Midwest E3 Summit Attracting Angel Investors, Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders to Indiana

StepStone Business Partners is proud to announce open registration for the Midwest Empowering an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Summit that will be held in conjunction with the Venture Club of Indiana’s Innovation Showcase on July 11th and July 12th in Indianapolis.

TechPoint and TechPoint Ventures’ seed funding organization Halo Capital Group are proud sponsors of this event.

The Midwest E3 Summit has been designed to attract angel investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders from across Indiana and the Midwest who are looking to enhance capital and intellectual resource formation for early stage technology companies in the region.

The agenda will include panels and sessions that cover topics such as:

• Midwest Angel investment landscape
• Angel investment preferences
• Portfolio strategy
• Investor diligence
• Term sheets
• Governance

StepStone Business Partners believes that education and experience coupled in a networking environment will help foster investor confidence in early stage investment opportunities that will translate to higher levels of capital and intellectual resources availability for entrepreneurial companies.

Full tickets include admission to both the Midwest E3 Summit and the Venture Club’s Innovation Showcase. Seating will be limited.

Learn more about the Midwest E3 Summit http://www.midweste3.com/

Register now for the Midwest E3 Summit http://www.midweste3.com/registration/

Questions? Contact StepStone Business Partners at 317-635-9070
or via email at support@midweste3.com.

Indiana Health Industry Forum Releases Statewide Strategic Plan

INDIANAPOLIS (May 8, 2012) - The Indiana Health Industry Forum (IHIF), a not-for-profit organization representing Indiana’s health science business community, today released a “Statewide Strategic Plan for Indiana’s Health Science Sector: 2012-2017”.  “We are very pleased to present the results of several months of research and consultation with industry leaders”, said IHIF president, Kristin Jones.  “This plan articulates the needs and interests of our health science business community and puts us on the path to addressing those challenges together”.

Released in conjunction with IHIF’s annual meeting, the plan provides recommendations around several key areas: capital formation, research and technology commercialization, business climate, workforce and education, and public policy.  According to Dr. Joerg Schrieber, Chairman of the IHIF Board of Directors, “what we have learned through this process is that there is great consensus among members of the industry as to what challenges we face.  We also know that these challenges are not unique to Indiana and that other states and regions are taking the initiative to address the gaps.  We can learn a lot from our friends and neighbors that can be applied here, to fit our culture and structure”.

The report offers thirteen recommendations which are accompanied by specific action steps.  While the Indiana Health Industry Forum will oversee the execution of the plan, there is continued reliance on industry members, other related organizations, and the plan’s committees to move the agenda ahead.  “Benchmark reports will be issued every six months in order to keep everyone informed and apprised of progress,” said Jones.

The IHIF 2012 Annual Meeting also features a panel discussion on “Supporting Innovative Economies” and keynote speakers, Fritz Bittenbender, Vice President, Alliance Development and State Government Relations for the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and Matthew Hudes, U.S. Managing Principal, Biotechnology, for Deloitte, who will be presenting industry outlooks and discussing programs and approaches to building and supporting industry clusters.  The meeting concludes with a look ahead at national policy issues facing the medical device, pharma/biotech, and healthcare delivery sectors.

The “Statewide Strategic Plan for Indiana’s Health Science Sector: 2012-2017”, is sponsored by Barnes & Thornburg, LLP, Duke Energy, Commissioning Agents, Inc., and Develop Indy/16 Tech, a downtown Indianapolis technology park. For more information on the Statewide Strategic Plan and IHIF’s 2012 Annual meeting, please visit www.ihif.org.

About IHIF

The diverse members of the Indiana Health Industry Forum generate the collective voice of the state’s health and life science industry. The Forum connects key stakeholders to enhance business networks, advocate for member interests, develop workforce skills, and provide strategic vision in the interest of growing the state’s health industry economy and reputation. IHIF is the Indiana affiliate of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). To learn more, please visit www.ihif.org or contact IHIF at 317.278.9970.

Project Lead the Way Poster Event

BIO: JOBS bill would offer relief to biopharma, biotech startups

House lawmakers voted 380-41 to approve the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, sending it to President Obama for signing into law. BIO, one of the groups backing the bill, said the act’s “on-ramp” provision for initial public offerings will allow biopharmas to focus on disease research. “This legislation incentivizes and encourages capital formation for small, emerging biotechnology companies, speeding the development of new cures and treatments for patients living with debilitating diseases,” BIO President and CEO Jim Greenwood said. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (3/28)

 

Source: BIO Smartbrief

Read more at SmartBrief.com

Purdue doubles research investment, expands commercialization effort

Purdue officials reported that 364 global patents were filed last year and Purdue led the Big Ten and aspirational peers in finalizing commercial licenses and options during the same period. Discovery with delivery is a key component of the university’s 10-year plan to generate new sources of funding, and the Office of Technology Commercialization and the Purdue Research Park network are key to the effort.

