life sciences : Innovation + Job News

A total of 51 companies have moved into the semi-final round of the 2011 Minnesota Cup, which is now in its seventh year.

The list of companies includes two, Naiku and Qualtrx, that were also selected for Project Skyway's inaugural tech accelerator.

The Minnesota Cup is also similar to the national Cleantech Open, which also announced semifinalists last week-- companies compete for divisional and grand prize money (a total of $185,000) but also receive invaluable mentoring and exposure to investors, entrepreneurs, and other business experts.

Companies fall into six divisions: Clean Technology and Renewable Energy, BioSciences, High Tech, Social Entrepreneur, General, and Student.

Matt Hilker, director of the Minnesota Cup, who is in his second full cycle of the competition, says this is where the value starts for the semi-finalists--with "the validation and the exposure they get for their idea, whether it's potential advisors or even customers, that's huge," says Hilker.

"Just the process itself is good, because they're given deadlines of when they have to turn in a business plan," says Hiler. "It's motivation."

Over the next month-and-a-half, each company will be paired with at least one mentor while they write their business plans. In mid-August, three finalists will be chosen from each division, with the winners of each collecting $25,000 and moving on to the final round in September.

The Minnesota Cup's program background and details page gives a good explanation and a timeline of the competition.

Source: Matt Hilker, Minnesota Cup
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

Ximedica (pronounced "Zye-medica") is already established near one medical device hotspot (Boston) and is now expanding to another: the Twin Cities.

"Minneapolis is the hub of so many medical device companies and the hub of so many of our customers," says Sandra Weiss, director of marketing for the Providence, Rhode Island-based firm.

Ximedica provides up-front research, design, strategy, product development and introduction, and many other services to medical device and consumer healthcare companies.

The new office will be located in the University Enterprise Laboratories (UEL) Center, near University Avenue and Highway 280.

The company will be hiring locally, says Weiss--a key part of maintaining the presence and trust with local partners that the company has established on the East Coast for nearly 25 years.

"We're [hiring locally] so we can continue to maintain that service, we can continue to earn that trust locally, just like we've done in Providence," says Weiss, who notes that the Twin Cities is also a hub of academia and research related to the industry.

Ximedica does not have a solid target for the number of employees there, but it is "actively recruiting" and "aggressively hiring," says Stephanie Chamberlain, human resources manager for Ximedica.

As of mid-June, the staff count was one: Director of Human Factors Industrial Design David Copeland. His team will eventually include a director of engineering; senior level mechanical, software and electrical engineers; and program managers.

The Minnesota facility is expected to be at full capacity this fall, according to a press release, and Ximedica is also expanding its Providence location to 100,000 square feet of "integrated product development space."

Source: Sandra Weiss, Ximedica
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

After a decade as Vital Images' largest customer, California-based Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (TMSC) plans to take the local visualization and analysis software company into its fold. 

Through a $273-million cash tender preceding a merger, a TMSC subsidiary will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Vital Images common stock for $18.75 per share--a 39 percent premium over a recent volume-weighted average, according to a press release.

Executives of both companies applauded the pending merger, which they believe will strengthen their longtime partnership. "This transaction means we can now accelerate our global presence with the strength and backing of TMSC," says Michael Carrel, CEO of Vital Images, in the release.

Toshiba plans to continue to build the Vital Images business locally at its Minnetonka headquarters, where 175 of its 245 employees work, says Nancy Johnson, account supervisor for Padilla Speer Beardsley, which handles press relations for Vital Images. The company expects that the merger will lead to the hiring of more employees in the future, she says.

Vital Images' software allows doctors to non-invasively examine internal organs and more easily make diagnoses and plan for surgeries. The software takes two-dimensional, black-and-white images of internal organs through CT scan, MRI and other formats, then "stacks" them to create more complex imagery.
 
Doctors can navigate through the images, removing layers for a clear examination and "internal accounting without going through a physical operation," says Johnson.

Originally used in radiology departments, the software has been extended in recent years for hospital-wide accessibility by numerous physicians, she says, and it is accessible beyond the hospital via the Web, according to a product description. Vital Images software also serves as a data-management and work-flow tool.

