Research / Tech Transfer : News

Esperion Therapeutics is adding staff, closing on a round of seed capital and prepping for an initial public offering of stock later this year.

The pharmaceutical firm's staff recently jumped to 13 people after making five hires over the last year. It also has a job opening for a senior director of clinical & PT staff. Helping make that expansion possible is the recent securing of $33 million in preferred stock financing. The seed capital round was led by Longitude Capital with Aisling Capital, Alta Partners, Domain Associates, Arboretum Ventures and Asset Management also participating.

Tim Mayleben, Esperion Therapeutics' CEO, declined to comment on the company's growth because it recently filed for an IPO. IPOs come with quiet periods where company representatives are not allowed to promote the upcoming IPO, often leading them to decline speaking about the company altogether to be safe.

Esperion Therapeutics has historically been an Ann Arbor-based company, scoring a $1.3 billion exit when Pfizer acquired it in 2004. Company founder Roger Newton reacquired the firm in 2008 and eventually moved to the Michigan Life Sciences Innovation Center in Plymouth, which is managed by Ann Arbor SPARK.

Esperion Therapeutic's most advanced product candidate, ETC-1002, is being developed for patients with hypercholesterolemia and other cardiometabolic risk factors. ETC-1002 is a small-molecule metabolic regulator of imbalances in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and inflammation. It is being developed to address the underlying causes of metabolic diseases and reduce multiple risk factors associated with them.

Source: Tim Mayleben, CEO of Esperion Therapeutics
Writer: Jon Zemke

Ann Arbor SPARK has landed $1 million in funding from the Michigan Strategic Fund that will help the economic accelerator expand its reach across Washtenaw County.

"This broadens the geography and the number of companies that we can serve," says Paul Krutko, president & CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK.

The money will go toward creating the Washtenaw County Incubator Collaborative, which will help bring Ann Arbor SPARK's business incubator activities across the county. The idea is to help further the growth of tech-based start-ups and jobs across the county.

Ann Arbor SPARK will partner with the MC3 Business Accelerator and the Michigan Research Institute to leverage the $1 million in state funding (and $722,500 in matching funds from the participating agencies) to create the the Washtenaw County Incubator Collaborative. The new partnership will focus on the medical device and defense industries as well as other high-growth industries in Washtenaw County.

"We need to deal with regional solutions," Krutko says.

Source: Paul Krutko, president & CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK
Writer: Jon Zemke

Delphinus Medical Technologies has begun raising a Series B round of fundraising, setting a goal of scoring $17 million by this summer.

The Plymouth-based start-up that calls the Michigan Life Science Innovation Center home is spinning out technology for an alternative test to mammography from the Karmanos Cancer Institute. It has already raised $12 million in a Series A round.

"Our current investors are willing to put in a substantive portion of this round," says Bill Greenway, CEO of Delphinus Medical Technologies.

The 2-year-old start-up's principal product is SoftVue, which works to effectively differentiate between benign and malignant masses in breasts. The idea is to help eliminate false positives and reduce unnecessary biopsies. It can also accurately measure breast density, a known risk factor for developing breast cancer, as well as detect many early stages of cancer in women with dense breast tissue, which is often not picked up by mammography.

SoftVue works by surrounding a breast submerged in warm water with an ultrasound ring that captures detailed, three-dimensional images with sound waves. The results are similar to an MRI, but the procedure takes only a few minutes and costs much less. The procedure was the inspiration for the company's name, which is Latin for dolphins.

The first prototype of the technology is currently being used at the Karmanos Cancer Institute. Greenway expects to ramp up commercialization and sales of SoftVue by the end of this year. He points out that St. Mary's Hospital at the University of Toronto is also in line to receive the second one. "We have a number of sites that are interested in a system," Greenway says.

Delphinus Medical Technologies currently employs 19 people after hiring five people in 2012. He expects to hire another five or six people this year.

Source: Bill Greenway, CEO of Delphinus Medical Technologies
Writer: Jon Zemke

The Michigan University Research Corridor (URC) helped create $2.6 billion in added economic impact in Michigan compared to similar figures released in 2007, according to a report released by the non-profit earlier this month.

The URC is a consortium of the state's three research universities (University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University) focused on helping creating synergies between Michigan's universities and increasing research that comes from them. Its more recent report shows the URC contributed $15.5 billion to the state's economy.

"We think that is pretty impressive when we benchmark ourselves against Research Triangle and Massachusetts and Northern California," says Jeff Mason, executive director of the Michigan University Research Corridor.

One of the factors in that growth is the increase of spin-out companies from technology developed at research at Michigan's three research universities. In 2011, the three universities spun out 18 companies, which ranked it third against other similar innovation clusters.

"What you see is these institutions spinning out on average of one company every month," Mason says.
 