Full Story Here

Guest Blog: Stuck between evidence and policy

February 2012

By: Peter T. Kissinger

Stuck. That’s how many of us feel about commercial life sciences. The venture capitalists have abandoned us. The IPO market is largely closed to us. The momentum is once again with IT and all its apps, games and social networking variants. IT and life sciences both tend to cycle with large amplitudes, as reflected for both in the last four decades. IT has the ball today and is running with it. The energy sector is also energized. Meanwhile, innovation in life sciences is struggling like a mouse in a glue trap—and it’s not pretty.

The old guard is moving on, and the new biology, with all of its promise, is trapped between a heavy and uncertain burden of regulation, price controls (AKA “reimbursement”), a lack of confident risk capital and trouble meeting expectations. The science is much more nuanced than was projected to the public. We didn’t lie. We just didn’t know. Massive industrialization of R&D did not work to mitigate the long-expected patent cliff. Over we go. We’ve retrenched from the old R&D model as too bureaucratic, mechanical and uninspired, swinging back to academics and smaller firms as the engines of discovery.

Politicians speak of small business as a source of job growth, but they must not be, including the many small life-science businesses with which I engage here in the Midwest. The inputs are often university technologies, and funding is tough beyond friends, family, angels and SBIR/STTR grants. Even the proliferating business plan competitions can put a few beans in the pot. The bugs in this system are many.

Universities have been using a playbook based on fear of losing on one of those very rare big wins. Don’t pass the ball for fear of either a touchdown, incompletion or an interception. The safer bet is to stay in the huddle as the game clock runs out. Time and money is lost in the analysis process and the expectation of reimbursement of IP expenses early on. Small angel funds then treat a $200,000 investment as if it were $200 million. That makes sense to them. Capital is a scarce commodity in a recession, and these funds are tiny.

There are few venture funds left for life-science startups. Those that remain focus on later-stage deals such as driving sales after U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)approval or funding projects that larger firms spin out, de-risked somewhat after the preclinical work is done.

The good news is that many are aware of this problem and explore new, more open approaches. Perhaps the desire for blockbuster entrepreneurship can pass to a more personalized version that is less bureaucratic, more about doing and then failing fast with grace. Today, we are seeing more corporate partnerships funding projects at small firms as large organizations have become less egotistical and isolationist.

Drug discovery happened for decades in smaller firms, but lately, that has been accelerating. This impacts the instrument industry (more auction sites as small firms fail) and the contract research organization industry (smaller projects with fewer molecules spread over more fragile clients). The impact on careers as the pace of creative destruction accelerates is a change we do not like. It is more important than ever to locate in a dynamic life-science cluster where an ecosystem of small and large firms, management talent and capital sources all co-exist.

Several columns back, I wrote of attempts by professional groups to influence a comprehensive innovation strategy. Great minds are noodling, and the tactical ideas are fine with respect to tax policy and reforming the FDA, but I’ve come to the conclusion that our biggest challenge is spiritual. There is far too much whining and pointing fingers to take time to get down to doing.

Industry disappoints, and some want the government to do it. Government disappoints, and some want free enterprise to do it. Both play a role and both will screw up now and then. I favor free enterprise because we can screw up on a smaller scale, auction off our equipment and move on. It’s too bad Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae could not have done that too. Government is bad at stopping what it starts. They have no skin in the game other than ours, so they take more of it.

We’ve started the year 2012 off rather badly, with U.S. debt matching GNP and political candidates and their advocates throwing mud. In free enterprise, we have winners and losers, just as we do in football. It’s OK. Labs and plants will close as others sprout up. If you take a greater risk, you get a greater reward, or more likely, you get nothing at all. This works very well in the aggregate.

I’ve made foolish investments (in retrospect) and suffered the consequences. Moving from the 1 percent back to the 99 percent is not fun, but I own my decisions. What I like even less is government making foolish investments with my money and yours. There is never an apology.

So here we are, stuck! Your assignment in this critical election year is to explain how and why free enterprise works—warts and all. We must explain the complexity of biology and disease. On both fronts, there will be forces pointing to egregious examples, often out of context, to attract the votes of our friends and neighbors. If we allow this to happen, without countering the shouting with wisdom, we will be stuck for decades. Policy, like medical decisions, should be based on evidence, not magic. Evidence to support policy should not be selected from a menu; policy should be derived from evidence. In 2012, we need to get this right.

