Archive for January, 2010
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
 RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – Marking the third anniversary of the merger between the Microwave Communications Division of Harris Corp. and Stratex Networks, Inc., Harris Stratex Networks, Inc. announced today that it has changed its name to Aviat Networks Inc. Along with the name change, the Company’s ticker symbol will change to AVNW and its common stock will continue to trade on Nasdaq.
Richard Plane, vice president of information technology services and chief information officer, tells us that the company founded by the merger in 2007, “Took the names of the two entities and put them together with a hyphen. Now, three years later, we’re ready to get going with our own identity, our own brand, and start blazing our own trail.”
The company says the new brand represents a culmination of its transformation over the last three years from that of a specialized microwave backhaul equipment supplier into a world-class provider of advanced IP wireless network solutions, with a comprehensive portfolio of migration solutions and lifecycle services.
Plane notes that we live in a world where mobility is key to the way people interact with information. Aviat Networks, he says, providing the backhaul infrastructure to the people providing the media.
Onloine: www.aviatnetworks.com
Tags: Aviat, broadband back haul, Telecommunications
Posted in Business Briefs, Carolinas, IT, North Carolina, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
 The main research buidling on the NC Research Campus KANNAPOLIS, NC – Crop science firm Monsanto has signed a long-term lease for a research laboratory on the North Carolina Research Campus and has established a strategic alliance with the David H. Murdock Research Institute.
Monsanto says it plans to establish research facilities focused on the taste and nutritional composition of vegetables, and enhanced nutrition in food-focused row crops such as soybeans.
Envisioned and founded by David H. Murdock, owner of Castle & Cooke Inc., and majority owner of Dole Foods Company, Inc., the NCRC brings together academia and industry, and fosters collaborative research in nutrition, agriculture and biotechnology to accelerate the development of foods with enhanced flavor and greater nutritive value to improve human health.
“Monsanto’s presence on the NCRC constitutes yet another critical piece in ensuring the success of the campus,” Murdock said.
Last year Monsanto announced a five-year collaboration with Dole to develop vegetable varieties with consumer-focused attributes such as flavor, texture, aroma and nutrition. That collaboration is a great example of the types of unique partnerships that can be developed through such a campus and how consumers can benefit from organizations with complementary strengths working together, said David Stark, vice president of consumer traits for Monsanto.
“The Kannapolis campus provides Monsanto and other institutions locating there an opportunity to forge new relationships that could ultimately lead to new flavorful and healthy choices for consumers,” Stark said.
The new facility will initially create about 20 to 25 jobs initially but may eventually create many more according to the Salisbury Post.
Online: www.ncresearchcampus.net
Posted in Biotech, Carolinas, Economic Development, Healthcare, North Carolina | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
 By Allan Maurer
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – Watching waves crash against a shore, it’s easy to imagine harnessing all that energy to generate power. Columbia Power Technologies believes it has a “superior” technology to do just that.
“We believe that direct drive systems, which avoid the use of pneumatic and hydraulic conversion steps, are more efficient, more reliable and easier to maintain, and are therefore the most likely to deliver the lowest cost of energy,” the company says.
Founded in 2005 by Greenlight Energy Resources, Inc. in partnership with Oregon State University, the company is engaged in the development and commercialization of wave energy harvesting devices using novel, off-shore, direct-drive permanent-magnet generator topologies.
It anchors a wave energy buoy that uses the rise and fall of waves to move permanent magnets up and down a generator coil in a float. The heaving magnets then generate voltage in the coil.
The company founders previously sold their wind energy company to BP Alternative Energy North America. It had over $700 million of wind energy facilities operational by 2007.
Seeking a Series A round
The company’s founders invested about $1.7 million in Columbia so far and the firm has government grants of $4.25 million in contract or ready for contract. It’s seeking a $2 million to $2.5 million Series A round. Columbia Power Technologies is one of 60 innovative firms selected to present at the Southeast Venture Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (see www.seventure.org for more information).
Reenst Lesemann, the company’s vice president of development tells us Colubia is still developing the wave technology. “We did a number of iterations of design and testing and plan to place a fifth-scale model in the water off the Pacific Northwest coast later this year.”