Source: Jeff Mason, executive director of Michigan University Research Corridor
Writer: Jon Zemke

Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund has struck again, investing $1 million into four local start-ups.

The four start-ups include Fusion Coolant Systems, Local Orbit, New Eagle Products, and Seelio. Seelio, New Eagle Products and Local Orbit are based in Ann Arbor. Fusion Coolant Systems was launched in Ypsilanti and is now based in Detroit on the campus of Focus: HOPE.

"The seeds that were planted several years ago are starting to bear fruit," says Skip Simms, senior vice president at Ann Arbor SPARK who oversees the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund. "The ecosystem the state has created has really improved the quality of entrepreneur who is coming to us with better thought-out ideas and products that are further along."

The Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund is a collaborative effort of Michigan's SmartZones to support product commercialization at local start-ups. It has awarded more than $19 million in seed funding to 83 Michigan companies. One of the early recipients was Compendia Bioscience, which was acquired by Life Technologies last fall.

The Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund had its most aggressive year yet in 2012, making deals with 23 companies. Simms says he doesn't expect the fund to surpass that number again this year but there is more than enough demand from a plethora of quality companies.

"It has been growing," Simms says. "It has been evolving. The good news is it has been evolving and snowballing in a good way."

Source: Skip Simms, senior vice president at Ann Arbor SPARK
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Swift Biosciences has scored a $750,000 Series A investment from the Michigan Accelerator Fund I, money that will help the life sciences start-up accelerate the commercialization of its products.

"The extra financing will help us with product development and launch," says David Olson, CEO of Swift Biosciences.

The Ann Arbor-based start-up is developing molecular biology reagents for research and diagnostic applications that provide new ways to examine disease-related genes. This technology is expected to help researchers analyze samples faster, at a higher volume, and at a lower price per sample. The 3-year-old company launched its first product (a consumable product for genetic analysis that helps detect mutations in things like cancer, with high sensitivity) last year and is set to launch more similar technologies this spring.

Swift Biosciences has hired one person (a scientist) in 2012. It now employs 11 people and expects to add more people to its staff, but not in the next few months.

"We do expect to expand but it will be later in the year and in 2014," Olson says.

Source: David Olson, CEO of Swift Biosciences
Writer: Jon Zemke

Birdhouse is wrapping up its first year of providing a mobile/web solution for parents and caregivers of autistic children.

The West Bloomfield-based start-up is creating software that tracks the behavior of autistic children and helps the loved ones of autistic children manage the disorder. It is also looking to find news ways to leverage the data it's collecting to help further the fight against autism.

"We'd like to be working with organizations from around the country to use the data Birdhouse is collecting to better understand autism, and to give us more answers and better understanding of the disorder," says Ben Chutz, founder of Birdhouse.

Chutz was inspired to start the company las year because his girlfriend has a daughter with autism, exposing him to the trials and tribulations that come with it. Chutz is now hoping the data gathered from his technology, still in private Beta until this summer, will be able to help shed some light on whether nature (barometric pressure or tides) factors into the impact of autism.

"We're looking to crowd source the idea of collecting info on kids with autism," Chutz says.

Birdhouse currently has a team of three people and is looking to add two software developers to help bring its technology to market.

Source: Ben Chutz, founder of Birdhouse
Writer: Jon Zemke

Esperion Therapeutics is bringing on some familiar faces to its staff, including a new CEO that has an extensive history with the pharmaceutical firm.

Tim Mayleben replaces Esperion Therapeutics' founder, Roger Newton, as president and CEO while Newton becomes the firm's executive chairman and chief scientific officer. Mayleben previously served as president and CEO of Ann Arbor-based Aastrom Biosciences before stepping down last summer.

Mayleben also once served as Esperion Therapeutics' COO and CFO a decade ago, helping it raise more than $200 million in seed capital and negotiating its sale to Pfizer in 2004 for $1.3 billion. Newton bought back the company four years ago and relaunched it.

"I am a business person by training. Roger is a scientist and a company builder," Mayleben says. "We complement each other really well."

Esperion Therapeutic's most advanced product candidate, ETC-1002, is in Phase 2 clinical trials for patients with hypercholesterolemia and other cardiometabolic risk factors. ETC-1002 is a small-molecule metabolic regulator of imbalances in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and inflammation. It is being developed to address the underlying causes of metabolic diseases and reduce multiple risk factors associated with them. In preclinical and clinical studies to date, treatment with ETC-1002 has been shown to be safe and well-tolerated while producing statin-like reductions in LDL-C and inflammatory markers.

Esperion Therapeutics plans to wrap up it's Phase 2 clinical trials later this year and begin Phase 2 D clinical trials in 2014. Phase 2 D clinical trials are one of the final steps before FDA approval and often take two years or more to complete. The company has historically called Ann Arbor home before moving to the Michigal Life Sciences Innovation Center, managed by Ann Arbor SPARK, in Plymouth. The company now employs 11 people after hiring three recently.

