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Montana BioScience Alliance Newsletter |  |
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Please welcome new members:
Liz Marchi Consulting Frontier Angel Fund, LLC Polson, MT
Antoinette Tease
The Alliance has a new blog! Visit it at
http://montanabio.blogspot.com/
We'll be posting newsflashes and information,
including legislative items, regularly. If
you have suggestions for topics, email Jana.
We've also added a "classifieds" section in
the newsletter. You'll find it after the
events calendar. Please forward
business-related postings to Jana.
Members - be sure to check out the product and service discounts available through BIO Business Solutions. Your company can benefit from the savings, and the Montana BioScience Alliance benefits when its members use the program! The Montana BioScience Alliance recently received a check from BIO for $198.43, thanks to LigoCyte and the Northwest Research and Education Institute using the services. For more information about this program and the discounts available, please visit . http://www.biobusinessolutions.com/mt.asp.
LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals recently finalized an agreement for a $28 million venture capital financing round to further clinical development of its two lead vaccines against norovirus and influenza. The private equity investment is being led by Forward Ventures, JAFCO, and Novartis Venture Fund with significant participation from Fidelity Biosciences and MedImmune Ventures. Additional investors include Athenian Venture Partners and MC Life Sciences Ventures (Mitsubishi International Corporation). Seaview Securities serves as the placement agent for the transaction. Recent advances by the company of its VLP vaccines for norovirus and influenza propelled the current investment. In particular, the company is currently completing a Phase I clinical study of the norovirus vaccine and plans to commence a live-virus challenge study in human volunteers. The Missoula Independent recently featured RML's Dr. Frank DeLeo and Dr. Michael Otto work on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Read the complete article on the Independent's website. Daryl Paulson, CEO of BioScience Laboratories Inc. and a nationally recognized expert on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, was part of a panel discussion on mental health in disaster-stricken communities, as part of former President Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiatives campaign. The panel was part of a March event at Tulane University. BioScience Laboratories also received a $50,000 grant from the Montana Department of Commerce to reimburse costs associated with training up to ten new employees over a 2 year period. Swan Valley Medical unveiled several new urological products for the medical industry at the EAU Congress in Milan, Italy. These new products include: a new patented completely disposable Transurethral Suprapubic Cystostomy (TSPeC) instrument for suprapubic bladder catheterization, designed for patients of all sizes including for the first time, the morbidly obese; a new patent pending disposable instrument for the removal of bladder calculi through a 36F suprapubic sheath, the Swan Suprapubic BC instrument; a unique new replacement suprapubic catheter and the patented Swan Zero-Gravity collection and drainage system. Bladder drainage problems addressed by Swan instruments include primarily urinary obstruction and retention disorders resulting from post-op complications, disease, injury and aging. No comparable instruments and accessories are in the market today. Genectar Com LLC will occupy a new biotechnology laboratory in Columbia Falls. A commercial grade drain field will be installed in April 2008 on the 9.5 acre building site. In January, Genectar presented "Insects beyond the Diptera as models for human biology" to the Genetics Society of America conference Model Organisms to Human Biology in San Diego. This presentation featured an analysis of public sequences related to the ABCA1 gene. Genectar also exhibited at last fall's Ideas Medicine Montana in Billings. Additionally, Genectar President Thomas M. Brown will participate in the 20th International Pigment Cell Conference and 5th International Melanoma Research Conference in Sapporo, Japan from 7-12 May 2008. New member Toni Tease recently gave testimony about intellectual property rights before the Senate Finance Committee. Her written testimony is available at http: //www.teaselaw.com/pdf/testimony.pdf. She was joined by Dave Stoltentberg from the Montana Business Incubator, and Hayden Gregory from the American Bar Association (Section of Intellectual Property Law).