West-facing coasts have more energetic waves
Lesemann explains that west-facing coasts with large, open expanses of water have more energetic waves – roughly two times more than east-facing coasts—in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
The four employee company presents a fairly unique opportunity relative to other clean energy tech, such as wind, solar or biofuels, Lesemann says.
“There are very few companies in the world in a position to produce a technology anytime soon that will be viable,” he says.
Online: www.columbiapwr.com
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Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
 ARLINGTON, VA – Wind, solar and ocean power manufacturers will need $17 billion from investors through 2012, according to a new report from Freesky Research.
In the 2010s, the report says, feed-in tariffs will decrease, and many renewable electricity sources will approach cost parity with fossil-fuel sources. As a result, manufacturers and investors will increasingly depend on production economics, not global politics, to achieve high returns on invested capital.
FreeSky Research’s latest report, this will force adjustments in business and investment practices, with closer attention to specific issues, including:
It predicts heavy dependence on credit markets and syndicated loans to finance capacity expansion – while IPOs and VCs grab the headlines, they account for less than 25% of the capital raised by wind, solar, and ocean power manufacturers.
The defining financial trait of this sector will be a much greater diversity of capital sources than we’ve seen in either traditional manufacturing or information technology,” said David Gross, author of the report.
“Additionally, manufacturers and electricity providers will need to develop new financial models and expand beyond traditional LCOE analysis, particularly when most retail customers must still pay by the kilowatt hour even where variable costs are exceptionally low.”
Based in the Washington, DC area, FreeSky Research provides economic analysis on the alternative energy and telecommunications industries.
More information is available at www.freeskyresearch.com/Returns_on_Renewables.html.
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Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
 RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – CoLucid Pharmaceuticals has raised nearly $9.2 million of a targeted $13.8 million round of equity, according to a regulatory filing. We reported CoLucid’s $25 million Series B round in July 2008. The company focuses on therapies for central nervous system disorders and its lead product is a an anti-migraine agent in clinical trials.
The company’s previous investors include Care Capital, which led the B round, and Pappas Ventures, Domain Associates, Pearl Street Venture Funds and Triathlon Medical Ventures.
CoLucid Pharmaceuticals was founded in December 2005 by Pappas Ventures. The company raised a $16.25 million Series A round in 2005. The company disclosed the current raise in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing cites eight investors in the round so far.
Its lead drug candidate, COL-144 is a first-in-class neurally acting anti-migraine agent designed to deliver efficacy in migraine without the vasoconstrictor activity associated with previous generations of migraine therapy.
In a previous interview with us, CEO James White told said the theory behind the older drugs was that restricting blood flow would alleviate pain, but it turned out they could also narrow coronary arteries, which is not such a good thing.
White said the CoLucid therapy represents a paradigm shift in migraine therapy.
In addition to COL-144, CoLucid’s pipeline includes a “conjugated stigmine platform” that has generated a series of preclinical candidates for the treatment of sleep/wake disorders, chronic pain, Alzheimer’s disease and anxiety/depression disorders.
White says that the platform technology is a novel way to combine two drugs together.
It’s next product is likely to be a drug to promote wakefulness without the addition response or hyperactivity that amphetamines may cause. –By Allan Maurer
Online: www.colucid.com
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Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
 Professor William Bentley COLLEGE PARK, MD - New research at the A. James Clark School of Engineering could prevent bacterial infections using tiny biochemical machines-nanofactories-that can confuse bacteria and stop them from spreading, without the use of antibiotics.
We remember reading Dr. K. Eric Drexler’s 1986 book, “The Engines of Creation,” which suggested that eventually medicine might develop submicroscopic factories much like this to battle disease on a molecular level. Drexler’s ideas about the atomic-sized machines sounded like science fiction at the time.
But this research brings his ideas startlingly to life.
A paper about the research is featured in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
The work is an update on the researchers’ original nanofactories, first developed in 2007. Those nanofactories made use of tiny magnetic bits to guide them to the infection site.
Nanofactories recognize good from bad bacteria
William Bentley, professor and chair, Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the Clark School says “This is a completely new, all-biological version. The new nanofactories are self-guided and targeted.”
Bentley advised the research group, which included Clark School alumnus Rohan Fernandes (Ph.D. ’08, bioengineering), graduate student Varnika Roy (molecular and cell biology), and graduate student Hsuan-Chen Wu (bioengineering).