Source: Tim Mayleben, president & CEO of Esperion Therapeutics and Roger Newton, founder of Esperion Therapeutics
Writer: Jon Zemke

Data Driven Detroit now calls TechTown home, completing its move from the Barden building in downtown Detroit from earlier this year.

The 4-year-old organization dedicated toward collecting statistics and harnessing them for the greater good of Metro Detroit called the Barden building near Comerica Park home until earlier this year when Grand Valley University purchased it. The university planned to use the building for its own charter school operations, which sent Data Driven Detroit looking for a new home. That's when Leslie Smith, president & CEO of TechTown, began to roll out the red carpet for Data Driven Detroit.

"They bent over backwards to find us some space and help us along," says Kurt Metzger, director of Data Driven Detroit.

Data Driven Detroit now employs 20 people after making three hires over the last year. It was attracted to TechTown's New Center campus because of its high-speed Internet connections and collaborative atmosphere for startups.

"It's facilitating interaction with a lot of TechTown clients," Metzger says. "We are working with a lot of people who can use our services and whom we can go to if we have questions."

Source: Kurt Metzger, director of Data Driven Detroit
Writer: Jon Zemke

Start-ups from Ann Arbor and those with close ties to the college town did quite well at this year's Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition.

The top three finishers in this year's business plan competition all hailed from cities outside of Washtenaw County but they all have roots in the Ann Arbor area. Algal Scientific and nanoMAG (the first and second place finishers) both got their start in Ann Arbor before moving to Plymouth and Livonia, respectively. They both still work extensively with Ann Arbor SPARK. East Lansing-based InPore Technologies (the third place finisher) is headed up by Gerry Roston, a serial entrepreneur that calls Saline home.

Steve LeBeau, president of nanoMAG, praised the folks at Ann Arbor SPARK and at Accelerate Michigan with preparing his start bio-tech firm to do so well at the competition and be ready to raise a significant amount of revenue. He expects his start-up will be able to leverage its $100,000 cash prize from Accelerate Michigan into a seven-figure angel round.

"In the middle of this (competition) you're a venture capital fund saying, 'Send me a packet about what's going on,'" LeBeau says. "And you have a 12-page packet (prepared and peer-reviewed as part of the competition) to send them."

Other top placers at the Accelerate Michigan calling Washtenaw County home include:

- Eco-Fueling, the Saline-based business won the advanced transportation prize worth $25,000 for its fuel-efficiency technology built for diesel engines.
- Ornicept, the Ann Arbor-based start-up won the alternative energy prize worth $25,000 for its technology that monitors bird activity so wind turbine developers can make informed decisions.
- Protean Payment, the Tech Brewery-based company won the products and services award worth $25,000 for its software that can combine every creditcard in a consumer's wallet into one card.

Source: Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition and Steve LeBeau, president of nanoMAG
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Small business news in 2012 wasn't dominated by individual start-ups as much as it was the places that let them grow. Here are the Top 5 enablers of Detroit's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

M@dison Building
Nothing has been grabbing headlines in Metro Detroit's business community like the M@dison Building. If there is a beacon for the region's emerging new economy, its the M@dison Building. Stoking the flames of that light are some of the building's top tenants, such as the Detroit Venture Partners and Detroit Labs. It's attracting out-of-town offices from the likes of Twiiter and TextFromLastNight, along with out-of-state start-ups like Stik and Quikkly.

D:Hive, DC3 and TechTown
Incubators and hives in Detroit are also helping drive the Motor City's entrepreneurial spirit, helping a growing number of aspiring entrepreneurs reach for their business dream. D:hive's BUILD program has graduated dozens of fresh entrepreneurs looking to launch life-style businesses. The Detroit Creative Corridor Center is pumping out creatively based companies and TechTown continues to be the go-to business incubator pumping out firms and jobs.

Talent Programs
Start-ups aren't the only things bringing in new college graduates to Detroit in 2012. Talent-attraction programs like Venture for America and Challenge Detroit have brought dozens of talented young people to the Motor City working for start ups and name-corporations, alike. Both organizations look to do the same thing again in 2013.

Coffee Shops Galore
Coffee shops popped up in Detroit in 2012 almost as fast as start ups moved into the M@dison Building. Of course one of those coffee shops, Chez Zara, opening up was in the M@dison Building. Other notable openings in the greater downtown area include The Bottom Line and the Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Co. in Midtown, the Roasting Plant in downtown and the pop-up Cafe Con Leche del Este in Lafayette Park. AJ's Coffeeworks, formerly of Ferndale, made the move to Highland Park and Always Brewing Detroit also opened in Grandmont Rosedale.