Montana State University researchers are working to find uses for the by-products of camelina oil processing, as well as for the better-known omega-3-rich camelina oil, as part of a push to provide a well-rounded research base for local economic development. The MSU Biobased Institute is looking at value-added applications for camelina meal. Early research has indicated that camelina is a valuable wheat rotation crop. Other research projects include:
The bulk of the work to develop camelina has been funded by the Biobased Institute at MSU. Additional research support has been provided by USDA NRCS, USDA "Fuels for Schools" Project, Montana Department of Commerce Research and Commercialization Board, USDA SBIR, and the US Egg and Poultry Association. Read the entire article at http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwvi ew.php?article=5715 The Center for Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Montana has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch a new program called Short Term Educational Experiences for Research. The STEER program provides innovative research opportunities for up to eight motivated high school students and undergraduate students in the environmental health sciences. It is designed to foster student interest in pursuing graduate studies and professional careers in toxicology and the environmental health sciences. The program's laboratory experiences and information exchange will introduce young students to research on the human health aspects following environmental exposure and how exposure alters biologic processes and influences the development and distribution of disease in populations. High school students who have completed the ninth grade and undergraduates who will have completed at least one year of college are eligible to apply to the program, which starts June 16 and lasts eight weeks. Program participants will receive a stipend. Applications are due by Tuesday, April 22. For more information about the program, eligibility requirements and the application form, go online to http://www.umt.edu/cehs/STEER.html .
The education program at McLaughlin Research Institute (MRI) is growing in a new direction as a result of a grant exceeding $500,000 from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In addition to allowing for an increased number of the traditional summer internships for high school students, the five-year grant will fund two new components of the program that will reach a greater number of students. Starting this summer, a team of high school science teachers will work in the Institute's labs to develop curriculum supplements designed to teach students a genuinely scientific approach to learning. Teachers from C. M. Russell High School in Great Falls, three of whom have previously spent summers at McLaughlin, will be working to bring inquiry-based science from the lab to the classroom. The lead teacher of the project, Josy McLean, explained that inquiry-based learning differs from textbook driven education in that students get the data first, then ask questions based on the data. This is the opposite of the conventional model, which delivers content first and uses the lab to verify the content. "Rather than memorizing concepts, we want them to extract the understanding from their experience," she said. "We want to rekindle the students' natural curiosity, teach them a way of thinking." In addition to curriculum development, the teachers will select students with an interest in teaching science at the K-12 level and work with them in the lab this summer as well. This project is a part of a $22.5 million initiative by HHMI, which aims to close the gap between research institutions and their local communities by supporting educational programs intended to stimulate an interest in science, particularly among young students. This is the largest privately funded education initiative of its kind in the United States; HHMI's grants program is enhancing science education for students at all levels, from the earliest grades through advanced training. McLaughlin Research Institute has been training young scientists for more than 50 years. Each summer, high school and college students spend 10 weeks working alongside scientists in the labs, exploring the world of real science. Dozens of these young people are now physicians or researchers. The new McLaughlin project has two partners that will act as resources. The Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle is part of a large scale statewide science education program that is a model for McLaughlin's effort. Montana State University - Bozeman has a similar program for undergraduate science majors as well as a graduate program in science education, through which high school teachers may be eligible to receive continuing education credit for their involvement. The Frontier Angel Fund is a group of accredited investors dedicated to providing equity capital to early and mid-stage entrepreneurial companies. We are a member managed pooled fund - which means we review deals together and then vote to invest our pooled capital. Our typical group investment is in the range of $100,000 to $200,000. Our members have the option of investing from their personal accounts along side the fund. Our primary focus in on companies based in the western Montana, Montana and the