Published: 10.26.2007
Arizona Daily Star

Oversized ray gun could be deployed to Iraq early next year, others follow after manufacture, testing

QUANTICO, Va. — There’s no doubt this oversized ray gun can deliver the heat. The question is, how soon can the weapon, which neither kills nor maims, be delivered to Iraq?

At a rain-soaked demonstration of the crowd-dispersal tool here Thursday, military officials said one could be deployed early next year. But others still need to be built and undergo more testing before being shipped, a slow-going process at odds with urgent demands from U.S. commanders for the device.

What the troops may see as needless delays, Pentagon officials view as necessary steps toward fielding a weapon never used before in combat. The device, known as the Active Denial System, uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without guns.

Friday, October 26, 2007

The Business Journal of Phoenix – by Ty Young Phoenix Business Journal

Six U.S. Veterans Administration hospitals, including two in Phoenix and Tucson, have signed on to use the first multicenter software system to catalog hazardous waste.

Tucson-based MC Technologies inked the $668,000 deal to provide its highly specialized Maxcom System to the Veterans Integrated Service Networks’ Southwest region.

The decision comes as VA centers nationwide are scrambling to comply with a 2005 law requiring federal buildings to meet strict Environmental

Protection Agency guidelines. The centers also have to meet additional standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.

To comply, VA centers instituted the Greene Environmental Management System, or GEMS, to improve employee education and life-cycle tracking of hazardous waste products.

Entrepreneurship programs on the rise

Andrew Johnson
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 21, 2007 12:00 AM

As more people choose to skirt corporate America to start their own businesses, entrepreneurship is quickly becoming a popular field of study on college campuses.

With the proliferation of entrepreneurship-education programs has come a call for more academic research on the topic, an area of major interest for Mark Schankerman.

Schankerman joined the University of Arizona in Tucson in August as the first James and Pamela Muzzy Chair in Entrepreneurship.

In addition, he also became executive director of UA’s nationally ranked McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship and is a tenured professor in the economics department.

Published: 10.19.2007

Local investor group aims to market UA tech ideas

By Jack Gillum

If Alicia Reeves and Olin Feuerbacher have their way, testing time for dangerous E. coli bacteria would be cut to a fraction of what it takes now.

The duo hope to move that vision closer to reality with backing from a new group of local investors created to help bring University of Arizona technologies to market.

Reeves’ and Feuerbacher’s company, Innovis Technologies, is developing its E. coli test based on research performed at the UA. It was one of three biotech groups that presented their technologies on Oct. 8 at the inaugural meeting of Desert Tech Investors LLC.

Published: 10.18.2007

$45M in grants to aid ‘personalized’ medicine

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Two Phoenix-area philanthropic organizations have committed $45 million to fund an initiative to develop “personalized molecular diagnostics,” the use of molecular-level testing to diagnose and treat disease based on a person’s unique physiological makeup.

Under the Partnership for Personalized Medicine, the Scottsdale-based Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust has committed $35 million and the Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation has granted $10 million to fund the effort.

Lee Hartwell, a 2001 Nobel laureate and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, will chair the partnership executive committee, which includes George Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, and Dr. Jeffrey Trent, president and scientific director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute, or TGen.

Published: 10.15.2007
Arizona Daily Star

New center would speed drug research
But critics say profits could trump safety

By Matthew Perrone
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration is moving with unprecedented speed to launch a drug research center to be paid for by companies it regulates.

The goal of the Reagan-Udall Foundation, approved by Congress and signed into law late last month, is to streamline and improve the development of drugs and medical devices, a goal long sought by regulators and the biggest players in the industry, such as Merck & Co. Inc., Pfizer Inc., Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline plc and Johnson & Johnson.

At a time when the FDA’s reputation has been battered by perceptions that it is lax on some safety issues and too cozy with drug makers, consumer advocates say the loosely defined partnership increases the agency’s vulnerability to industry clout despite its promise of groundbreaking success. It’s an ambitious undertaking that puts regulators and companies in a relationship unlike that of any other industry.

Published: 10.13.2007

UA opens Mexico office to bolster research efforts

By Michelli Murphy

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The University of Arizona has opened a Mexico City office to foster collaborative research and solve problems affecting both sides of the border.

The purpose of the satellite office is “to engage in collaborative efforts in research and innovation so we can contribute, in the long run, to the economic development of both Arizona and Mexico,” Manager Jose Lever said in a phone interview from Mexico City.

The office, an extension of the UA’s new Office of Western Hemispheric Programs, will strengthen the long history of scientific and economic collaboration with Mexico, said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the UA College of Science.

Mexico is “working hard to become an economic power,” Ruiz said, and has an “incredible amount of scientific strength” to offer.

Published: 10.12.2007

New firm formed from Misys unit

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A new local company has been formed from the acquisition of the Tucson-based diagnostics business of Misys Healthcare Systems.

Sunquest Information Systems Inc. was formed as a privately-held corporation by Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm.

Misys, which earlier this year moved into a new, 122,000-square-foot facility at Williams Centre, sold its Tucson business to Vista in July. Misys is based in Raleigh, N.C. and is part of London-base Misys PLC.

Misys ranked 113th on this year’s Star 200 list of the largest employers in Southern Arizona, with 452 full-time-equivalent positions. In January, the company laid off an undisclosed number of Tucson workers.

Roper Industries exploits niche markets by buying like-minded technology firms

Max Jarman
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 12, 2007 12:00 AM

Florida conglomerate Roper Industries Inc. is gaining traction as an increasingly significant player in Arizona’s high-tech economy.

The Sarasota-based company has quietly acquired a group of Arizona tech companies, with products ranging from rugged computers to high-tech meters to imaging, and provided them with the capital and resources to grow.

In March, the $1.9 billion-a-year Roper acquired JLT Mobile Computers, a Tempe provider of rugged computers for law enforcement, construction, mining and other industrial applications

Published: 10.11.2007

C-Path, Ventana to work with FDA on cancer patient-therapy matches

By Jack Gillum

The Tucson-based Critical Path Institute and Ventana Medical Systems Inc. of Oro Valley said Wednesday that they will work with the federal Food and Drug Administration to establish standards to match cancer patients with targeted therapies.

The goal of the “US Diagnostic Standards” project is to develop performance standards and an evaluation process for so-called “companion diagnostics,” starting with lung cancer.

Such standards are seen as a critical missing step in the road toward “personalized medicine.”

C-Path and Ventana executives, speaking at a Wednesday press conference, expressed frustration with the current FDA-approval process. Ventana’s founder, UA pathologist Dr. Thomas Grogan, said speeding up the approval process is “a question of doing the right thing for every patient.”