Friday, June 27, 2008

Biomed Notebook

Report: N.E. states hold on to tech dominance

By Ryan McBride

During a small gathering of corporate venture types at MIT last week, group organizer and Sloan School of Management lecturer Val Livada was quick to point out that Massachusetts was ranked No. 1 in a Milken Institute study showing how states stack up in science and technology.

The Bay State’s top ranking was met with the customary scepticism for such studies, with one woman among the corporate VCs asking in jest how much the state paid for the honor. For Livada, who stood before the Eastern Corporate Investors Forum group with a slide citing the Milken report, the study merely buttressed his long-standing mantra that Massachusetts is the place for corporations to bet on emerging technologies. (The institute had given Massachusetts the No. 1 ranking in 2007 as well.)

Indeed, the Milken Institute’s 2008 State Technology and Science Index ranked five of the six New England states (sorry Maine) in its top 20. The institute, based in Santa Monica, Calif., sent out a press release for the study last week that included a canned quote from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and noted the commonwealth’s newly signed $1 billion stimulus bill to support growth in the life sciences industry.

The Rhode Island Economic Development Corp., which has stepped up efforts in recent years to position the Ocean State as a test bed for innovation, quickly sent an e-mail to Mass High Tech to highlight the fact that the smallest state in the union broke into the Milken study’s top 10 this year. Specifically, Rhode Island ranked 10th, improving from No. 11 in 2007.

For those who haven’t seen the report, Connecticut ranked No. 7, New Hampshire came in at No. 9, Vermont 19th and Maine an unimpressive 39th (just behind Tennessee, where former Vice President Al Gore may be the best known resident involved in science and technology through his role as a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.)

For what it’s worth, the Milken study ranks states based on 77 separate indicators such as available work force, investment capital, research infrastructure and something called research and development inputs. For the sake of the technology scouting set involved in Eastern Corporate Investors Forum, lets hope Milken has it right.

Hawaii digs American Well

Speaking of getting it right, American Well Corp. followed through with its plans to launch its online health-care business this month. When Mass High Tech first visited American Well co-CEO Roy Schoenberg at his swanky downtown office overlooking Boston Harbor last April, this reporter had many questions about the security, safety and feasibility of connecting patients with clinicians in real-time over the Internet or phone.

To some degree, Schoenberg, himself a physician, showed that he could not only launch a product but get a sizable health-care group — the Hawaii Medical Service Association, a licensee of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Hawaii that serves 1.3 million patients — to sign on as its first customer. To boot, American Well announced it would partner with Microsoft Corp. to integrate American Well’s web-based health care marketplace with Microsoft’s online consumer health platform.

It’s tough, even for a leery journalist, not to be at least a little impressed by this launch. Too often CEOs make bold predictions, forecasts and declarations about their companies that fall short or never materialize at all. Schoenberg, who shares the CEO title at American Well with brother Ido Schoenberg, still has a long way to go before the company could be considered a success.

Still, a product launch with a major customer and a giant partner isn’t bad.

Better kid care

While we’re doling out the kudos, let’s give some to the Institute for Pediatric Innovation, which garnered a small grant ($50,000) for a big cause (improving health care for children). The University of Kansas awarded the Cambridge nonprofit the grant to study the practice of reformulating treatments for children at 25 pediatric hospitals in North America, according to IPI.