Sources: Vital Images; Nancy Johnson, Padilla Speer Beardsley
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

Dgimed Ortho, Inc. has double the reason to celebrate, with the near-completion of a $2.5 million equity round and a medical device industry award too boot.

By mid-April, the Minnetonka-based early-stage medical device company had sold $2,124,780 of a securities offering, according to an SEC filing. It is the company's fifth offering a various type since its first $3.4 million initial round was completed in 2009.

In 2008, founder and chairman Dan Gladney acquired the rights to technology for a proprietary system to assist orthopedic surgeons in the delivery of long-bone intramedullary nail implants, according to an Orthopedics and Spine News Blog entry that year.

The product Dgimed Ortho developed is the DISTALOCK Intramedullary (IM) Nail and Drill System, which last week received a 2011 Medical Design Excellence Award.

The system offers surgeons the ability to treat long-bone fractures with better clinical outcomes, lower surgery costs, and little or no need for x-rays, according to a press release about the award.

"Our team has worked hard to develop a world-class system to benefit patients and hospital staff," said Dgimed Ortho President and CEO Mark McMahan through the release. Award winners will be honored at a presentation ceremony in June in New York City.

Source: Dgimed Ortho
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

St. Paul-based Synovis Life Technologies received the Manufacturers Alliance Association's 2011 Manufacturer of the Year Award not so much for what it creates, but how it produces it.

The diversified medical device company makes implantable biomaterials, devices for microsurgery, and tools used in surgical repair and reconstruction of soft tissue damaged or destroyed by disease or injury.

The annual award, now in its 15th year, recognizes companies that use lean tools and techniques in their manufacturing. Synovis won in the mid-sized manufacturers' category.

""We started looking at lean five or six years ago," says Brett Reynolds, Synovis' chief financial officer. Synovis switched to the Kanban (or "just-in-time") product scheduling system, reducing its on-hand stores of inventory from 17 weeks to just eight weeks.

Furthermore, work cells organized by product line increased efficiency, says Reynolds. As a result, Synovis has been able to stay in its 65,000-square-foot facility despite an average annual growth of 25 percent over the past five years, and its on-time shipping rate has gone up to virtually 100 percent, says Reynolds.

The MAA award recognizes not only innovation in manufacturing, but a company's willingness and efforts to share those ideas and practices within the industry, something Reynolds says Synovis has been active in doing.

Its operations team shares ideas at conferences, and companies and educational groups tour the facility to see the manufacturing process, he says.

Synovis was founded in 1985 with $300,000 in revenue, a number that grew to almost $69 million last year, says Reynolds, who expects $80�85 million in 2011. Of its 300 employees, 200 work in St. Paul at University Avenue and Highway 280 on the border of Minneapolis.

Source: Brett Reynolds, Synovis Life Technologies
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

A new startup hopes to offer a safer and more effective treatment for atherosclerosis through its licensing of University of Minnesota medical technology.

Emad Ebbini, an electrical and computer engineering professor in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, led a team that developed the high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) technology, according to a U of M press release. The university says it has finalized a license agreement with startup International Cardio Corporation, who declined to comment for this article.

Atherosclerosis is a condition in which arteries become blocked by a buildup of plaque, usually treated with drugs or angioplasty.

By contrast, HIFU is a noninvasive, real-time ultrasonic imaging and localized treatment of tissue abnormalities which developers hope may have even broader applications, including the treatment of cancer.

The form of non-ionizing radiation localizes treatment to small areas (the size of a grain of rice or a sesame seed, states the release) at a much faster rate than other current systems such as MRI.

The technology links imaging and therapy by returning dynamic images that allow doctors to almost instantaneously refocus the energy at the target--an outcome that can be faster, more precise, and safer than invasive surgery or radiation therapy.

The equipment necessary for HIFU is less expensive than other imaging techniques, such as MRI, making it more accessible to doctors and less expensive for patients, says the release.

International Cardio Corporation may submit the technology to the FDA for testing later this year.

Source: University of Minnesota
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

The Minneapolis-based health-care/IT company formerly known as VisionShare began in February in its offices near the University of Minnesota and ended the month as ABILITY Network in its newly designed headquarters in Downtown Minneapolis' Butler Square.