Peter T. Kissinger is professor of chemistry at Purdue University, chairman emeritus of BASi and a director of Chembio Diagnostics, Phlebotics and Prosolia.  Dr. Kissinger is also a member of the IHIF Board of Directors.

Guest Post: Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. – M&A 2012 Life Sciences and Healthcare Sector Forecast

Welcome to the 2012 edition of the Life Sciences & Healthcare Sector Forecast, published by mergermarket in association with Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. (Epstein Becker Green) and IntraLinks. Based on interviews with over 75 US-based healthcare investors and corporate executives, this report offers insight into emerging trends in investment activity, as well as a detailed forecast for specific subsectors, including  biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, medical device, healthcare providers and payors, and healthcare services.
Expectations for the overall level of life sciences and healthcare M&A activity over the next 12 months are positive, according to a 65% majority. Respondents expect all segments of the sector to increase, with the medical device subsector rated highest by a slight margin. Most of the activity will take form as acquisitions and private equity buyouts. Strategic buyers will be most active throughout the sector, particularly in  biotechnology and pharmaceuticals due to the longterm nature of the investment, according to over three-quarters of respondents. Private equity and other financial buyers will look to the healthcare services subsector as hospitals and providers are impacted by healthcare reform and budget cuts.
Patent litigation and implementation of the healthcare reform bill are expected to drive consolidation through the life sciences and healthcare sector. In healthcare services, the need to cut costs and adapt to potential entitlement program changes are the primary factors forcing consolidation, according to 34% and 21% of respondents, respectively. An approaching wall of patent expiration is likewise affecting the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals and medical device subsectors.

In cross-border activity, US-based investors will target China and the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan and China, according to 45% and 21% of respondents, respectively. The area’s rapidly growing middle class, as well as government initiatives to provide national healthcare, has kept investors’ focus since last year’s report where China was similarly the respondents’ top choice.

Of the numerous provisions of US healthcare reform, the employer mandate is expected to have the most impact on M&A-related decisions. Changes to Medicare and Medicaid will have the biggest affect out of possible congressional budget segments, according to 42% of respondents. Just over half of respondents agree, the most likely development of regulatory and budget changes will be industry consolidation.

In addition to the above findings, this report offers insight into financial trends, due diligence issues and a wide range of factors influencing deal flow in the healthcare sector over the next 12 months. We hope you find this report both interesting and informative, and as always, we welcome your feedback.

Click here for the full report

Purdue Launching Commercialization Center

Source: Inside Indiana Business

Purdue University is pumping more than $1 million into the establishment of a new Innovation and Commercialization Center. Our partners at WBAA in West Lafayette report the aim is to help innovators bring products to market more quickly. The university plans to fund the center’s startup costs through gifts and endowments.

Read More

Commissioning Agents, Inc. Signs on as Level 2 Sponsor of Statewide Strategic Plan

Many thanks to Commissioning Agents for their support of IHIF’s statewide strategic plan for the health science sector. Commissioning Agents is an industry leader in providing integrated commissioning, validation and qualification services for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device manufacturing facilities and laboratories. Services include validation and commissioning planning, management, field execution, manufacturing support, compliance consulting, auditing, and quality risk management implementation.

For more information, please visit Commissioning Agents, Inc.

Strategic Plan Survey Responses – Digging into the details

This week we’re looking into how far we’ve come with the goals set forth in the 1999 strategic plan. In the on-line survey, respondents are asked to assess whether or not we’ve met the eight original goals. We’re asking this both to determine the impact of the past effort but also to gauge what still needs to be addressed. Here are some of the results.

Highest level of satisfaction – 26 respondents indicated we have met or exceeded goal #2, “Create an Image/Brand for Indiana’s Health Industry”.

The highest level of dissatisfaction was with goal #3, “Couple State’s Manufacturing Base with Technological Levers (R&D, workforce, etc.). 51 respondents indicated this goal either needed more work or was not met.

Three goals tied for slightly lesser satisfaction with 50 respondents each indicating the goals needed more work or were not met. The three goals were #1 – Couple state’s higher education core competencies with health industry strengths to build a competitive health industry, #6 – Build a vibrant entrepreneurial culture, and #7 – Ensure an adequate, skilled statewide workforce for the health industry.

Each of these goals will be included in the discussions around new recommendations. Correlating with the responses in this section, we have seen new recommendations with a strong interest in increasing entrepreneurial support and an emphasis on education. If you have additional thoughts or specific recommendations, please visit the strategic plan section of the IHIF website (www.ihif.org) to take the survey or submit comments. This plan is intended to articulate the needs of industry, so please speak up!