| Meet Past BPC Winners |
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MatriLab, a biotech start-up company with origins in Madison but strong business and clinical roots in Milwaukee, is the grand prize winner in the 2006 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest. The company, which makes an innovative drug delivery product for wounds, will collect prizes of at least $50,000 as a result of winning the contest.
While conventional bandages cover the surface of an injury, the MatriLab technology conforms to the irregular, “English muffin”-like contours of a wound.
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MatriLab’s first product is a spray-on biomaterial used in thetreatment of chronic wounds. While the basic scientific research was carried out by Dr. John Kao and his team on the UW-Madison campus, clinical work has taken place in Milwaukee under the leadership of scientists such as Dr. Jeff Niezgoda. Brian Thompson and Kathleen Kelleher lead the company’s business operations.
The company is working with scientists at UW-Madison, the Medical College of Wisconsin and St. Lukes Medical Center, as well as management consultants at Milwaukee’s TechStar Early Ventures.
MatriLab also won the Life Sciences category in the contest, which was judged by 48 business, investment and technology experts. Winners in other categories were:
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Advanced Manufacturing: Plasma Devices, Madison. Plasma Devices has developed its first product, “Safe-Mail,” a patented plasma reactor that produces large volumes of low-temperature plasma at exceptionally low costs for use in the decontamination of packages and letters for a wide variety of biological and chemical agents, including anthrax, smallpox, SARS and flu strains. “Safe-Mail” decontaminates post and packages without causing damage to the items being shipped. The contestant is Magesh Thiyagarajan of Madison.
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Business Services: Pragmatic Construction, Milwaukee. Pragmatic Construction is a start-up business founded to advance sustainable development within the urban environment. By integrating Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, an innovative, primary building material, with other green and traditional energy-efficient technologies, Pragmatic Construction obtains the optimal ratio of low construction costs, high quality, and superior energy efficiency. The contest team included Juli Kaufmann, Steve Servais and Nikolai Usack.
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Information Technology: Get IPIC, Madison. The mission of GetIPIC is to secure the e-consumer’s privacy and prevent online identity theft by giving the e-consumer the ability to make anonymous purchases through the use of its proprietary methodology, the IPIC™ (Internet Privacy and Identity Credential™). GetIPIC’s technology gives consumers the ability to control their personal information and conduct private and secure e-transactions; enables online merchants to increase sales without changing existing point-of-sale systems; and increases bank revenues while ensuring regulatory compliance. The contest team included Khaja Din, Curt Szymanski and Brent Newport
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Second place winners by category are: Joral Devices, LLC, Waukesha (Advanced Manufacturing); GreenLeaf Market, Madison (Business Services); U.S. Trail Maps, Wausau (Information Technology); and Salus Discovery, Madison (Life Sciences).
Third place winners by category are: New Type Milking System, Hortonville (Advanced Manufacturing); Project-Based Learning Systems, LLC (Business Services); GuestBridge Inc., Milwaukee (Information Technology) and Ratio, Inc., Madison (Life Sciences).
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Mithridion Inc., the top-scoring plan in the Life Sciences category, was the Grand Prize winner in 2005. Mithridion is a Madison-based company that is focused on designing and exploiting breakthrough discoveries to develop drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Jeff Johnson, a UW-Madison researcher, and Dr. Trevor Twose are Mithridion's executives
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Second prize was awarded to AquaSensors, LLC, of Brookfield, the winner in the Advanced Manufacturing category. The company designs and manufactures innovative analytical measurement systems for the continuous monitoring of pH, electrical conductivity, dissolved oxygen, ozone, and turbidity in aqueous processes. Bruce Bathurst is the owner.
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Two other finalists were: |
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RADOM, a Milwaukee company, won the Business Services category. RADOM assists small- and medium-size medical device manufacturers grow their market share by providing outsourced research solutions. Jovan Jevtic and Ashok Menon are founders.
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Online-Kiosks.net, of Eau Claire, won the Information Technology category. The company helps businesses display personalized, motivational, entertaining and multi-lingual information to customers and employees in waiting areas and other public locations. Mike Strand is the founder.
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From innovative ways to improve business processes to ideas for enhancing everyday life, the contest attracted more than 300 ideas from 234 individuals in more than 100 communities.
BioSystem Development and NovaScan not only tied in final judging based on oral presentations, but in earlier numerical scoring based on the judges? reading of their 20-page business plans. Both companies were entered in the Life Sciences category of the contest, and shared category prize money as well as Grand Prize dollars. |
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BioSystem Development, founded by CEO Scott Fulton of Middleton, offers an alternative to laboratory test used routinely by drug researchers and other scientists.
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NovaScan, co-founded by Bill Gregory, Chris Gregory and Larry Wells of greater Milwaukee, has developed technology that can detect breast cancer tumor at an earlier stage and smaller size than medical imaging devices in current use. |
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Other category winners, each of whom received $10,000, are:
- Sound Focus, a Madison firm with a technology that can direct a ball of sound to specific locations, which can lead to applications in home theaters, museums, classrooms and more. This company, co-founded by Jeffrey Milsap and J. Michael Underwood, won the Information Technology category.
- Aquamake, a Milwaukee company, won the Advanced Manufacturing category with a wastewater recycling system that reclaims household and commercial wastewater. The treated water is reused for flushing toilets, developing ?green? communities and other applications. Craig Gravatt is the founder.
- IntelliMentor, also of Milwaukee, produces online organizational change management tools and ?intelligent virtual change agents? that help people plan and implement critical business initiatives faster, cheaper and better. Thomas Olscheske of Milwaukee is the co-founder.
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