Accelerate Michigan
The Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, Michigan's premier business plan competition, spent its first two years in Ann Arbor. It made the move to downtown Detroit this fall, awarding $1 million in prizes to start-ups from across Michigan.

And here is a quick list of start-ups worth keeping an eye on 2013: Ubi Video, Glyph, LevelEleven, Fresh Corner Cafe, iRule, Corridor Sausage Co, LOVELAND Technologies, Detroit Bus Co, Rippld, Simply Suzanne, McClures Pickles, Are You a Human and Shinola.

Writer: Jon Zemke

What was once Biotechnology Business Consultants is now BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting, a new name for a longtime staple of Ann Arbor's tech scene.

The 22-year-old consulting company specializes in helping bio-tech start-ups develop their technologies and nurture their business. Stability and growth often take several years of work and millions of dollars in investment to bring new bio-tech innovations to the market. BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting has been there for a lot of that evolution.

And its growing. BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting has increased its staff from five employees and an independent contractor last January to seven employees today. Lisa Kurek, BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting's managing partner, credits the federal government's  recent reauthorization of the federal research funding, like Small Business Innovation Research grants, as the driving force of growth in the bio-tech space.

"Once we had that long-term commitment we picked up some steam because we have a solid national reputation," Kurek says.

BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting recently received a FAST grant from the federal and state governments that clocks in at the low six figures. She sees more more like that in the marketplace as the reason why her sector will continue to grow and why she is looking at adding more staff in the not-too-distant future.

"I would love to add someone else," Kurek says.

Source: Lisa Kurek, managing partner with BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting
Writer: Jon Zemke

ProNAi continues to raise millions of dollars for its research in Plymouth. The 8-year-old start-up brought in $2 million this year and has raised $20 million in total from the likes of the Apjohn Ventures Fund and the Grand Angels.

Those funds have allowed the company to expand to eight employees and the occasional intern after hiring five people in the last year. The life sciences firm is developing a cancer-fighting drug. It recently finished its initial human clinical trial and has to conduct two more clinical trails before it can be approved by the Food & Drug Administration.

"The drug targets cancer cells and is designed to kill cancer cells," says Mina Sooch, CEO of ProNAi. "Simply put, it doesn't kill normal cells. We had little-to-no side effects in the study that we just conducted."

Sooch expects the next clinical trails to take at least four years. Commercialization could come within five years. In the meantime, Sooch and her team continue to raise more money to push the development of the drug forward.

Source: Mina Sooch, CEO of ProNAi
Writer: Jon Zemke

When Deque opened an office in Ann Arbor last spring, it was looking for talent and lots of it. The Virginia-based software company now employs 10 people at its 2,400-square-foot office just north of downtown.

"We're growing as a company and we need additional talent on the team," says Tyler Steben, vice president of product marketing for Deque. "We had a foothold in Ann Arbor and the Detroit/Ann Arbor area is a great place to find talent."

Deque focuses on improving web accessibility for businesses. Its Worldspace Sync Accessibility Suite works to reduce manual intervention and provide flexible reporting, among other things, for companies.

Deque currently has two job openings in the Ann Arbor office, which specializes in software development and marketing. "We can hold up to 25 folks in the office," Steben says. "We will probably add a handful of positions over the next year."

Filling that office might be easier to do than originally thought.

"It (the space) has been fantastic," Steben says. "It's a great space. The office is great for recruiting."

Source: Tyler Steben, vice president of product marketing for Deque
Writer: Jon Zemke

Nilton Renno never intended to start a business. The University of Michigan professor of engineering had helped develop a technology that detects and measures electric fields and took it to an industry conference. The technology proved to be so popular with his peers that Renno began to commercialize it as its own start-up, Electric Field Solutions.

"I was surprised about the reaction to our technology," Renno says. "They said it has a wide variety of applications in industry."

The University of Michigan spin out has spent its first year developing its technology at the university's Venture Accelerator. The technology, which is being branded as Charge Tracker, locates electric charge buildup on objects located tens of feet away from it. This sort of technology is usually used by the consumer electronics industry to prevent the electric charges from harming their products, but Renno sees a broader application.

"After talking to many different companies most don't realize there is a problem," Renno says. "They don't know about it because there isn't a product to measure it. Our technology allows them to detect and measure the problem."

The Ann Arbor-based start-up recently received a microloan from the Michigan Microloan Fund Program that will help modify its electric field sensor to be used in industrial applications. It is currently used for research. The redesigned sensor will be used in customer visits in an effort to identify the most attractive market segment to pursue.

Electric Field Solutions currently employs two people and a couple of independent contractors. The company is also looking to hire a mechanical engineer.

Source: Nilton Renno, CTO & co-inventor of Electric Field Solutions
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.