The new nanofactories can tell the difference between bad (pathogenic) and good bacteria. For instance, our digestive tracts contain a certain level of good bacteria to help us digest food. The new nanofactories could target just the bad bacteria, without disrupting the levels of good bacteria in the digestive tract (a common side effect of many antibiotics). Nanofactories target the bacteria directly rather than traveling throughout the body, another advantage over traditional antibiotics.
Disrupts communication
Bacterial cells talk to each other in a form of cell-to-cell communication known as quorum sensing. When the cells sense that they have reached a certain quantity, an infection could be triggered. The biological nanofactories developed at the Clark School can interrupt this communication, disrupting the actions of the cells and shutting down an infection.
Alternatively, the nanofactories could trick the bacteria into sensing a quorum too early. Doing so would trigger the bacteria to try to form an infection before there are enough bacterial cells to do harm. This would prompt a natural immune system response capable of stopping them without the use of drugs.
Because nanofactories are designed to affect communication instead of trying to kill the bacteria, they could help treat illness in cases where a strain of bacteria has become resistant to antibiotics.
May have other benefits
The nanofactories’ ability to alter cell-to-cell communication isn’t limited to fighting infections.
“Quorum sensing and signaling molecules are actually used to accomplish a lot of things,” Bentley explains. “Sometimes disease develops because communication is not taking place-a good example is digestive disorders that involve an imbalance of bacteria in the digestive tract. In that case, nanofactories could be used to start or increase communication instead of disrupting it.”
“The work by Dr. Bentley is extremely exciting as he is using the ability of engineering to “build” using nature based components,” says Philip Leduc, associate professor in the Departments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “Understanding the science of cells is wonderful, but then using these components and constructing systems that leverage biological advantages is a huge step forward.”
Read the article at Nature Nanotechnology (http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2009.457.html)
Visit Professor Bentley’s web site (http://www.bioe.umd.edu/~bentley/)
See a research overview at the Biochip Collaborative web site (http://biochip.umd.edu/bentley/index.html)
Tags: antibiotics, Maryland, nano factories, Nanotech, univesristy research
Posted in Biotech, Maryland, Medical Device, Nanotech, Potomac | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
 Summee Huh, who created the Good50 search engine. ROCKVILLE, MD – After watching her grandfather struggle with the small window on most search engines, a 16-year-old Rockville high school student spent her winter break last December creating a search engine he and others would find easier to use.
Sunmee Huh, a junior and honor student at Richard Montgomery’s International Baccalaureate program, put Google’s custom search technology to work to make Good50 (www.good50.c0m).
Good50′s search box is larger compared to those of other popular search engines. Also, Good50 gives the user an option to view search results with a larger font size.
“When I showed it to my neighbors and friends,” Huh said, “they liked it because it was much easier to use. Then I realized that Good50 is not only for older adults like my grandpa, but for everyone, including young kids and people who spend a lot of time on the computer.
“I know teenagers like myself and even younger school-age children, including my little brother and sister, are spending increasing amounts of time staring at a computer screen. Using Good50 can be one way to relieve some of that stress from one’s eyes.”
Also, on Good50, the text ads that usually appear on the top of search results are off to one side.
Huh says Good50 donates a penny for every 50 visits to a charity of the month, currently to the Red Cross to aid in Haiti relief.
We’re betting we’ll hear more from Ms. Huh in the future.
Online: www.good50.com
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Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
 ALACHUA, FL – AxoGen Inc., a company commercializing a technology that repairs peripheral nerves, has raised $3.36 million of a targeted $4.7 million equity and options offering, according to a regulatory filing.
We’ve covered AxoGen for several years now and it was one of TechJournal South’s 50 companies to watch in 2008.
Founded in 2002, AxoGen raised a $12.1 million C round from Accuitive Medical Ventures, Cardinal Partners, DeNovo Ventures and Springboard Capital II in December 2007. Other investors include SynoGen and the Emergent Growth Fund.
It received a $7.5 million loan from Oxford Finance Corp. in June 2008.
Axogen’s nerve graphs help people who lose strength, movement and muscle mass due to a traumatic injury to the arm, lose the ability to smile due to a facial injury, or lose sexual function due to prostrate surgery or suffer other injuries or surgical damage to peripheral nerves.
