GRADUATES
Over the past five years, the Initiative has served more than 450 companies, including 18 who have become onsite incubator members. Eleven companies have graduated from the incubator, and others have benefitted from the coaching and accelerator services we’ve provided to companies and individual entrepreneurs outside the incubator.
These graduates and companies represent the diversity of the life sciences sector itself. Our incubator graduates and a number of our consulting clients are listed below with an overview of their business focus:
Applied Security (APSEC) Information security is in many of the headlines. Protecting customer and employee data is fast becoming job one. Your customers and employees want to know that their information is being handled safely and securely and assured their information is accessed ONLY by authorized users. Let apsec show you how our products will differentiate your company from competitors by providing added protection for their information.
Bara Technologies, Inc. is a diversified design, prototype, and manufacturing company located in Grand Rapids. The company became Bara Technologies in 2001 when it was sold to the current owner. Upon completion of the sale, a transformation began which would change the company from being a supplier of components for others, to becoming a manufacturer of several of its own product lines covering hydraulic cylinders, medical products, and hospital furnishings.
Barrier Technologies, LLC specializes in innovative materials for high-technology applications. Started by Grand Valley State University faculty in 2006, the business now employs six chemists and technicians, and is being funded by the Air Force to develop nonflammable, lightweight, highly structural composites.
Chameleon Development, LLC. was founded by father and son team of John and Dirk VerMeulen in 2001. Chameleon was created as a vehicle for the development of intellectual property, specializing in taking an idea through the commercialization process.
ClinXus is a nonprofit, life sciences alliance, dedicated to benefiting human health and improving patients’ lives through participation in innovative, early phase biomarker and molecular-based trials that are fundamental to personalized medicine. We provide diagnostic, pharmaceutical, biotech and device organizations with the many advantages of collective expertise by leveraging the extensive strengths and resources of our expanding network of partner and community research and health care institutions. ClinXus streamlines the integration of medical and technical expertise beyond the current standard of practice in order to accelerate application of molecular-based research to the treatment of disease.
EDF Ventures is a leading venture capital firm investing in early-stage healthcare companies.
Elkins Innovations, Inc. is a company that specializes in treatment for upper extremity deficiencies. Established in 2001, Elkins has developed a fundamentally new and patented approach to upper extremity prosthetics.
INFORMD, Inc. is a medical information technology company, which was founded in 2003 by Dr. Richard Towbin and Ian Fellows. In 2005, INFORMD launched ADVOCA, an informed consent system for medical professionals and patients consenting for procedures.
INRAD, Inc. INRAD is a developer, manufacturer and distributor of medical devices serving the Radiology and biopsy markets worldwide. Our mission is to help reduce the uncertainty in diagnosis by providing devices that offer more precision to the practitioner.
Kent ISD will be the community's first choice for educational services so that every student in every classroom achieves every day. Kent ISD provides services to twenty local public districts and to all non-public schools within its boundaries. Directly or indirectly, we serve almost 400 schools, more than 120,000 students and 7,000 educators. One of 57 ISD's in Michigan, Kent ISD provides a wide range of services to meet the needs of the educators, families, and communities we serve.
MSU College of Human Medicine - Women's health research MSU has been at the forefront of cancer research since the 1960s, when chemistry professor Barnett Rosenberg and his colleagues made discoveries that led to the development of the well-known cancer-fighting drug cisplatin.Though MSU has been involved in exploring women’s health issues for many decades, in recent years that research has broadened to include all aspects of women’s health, from unlocking the devastating secrets behind breast cancer to studying how to help women recover from violence and other traumas.
Patmos FEA Consulting, an Ann Arbor-founded company has developed a complex computer model of human muscle, which can also be applied to manufacturing contexts. This complex algorithm will allow companies to cut down on the trial-and-error process traditionally associated with developing a whole range of consumer products.
Robertson Research Institute (RPI) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the research and development of leading edge health information technology focused on saving lives and improving quality of life.
Rose Technologies has the expertise to meet your entire medical device design, manufacturing, and assembly automation needs. Whether you need short-term pilot runs or long-term production in one of our class 10,000 clean rooms we will partner with you to design, build, and automate the production of your product at our facility. Our machine design staff will work with you to provide fully automated assembly equipment or simple fixtures and gauges. The Rose Technologies' product design staff can provide single piece prototypes or a complete turnkey package for your new product.
Sordal Inc., a NASA licensee company that focuses on the research and development of high-tech materials for the military, with an eye toward expanding into the life sciences -- as well as automotive, office furniture, specialty insulation, aircraft, aerospace and clothing markets.
Soy Ultima is a food and technology company with a mission to introduce "whole soy" technology into finished foods.
TechGuard Security was founded in February 2000 to address National Cyber Defense initiatives and US Critical Infrastructure Security. TechGuard provides trusted and award-winning Cyber Security Solutions through innovative research and development, consulting services and training for the DoD, Intelligence, DHS, Federal, Financial and Healthcare communities. TechGuardians ® address the current challenges of cybersecurity and privacy, specifically the problems of information management, network vulnerabilities, firewall integrity and network security concerns created by e-commerce initiatives, global Internet connections and cyberterrorism.
TransCorp is a privately held early-stage, medical device company dedicated to developing unique, commercially-viable, minimally-invasive, tissue-saving products and procedures for the treatment of cervical spine pathologies. TransCorp Spine continues to develop products that are designed to enable the surgeon to rapidly, safely and effectively decompress the cervical spine often without the need to perform a complete discectomy, fusion or arthroplasty.
Van Andel Institute-Xenobase is a unique, advanced bio-informatic system created by scientists at VARI to support all aspects of the life sciences from basic research to clinical application.
Vital Concepts, Inc. was founded in 1990 and acquired by the current president, Doug Sheehan in 2003. The company assembles and packages disposable medical devices.
