year. "We'd like to pair the public money with private funds and have a nice chunk of change available for those interested parties," says Gordon. "We've been very pleased with the coverage we've received, but it's now up to the applicants to determine the interest level."

Applications, which are first reviewed by JumpStart, can be found at www.cantonlaunch.org.

Source: Derek Gordon, City of Canton
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

UNCOMN.TV Network showcasing northeast Ohio

Thursday, August 11, 2011

"Flannel Channel." "Hot Shots @ Hot Spots." "Got*City GAME! Cleveland."

Those catchy monikers are the titles of some of the channels of the new UNCOMN.TV Network, established in April by Cleveland's Barb Siss Oney.

UNCOMN.TV is short for "unifying communities," and UNCOMN.TV Network is an online technology company that brings together employers, universities, civic organizations and communities in Northeast Ohio to inform individuals, both locally and globally, about what the region offers.

"We want to attract talent, business and resources to the region by demonstrating the rich economic assets and quality of life in Northeast Ohio," Oney explains.

"I believe that positive community change is possible, and my goal is to find ways for individuals, businesses, organizations, and institutions to collaborate to positively impact Northeast Ohio. It's one thing to produce a great show, but that has a limited life," she notes. "If we are to have an ongoing impact on attracting and retaining talent in Northeast Ohio, however, we need a way to build ongoing engagement."

UNCOMN.TV Network is a combination of relevant content, collaborative marketing and social media.

"We apply the power of traditional TV, the global reach of the web and the interactivity of social networking to deliver information about living, learning and earning in Northeast Ohio," Oney says.

Tune in to the "Flannel Channel," and you'll view programs about regional businesses, educational institutions and organizations that are employing and educating local professionals. The "Hot Shots @ Hot Spots" channel features members of the Cleveland Professional 20/30 Club, Ohio's largest young professionals group, showcasing what they think is "hot" about Cleveland.

Got*City GAME! Cleveland (GCGC) was the first program of the UNCOMN.TV Network. GCGC represents a partnership with more than 150 colleges, universities, businesses and civic organizations to showcase fun locations throughout Cleveland. "Within weeks of launching, GCGC was being watched in more than 1,065 cities in more than 66 countries," Oney says.

There are plans to launch city-specific channels for Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown. "We'll also have forums, blogs, podcasts, live webcasts of conference keynote speakers and webinars for workforce development," she notes.

UNCOMN.TV Network received funding from Cleveland's Civic Innovation Lab as well as Ohio's Third Frontier program through Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE).

Source: Barb Siss Oney, UNCOMN.TV Network LLC
Writer: Lynne Meyer

NanoLogix says new research moves company a step closer to fast detection of Strep in moms, newborns

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Hubbard-based NanoLogix on Monday announced new research confirming the company's ability to detect and identify Group B streptococcus in four to six hours -- 12 to 18 times more quickly than traditional detection methods, it says.

NanoLogix, which is awaiting FDA approval for its BioNanoPore and BioNanoFilter Quick Test technology, says in a news release that the research moves the company another step closer to making the technology available to women and newborns who are especially susceptible to strep infections.

According to NanoLogix, speed is of the essence when detecting Group B strep in mothers and infants. The release cites Centers for Disease Control statistics showing "25 percent of pregnant women may be colonized with Group B Strep. If colonized mothers give birth before antibiotics can be administered, the bacteria can be passed to the newborn and cause life-threatening blood infections, such as meningitis, sepsis, pneumonia or even still birth."

The new study was conducted at the University of Texas Health Science Center and published in the American Journal of Perinatology.

Begun more than 20 years ago as Infectech, the company for years focused on research and other endeavors, including alternative energy. Re-christened NanoLogix in 2005, the company quickly refocused on rapid detection testing.

Last year, the company signed a multi-year contract with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop rapid testing for bacterial threats to drinking water.

The company has also built a 2,800-square foot manufacturing facility in Hubbard to localize work being done elsewhere.

Source: NanoLogix

Arteriocyte to expand in Cleveland , add 15 to 20 new jobs

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Arteriocyte, a leading clinical-stage biotechnology company with offices in Cleveland and Hopkinton, Mass., has been awarded a $1 million grant by the Ohio Department of Development's Third Frontier Commission. The company, which develops proprietary stem cell and tissue engineering based therapies, will use the grant for the development and commercialization of hematopoietic stem cell expansion for clinical applications.

The move is part of the Ohio Third Frontier Biomedical Program to accelerate the company's Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) of its NANEX technology for clinical use under the product name HemaEx.

"The technology takes a small amount of stem cells and gets a large amount of stem cells," explains Adam Sorkin, Arteriocyte's director of research and development. "We are converting our existing process that is suitable for research to a process that is suitable for use in humans."

Arteriocyte's therapies help find cures for chronic heart disease and peripheral artery disease, among other diseases.

The company, which was founded in 2004 as a spin-off out of Case Western Reserve University, has seen rapid growth in the past couple of years, going from four employees to 80. The expansion will create between 15 and 20 jobs in the production facility.

Source: Adam Sorkin
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story originally appeared in hiVelocity's sister publication, Fresh Water Cleveland.