Connect, the non-profit group that supports innovation and entrepreneurship, named San Diego’s eight most-innovative products of 2011—and bestowed its highest honor on Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: GPRO) for its nucleic acid test for screening donated blood.

Connect gave Gen-Probe its William W. Otterson Award for its Procleix test, which won FDA approval in 2002, saying Procleix has significantly increased the safety of the world supply of donated blood by dramatically reducing the risk of contracting HIV, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and West Nile virus from a blood transfusion. Previous recipients of the award include Intuit for TurboTax, Qualcomm for CDMA technology, and General Atomics for the Predator unmanned spy plane.

But the afternoon belonged to Bill Walton, the legendary basketball player and Grateful Dead fan, who served as Connect’s master of ceremonies at the luncheon ceremony Friday. With his extensive experience as a sports broadcaster and counter-culture icon, the NBA Hall of Famer delivered a moving tribute to the spirit of entrepreneurship and the determination needed to overcome adversity.

Almost three years after undergoing a new type of spinal surgery that San Diego-based NuVasive (NASDAQ: NUVA) helped to pioneer, Walton proclaimed himself “the luckiest man alive.” The injury-prone basketball great has said that his back pain was so intense before the surgery that he considered suicide. Now living without pain for the first time in years, Walton is a walking testimonial for NuVasive, and a life-affirming example of what a breakthrough in medical technology can accomplish.

In a commentary that was vintage Walton, “the Big Red Deadhead” intertwined the lyrics of several Grateful Dead tunes in a paen to entrepreneurship and San Diego’s Challenged Athlete Foundation. He urged entrepreneurs to defy those who say, “that will never work,” likening their experience to handicapped athletes who struggle to compete. And he reminded the audience that in “Stella Blue,” the late Jerry Garcia sang, “It all rolls into one and nothing comes for free.”

Connect says it received more than 140 nominations—a record number— from local companies for its 24th annual “Most Innovative New Product Awards.” In one category, software, there were a record 37 applications, more than any other category in the history of the event.

To be eligible, the product must have been developed in the San Diego area, introduced between March 2010 and September 2011, and generated sales revenue. More than 850 people attended the awards luncheon, which offers awards in biomedical diagnostics and research tools, medical products, software, communications and IT, cleantech, aerospace and security technologies, hardware and general technology, and action and sport technologies.

The 2011 winners of … Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Hologic (NASDAQ: HOLX), a Bedford, MA-based developer of diagnostic and medical imaging devices, announced today that it has bought Beijing-based TCT International for $135 million in cash, with $35 million of that deferred for one year, plus a two-year contingent earn out. TCT is a distributor of medical products and instruments in China, including Hologic’s ThinPrep Pap Test. “We firmly believe by controlling a distribution channel as extensive as TCT’s, we can better leverage our entire product portfolio to drive growth across multiple market segments,” said Hologic president and CEO Rob Cascella in the announcement of the deal.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Updated: Medical products giant Covidien (NYSE:COV) says it wants to play the venture capital game, announcing this morning that it has launched a corporate VC group to make strategic investments in startups focused on medical devices, diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals.

Covidien Ventures, which operates at Covidien’s headquarters in Mansfield, MA, appears to be in sync with the mantra of company executives, who have preached since Covidien spun out of Tyco International in June 2007 that the company would seek expansion in high-margin businesses such as advanced surgical devices. I caught wind back in the May-June timeframe that Dan Sheehan, who heads Covidien Ventures, had been making the rounds at life sciences events in the Hub. I tried to contact Sheehan months ago, but a Covidien spokesman declined my request because Sheehan was transitioning from his home in the Midwest (he was previously a general partner at Affinity Capital Management in Minneapolis) to New England.

It remains unclear how much Sheehan and Covidien Ventures have to invest in life sciences startups (yet given that Covidien generated about $10.2 billion in fiscal 2007 revenue, the VC group’s resources could be vast). The corporate venture group gives some details about its investment criteria at its new website, saying it plans to invest up to $5 million in each round of financing and seek seats on the boards of directors at the startups in which it invests. Covidien Ventures doesn’t currently list a portfolio of existing investments on its website.

In addition to Sheehan, Covidien has recruited Dave Neustaedter for the new venture arm. Neustaedter was a director of commercial strategy and advanced technologies for the Stryker Development division of medical devices powerhouse Stryker (NYSE:SYK), of Kalamazoo, MI. Joseph Graham, the third member of the VC group, was recruited from within Covidien’s corporate R&D unit. Before he joined Covidien, Graham was manager of a DNA sequencing lab at MIT’s Whitehead Institute.

Update Aug. 19: Covidien spokesman Bruce Farmer says that the company has not established an actual fund from which investments would be made, like a traditional VC would, and it has not decided on a set amount of venture investments it plans to make annually. He confirms, though, that the corporate VC group falls in line with the company’s strategy to tap outside sources for new technology. “One of the issues we had as Tyco Healthcare was that R&D was significantly under-funded,” Farmer says, “and this is a way to catch up.” He adds that the firm also pursued this goal through the acquisitions of technology assets from Portland, OR-based CardioDigital this summer and Sorbx, of Jacksonville, FL, last year.

The launch of Covidien Ventures should attract many medtech startups in search of funding to advance their experimental products to the next phase of development, says Tom Sommer, president of MassMEDIC (Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council), a Boston-based industry group. “This is an important offering that the region’s medtech community now has at its disposal,” Sommer says.

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share: