Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

While many college students hope to find a job with any company upon graduation these days, a second-year Case Western Reserve University medical student already has raised $100,000 for his own medical device startup.

Midwestern healthcare startups collectively raised a little more capital in the first half of 2010 than they did in the same period last year.The slight uptick, to $412 million from $403 million, can be attributed in part to increased seed and angel activity, according to (pdf) a statement from Cleveland-based nonprofit BioEnterprise, which tracks the [...]

Dr. Brian Duncan caught the business bug as the only clinician on a team of Cleveland Clinic researchers who set out in 2004 to develop a heart-assist pump for infants with heart failure.The Clinic wooed Duncan, a pediatric heart surgeon, and his cardiac anesthesiologist wife to Cleveland in 2001. A few years later, the National [...]

Laboratory and office space for up-and-coming biomedical companies has been tight in the University Circle area of Cleveland for several years.Not a bad problem to have, until you start turning away promising young tenants for lack of space. And consider this: Northeast Ohio, which had about 250 biomedical companies in 2003, now has more than [...]

BioEnterprise Inc., the bioscienceventure developer in Northeast Ohio, has formalized a partnership with Team NEO to woo new medical imaging, neurostimulation, cardiovascular device and orthopedic companies to the region.Both nonprofits work in Northeast Ohio andsometimes theybump against each otheror duplicateefforts,said Annette Ballou,director of strategic marketing and communications for BioEnterprise. So the two organizationsdeveloped a strategicplan [...]

Tim Moran still remembers hearing his prematurely born daughter scream when an adult-sized cannula was inserted in her mouth and taped to her face to deliver oxygen. Several years later, Moran has started PediaWorks, a not-for-profit organization that will work with medical professionals to develop pediatric medical devices, spinning off for-profit companies to commercialize those devices.

Midwest health care start-ups attracted $780 million in investments in 2009, according to the BioEnterprise Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report. While the number of companies winning investments last year — 156 — was about the same as in 2008, the dollar volume of the investments dropped 26 percent.

The number of Midwest health care startups receiving investments could set a record this year. However, the startups reported winning far fewer dollars in the first nine months of the year than in either 2008 or 2007.

Ohio kept its No. 4 ranking for the strength of its biotechnology industry in Business Facilities magazine’s annual list, partly because of continued investments by Ohio Third Frontier, according to BioOhio, the state’s bioscience development organization.

The $5 million Medical Growth Fund gathers some of the region’s well-known health-care entreprenuers who want to make seed-level investments in startup companies that are close to profitability. It will focus on medical device, health IT, and health-care services businesses and provide an initial investment of up to $500,000.