The new 51,000-square-foot digs--designed to meet LEED Commercial Interior standards--reflect the 11-year-old company's physical growth. Now with 135 employees, ABILITY has added 100 jobs in the past few years and expects to add a hundred more in the next few, including dozens more jobs this year, says CEO Mark Briggs.

Meanwhile, the fresh moniker reflects the substantial growth and change of the business; after many years enabling secure internet Medicare transactions, ABIILTY has extended its services to more health-care providers.

ABILITY now connects 3,500 hospitals nationwide--about half the hospitals in the  country, says Briggs--as well as tens of thousands of other health-care facilities.

Furthermore, ABILITY now allows those customers to do more than just administer Medicare transactions, but to work with commercial payers or plans, says Briggs.

He characterizes the network as a "Google for doc[tors]" that "enables clinicians to be aware of the fragmented nature of their patients' clinical record," says Briggs.

"When I show up at the hospital for the first time, I start with a blank manila folder," he explains, "I've got health information scattered across the health-care network. There was no way, pre-ABILTIY, for the health-care-giver to know where all that information was."

ABILITY allows the care-giver to locate the information and bring it together, with patient consent and in a secure way that takes the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) into account, Briggs notes.

The result is "more efficient health care that leads to better patient outcomes, lower costs [for both insurers and patients] and to take the same budget and provide care for more people instead of less-efficient care for fewer," he says.

Briggs notes that stimulus funding and the attention the current administration has given to health care have "been helpful in enabling health-care providers to have the resources to connect." IT advances have made the work possible.

"Only recently did the technology mature to the point where this became feasible," says Briggs, "and hospitals and doctors have funding to enable these types of networks to grow profitably."

Source: Mark Briggs, ABILITY Network
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

Agitators, innovators, evangelists and maybe even some angels (as in investors) gathered Feb. 23 for a MOJO Minnesota-hosted conversation on technology transfer.

At issue: how to bridge the gap between inventors and entrepreneurs and smooth the runway for the commercialization of innovations and intellectual property produced by Minnesota researchers.

The event took place on the U of M's West Bank campus. The panel of six, which was moderated by MOJO "agitator" Rick Brimacomb, represented the university (and Mayo Clinic) research side, the entrepreneur side, and someone in between:  recent U of M graduate-turned entrepreneur Alex Johansson, co-founder and CTO of the startup NewWater, LLC,

Jay Schrankler, executive director of the U of M's Office of Technology Commercialization, offered some statistics about the university's improving track record of "spinning off" companies--and ones that stay in Minnesota.

From 2001�2006, said Schrankler, 14 companies spun out of the university, of which four still exist. Of the147 jobs those companies created, 111 are in California now--an example of the tech-and-talent drain that was a key topic of the MOJO conversation.

By contrast, 23 companies have come out of the U of M since 2006, he said, 21 of which are still around. They account for 50 jobs, all of which are in Minnesota, according to Schrankler.

Early conversation addressed the success or failure of tech-transfer attempts.

"Success is a deal that doesn't fall through," said Jeff Carpenter, senior portfolio manager for Development Capital Networks. He outlined mistakes he sees companies making in the process of bringing research to market.

"The companies tend to � overestimate the stage of development, and they underestimate the cost and the time to get something to market."

Lee Jones, CEO in residence at the university's Venture Center, stressed the importance of similar expectations on the parts of the researchers and entrepreneurs.

"When I hear people say 'it's hard to get technology out of [the university],' what I really hear is that they, a) don't know how to access it, or b) they have expectations that they are getting more than [the concept of the technology].

"There's expectation that the development process has already taken place, or that the inventor is going to willingly hand over all of his information," she said.

Schrankler laid out the four elements necessary for a successful start-up company: the right technology, a good market for that technology, a good management team, and, of course, capital.

Johansson hit on a key point with his advice for entrepreneurs looking to license technology from the university.

"[The university's] one concern is the revenue that's going to get generated by this technology," he said, "and by licensing it to you, they are preventing anyone else from generating revenue with [that] technology."

Schrankler followed with a breakdown of revenue return: one-third rightly goes to the inventor, he said, and the rest goes back into research.