The company revealed the current financing in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Although the company has focused on upper extremity injuries from power tool mistakes, car accidents, workplace injuries and so on, it is seeing significant interest in the graphs from surgeons in other areas, the company told us in a previous interview.
Oral surgeons are interested in the grafts to help patients who lose feeling in their tongues due to dental surgery, for instance, while surgeons doing breast reconstructions may use them to restore sensation to patients.
Previously on TechJournal South:
CEO of Florida-based AxoGen wins SEMDA spotlight award
www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=6921
Florida’s AxoGen lands $12.1M round for nerve repair
www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=4392
Online: www.axogeninc.com
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
 CHATTANOOGA, TN – Election night in 2008 meant more than the historic presidential election to Ken McElrath, CEO and founder of Skoodat. “We were attending a conference in San Francisco and met our initial angel investor there,” says McElrath.
“It was a wild 24-hour period,” says McElrath. “We had the documents signed, got our first $1 million investment and went out in the streets of San Francsico which were full of shouting people.”
Skoodat went through a convoluted, twelve-year gestation period. First, a West Coast entrepreneur going after the education software space developed a program in DOS. Then Window’s launched. Then, when a Windows version was developed, he realized he needed a Mac version. And so on.
Salesforce.com provided the answer
Finally, however, the company found the solution it wanted when Salesforce.com released its backend for developers to use and the company CEO said, “We want you to use this to change education.”
“We heard that challenge,” says McElrath. “After 12 months of due diligence, we realized this was going to be a revolutionary technology platform for education.”
Skoodat’s goal, he adds, is to “Reduce the total cost of ownership of educational software by 50 percent.”
Skoodat now offers a suite of applications for educators, ranging from course scheduling to communications, student enrollment and registration, grading, performance tracking and more.
Automates the process
Why is it necessary? McElrath explains that it makes something such as making sure students take the right courses at the right time and don’t fall through the cracks much easier.
It offers applications for that. A pre-registration app looks at a student’s previous coursework over the years, what grades they received with a given teacher and evaluates what they need to take. It automates the process.
“It shows the courses they took, the courses they need to take, identifies pre-requisite courses and recommends what they need to do,” says McElrath.
He says that while doing a demonstration of the software, a woman in California told them she had a child who couldn’t graduate as planned this year because her counselor forgot about her freshman English course.
“With our software, that won’t happen anymore,” says McElrath.
Another app evaluates a student’s course and warns if he or she is in danger of not graduting in time.
Seeks a Series A round
“The idea is to dramatically change the game in education by giving people the data they need in real time in format so useful they can’t ignore it,” McElrath says.
The company has already received a committment for its second million in angel backing and received $300,000 of that from its initial backer.
It’s looking for its first Series A round and will be one of 60 companies chosen to present at the Southeast Venture Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (see www.seventure.org for more information).
“We’re coming to the conference to present in front of a lot of venture capitalists at once and so we’re on their radar,” says McElrath.
Online: www.skoodat.com
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
 ATLANTA – The Start-Up Council, a group of industry experts committed to supporting the next generation of emerging companies, has called for entries for the Q1 2010 Start-Up Council Roundtable to be held on Wednesday, March 24.
Created in 2006, the Start-Up Council is a forum providing gratis counsel to entrepreneurs launching new businesses by providing guidance on public relations, funding, legal, business development, outsourced manufacturing, marketing and branding.
We took a look at Start-up Council in our sister publication, TechView Atlanta a while back. You can read that here: Startup Council provides entrepreneurs expert advice.
“The Start-Up Council has advised some exciting early-stage companies who are now taking off, experiencing their own success. We look forward to spending time with the next round,” says Genna Keller, principal at Trevelino/Keller Communications Group, the founding member of the Start-Up Council.
“Particularly in this economic environment, we think it important to offer emerging companies a business resource for all aspects of growing a company, including potential funding sources.”
Quarterly events held
Each quarter, the Start-Up Council offers consulting with each individual firm, in a roundtable format, to discuss issues critical to a start-up’s business strategy and launch including brand identity, market strategy, venture capital, business development and public relations.
Should companies wish for in-depth counsel, each entity in the Start-Up Council can be engaged individually – each providing a well-defined offering with a set of associated fees.
Entries will be accepted until March 1. Applications can be found at www.techspartacus.com/page/startup-council and submitted via email to gkeller@trevelinokeller.com.
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