inland Pacific Northwest. Frontier Fund members have extensive experience in founding, building, managing and financing companies in a wide variety of industries. We mentor and coach the entrepreneurs in whom we invest, serve on their boards, provide contacts and assist with team building, strategic planning and fundraising. Frontier works closely with other angel groups throughout the country as well as regional and national venture capital firms. Through our Syndication Chairman, we co invest with other groups and syndicate our deals in order to increase the capital capacity. The fund closed in December of 2006 with 33 investors and total capital of $1.75 million. Our portfolio consists of 5 companies as of March, 2007. Frontier Fund is interested in companies that have a proprietary product, service or intellectual property. We tend to seek companies in the $2 million valuation range. The goal of Frontier is to seed new businesses that are introducing innovations into the market place which create high value jobs in the economy. While we look at "high tech low tech and no tech opportunities," our current portfolio represents companies with innovations in the bio-tech, IT and energy sectors. Frontier Fund was an early adopter of the AngelSoft platform for deal and group management. A company seeking funding should go to www.frontierangels.com and click on submit a business plan. We have a standing Screening Committee which meets every other month to review new submissions. The Screening Committee usually recommends 2 or 3 companies to present to the fund members at Frontier Fund's regularly scheduled semi-monthly meetings. The group votes on whether or not to proceed into due diligence on the companies that present. Due Diligence Teams are formed based on expertise and interest. One of the extended mission's of Frontier Fund is investor education. As a founding member of the Angel Capital Association, we have relied on their programs through the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Power of Angel Investing Seminars. We have done seminars on the Term Sheet, Angel Investing and will be offering a half day seminar on Valuation and Portfolio Strategy on April 24th. The seminar will be held from 9am to 1pm at Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish. Jordahl and Sliter CPA's and Anderson Zermuehlen CPA's and Business Advisors are event sponsors. The seminar is $75 and includes excellent materials. Contact Liz Marchi, Fund Coordinator, for additional questions or more information, email liz@frontierangels.com, or call 406.883.4044.
Mark your calendars for the 2008 New Frontiers Conference: Propelling Montana Research June 2 in Bozeman, MT. Join Senator Max Baucus, members of the Montana University System and others; including university researchers, entrepreneurs, federal agency representatives, investors and national corporations in this one day showcase of Montana Research. The Economic Development Summit in Butte last year generated a lot of good ideas, particularly in the areas of bioscience and commercialization. This event brings Montana's researchers one step closer to producing tangible results from those ideas. Through a series of presentations, workshops and networking opportunities, it's hoped that leaders in each research sector will find ways to commercialize and develop new technology. There is no charge for this event however space is limited-so please register early! For more information or to register, visit montanaresearch.org. The Montana Department of Commerce and The University of Montana recently launched the Big Sky Innovation website - http://www.big skyinnovation.org. The site is designed to assist the state's technology business sector, and features a resource directory, knowledge center, technology opportunities and an events calendar. Big Sky Innovation is a joint project between the Montana Department of Commerce, Montana Technology Innovation Partnership Program and The University of Montana's School of Business Administration (SOBA), with additional support from the Governor's Office on Economic Development, The University of Montana's National Science Foundation Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
We are currently preparing the Montana BioScience 2008 directory, to be published in June. We want to make sure everyone is included. If you would like to change or add to your information, please contact Sharon Peterson at 406-896-5876 or sharonpeterson@bresnan.net. The Montana BioScience Alliance once again cosponsored the Billings Clinic Science Expo on March 28-29, 2008.
On February 28, 2008, the Montana BioScience Alliance held a meeting and roundtable at the new Montana Manufacturing Extension Center. Presenters at the roundtable were:
Each of the presenters told a fascinating story of their current research. Many thanks to Linda LaCrone at the office of VP for research for making the arrangements.
April 15-16, 2008 · Washington, DC
April 24, 2008 · Whitefish
May 14, 2008 · Spokane, WA
May 15, 2008 · Bozeman
June 2, 2008 · Bozeman
June 17-20, 2008 · San Diego, CA
July 15, 2008 · Missoula
Northwest Research and Education Institute is looking for a full-time clinical trials coordinator. Applicants should have:
Apply online at http://www.svh-mt.org or call 800-237-9008.
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