Science says “cheese.” Photo by SSH

The winners and honourable mentions of fifth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge have just been announced. The competition, sponsored by the American Academy of Science’s flagship publication, Science, and the National Science Foundation, is intended to “… encourage cutting-edge efforts to visualize scientific data.”

This year’s winners include a CT rendering of the interior of a nose, an information graphic that models the flight of a bat, and an online video of the physiological effects of nicotine.

To see the full list of winners from this year’s competition and from previous years, check out this freely-accessible special feature of the current Science issue:
“2007 Visualization Challenge Winners“

MaRS Venture Group Director, Veronika, in Croatia

Since it’s World Tourism Day, I bring you an idea from my recent travels. I just got back from a fabulous vacation on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Its pristine and dramatically beautiful Adriaitic coastline has become a magnet for tourists in recent years. Tourist trade brings a much needed boost to the Croatian economy, and with it a drive towards over development. Government policies aimed at stretching out the two-month summer season speak volumes about the attitude of the regulators towards assuring Croatia’s position in the global ranking of world’s top tourist destinations.

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The Q3-07 issue of OVP Partners newsletter, “Charting the Course,” analyzes the NVCA Yearbook numbers to get a better sense of what is going on with the consolidation in the venture capital industry. By simply looking at a number of firms that made at least one new deal they conclude that the US venture industry has been cut in half from 2000 through 2006. (In 2000, there were 1156 different venture firms that made at least one new deal. In 2006, there were only 597.) OVP also observes that surviving firms are double the size of those in the bubble, signaling a flight to quality.

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Congratulations to MaRS tenant Octopz Inc., named last week one of Canada’s 10 emerging tech companies-to-watch as part of Deloitte’s 10th annual Technology Fast 50 ranking. Octopz develops online collaboration technology which allows teams to markup advanced media types like videos, audio, animations, Flash files, and 360º panoramas.

Read more: “Octopz Gets a Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award“

Donkey - Sleepy Sandokan
originally uploaded by kenyai

Important news for those going through the FDA drug-approval process: the renewal of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) cleared a major hurdle late last week when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill. All that remains now is for it to be passed by the Senate and signed by the President before the Friday deadline. The pressure to resolve the issue increased considerably when FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach sent out a memo warning that 2,000 workers could get pink slips if Congress doesn’t renew the act by Friday’s deadline (Wall Street Journal, subscription required). As has been their custom recently, the Democrats blinked when faced with another game of chicken.

From the The New York Times:

The bill combined several pieces of legislation governing drug industry user fees, new rules involving the disclosure of clinical trial results, money for studies of older medicines, incentives for tests in children and even the conflicts of interest of drug agency advisers.

However, the bill did not become the “Christmas Tree” that many industry insiders had feared. The bill does not address access to unapproved drugs by severely ill patients nor does it touch biosimilars issue.

A great source for this story, as always, Fierce Biotech

• see BIO’s reaction to the bill
• read the New York Times article from Sept 20th: “FDA Commissioner Warns
  Employees of Possible Layoffs”

What do you get when you bring together renowned academics, design/usability gurus and captains of industry? Something quite wonderful actually. It’s called “The Overlap,” and I had the pleasure of attending this recent gathering on the shores of beautiful Lake Couchiching a few months ago.

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The Australian government has been busily promoting Australian research and innovation in 2 key areas:

1. The Department of Education, Science and Training monitors commercialization activity in Australia’s universities and other publicly funded research institutions and periodically publishes their results. In August, the department released their report on commercialization activity in 2003-2004, including results of a national survey and 18 case studies illustrating the range of universities’ commercialization activities, from early proof-of-concept, to maturation and finally to market.
2. Meanwhile, the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources targets Australian entrepreneurs, providing resources for existing businesses and for young people trying to develop entrepreneurial skills.

I’m so happy that Survivor is starting again today. I go into withdrawal when I can’t get my fix of reality TV. Now for those of you philistines who think Survivor is trash, I must tell you that I only watch it for the strategy (much in the same way that as a teenager I only read Playboy for the articles.)

I find it fascinating to watch people try to develop strategies for winning only to have those plans fail when they run afoul of other contestants’ machinations. In terms of strategy, I keep seeing contestants follow Jim Collins’ concept of assembling the right team: “The main point is to first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it.”

In case you haven’t, you might read Good to Great to get a better understanding of Survivor.

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Download the pitch template (PPT)

Series A pitches have a different emphasis than pitches for later rounds. Improve your presentation by reading this blog post from Common Angels (a Boston-based group of 70 private investors and two co-investment funds under management). The powerpoint template is worth adding to any start-up’s collection of resources.

Read more:
Creating an Early Stage Series A Pitch

Talent is mobile and the market is hot — so Canada can ill-afford to slacken its commitment to research and must act boldly to move our best ideas into the global marketplace.

That is one of the central messages delivered today to science, medical and business leaders in Montreal as part of a wide-ranging lecture by MaRS Chair Dr. John Evans, recipient of the 2007 Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research.

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