Later, conversation turned to the potential for technology to flee the state. While the university is strong in biotech research, "If you have a biotech invention, and you want to spin off a company, where is it going to end up?" asked Carpenter. "San Francisco or Boston."

Johansson noted that, of 40 recent, top-of-their-class graduates he knows, all have jobs, and only four are in this state.

Schrankler assured potential entrepreneurs that the university is trying to not send technology out of state--despite opportunities to do so--and he asked them to be patient.

"We have more potential companies in our pipeline right now than the system can handle," said Schrankler. "Have patience with us. The longer we can keep that company inside the university and work the problem so that it can stay here�"

An audience member asked why so much emphasis was put on biotech research at the university when the Twin Cities has stronger markets for other technology.

"We are the Silicon Valley of medical devices," said the audience member.

The argument was also made that the region's concentration of med-tech chokes off the potential for growth in other areas.

To this point, Carpenter advised entrepreneurs to diversify their interests in technologies.

"There's more here than just med-tech," he said. "Maintain what you've got with med-tech, but support all the other innovations out there."

"God bless you!" responded Darren Cox, founder and "chief evangelist" of Commerce and Search for Tech Transfer (CaSTT).

Earlier on, he had given prospective entrepreneurs some simple advice:

"Be curious � and figure out what it is that you're interested in that is going on at the U. It's a huge place, and they are some of the most amazing things that I've ever seen coming out of research.

"There are gold mines here, trust me," said Cox. "There are cash machines, and entrepreneurs who ignore the university's innovations are doing themselves a great disservice."

Source: MOJO Minnesota tech transfer conversation, Feb. 23
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

We often hear the University of Minnesota described as the "economic engine" of the state. From bioscience to information technology to agriculture, the U is indeed a source and driving factor behind many of Minnesota's successful economic endeavors and sectors.

Earlier this month, the university's Office of the Vice President for Research hosted an event to recognize the innovators at the very beginning of the continuum from research to commercial application.

"It's a key part of what we do as a university, and we want to acknowledge the folks who play a vital role in [the innovation] process," says John Merritt, director of communications for the Office of the Vice President for Research. "They are really the source of the intellectual property and technology that emanates from this place."

In the past two years (fiscal years 2990�2010), 161 inventors from 10 colleges generated 106 patents and 84 license agreements--contributing to the nearly $390 million in revenue over the last five years.

That dollar amount reflects the economic importance of innovation to the state and the nation, and it is a very necessary return on investment that supports additional research at the university. Merritt stresses how critical innovation revenue is to research funding--especially right now.

"As public support declines, as the support of the state in particular declines," says Merritt, "we're looking towards [technology commercialization] revenue to help fill some of that gap."

The university has seen an upward trend in a couple of key measures, says Merritt. The number of disclosures of inventions by faculty increased from 217 in FY2008 to 255 in FY2009. Likewise, the number of patent filings rose from 52 to 66 in that same period.

"We're seeing a nice growth of revenue here that comes from products," says Merritt, even above and beyond the U of M's revenue "home run"--innovation drug Ziagen, licensed to Glaxo Smith Kline (but set to roll off patent in 2013).

Inventors of recently applied research honored at the Feb. 10 event include:

-- Dr. Erik Cressman of the Medical School, whose discovery of a novel treatment for chronic venous insufficience resulted in the formation of the device startup XO Thermix Medical;

-- biochemistry professor Gary Nelsestuen, who licensed technology in 2008 using modified vitamin K as an anti-coagulant or pro-coagulant;

-- Kevin Groenke, coordinator for the College of Design, whose desk for architecture students has been licensed to three companies since 2009;

-- Vipin Kumar, head of the Computer Science and Engineering department, who developed software that allows researchers to track the growth and degradation of forests worldwide;

-- and Tom Levar, forestry and horticulture specialist at U of M Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute, whose technology to protect plants from browsing by deer and mice was licensed to Repellex, which will release the product this spring.

The event also recognized patent and licensing activity from the St. Paul campus, including:

-- Honeycrisp apple trees;
-- La Crescent, Frontenac gris, and Marquette grape varieties;
-- FINPACK software for farm financial planning and analysis;
-- and the technology behind recent startup NewWater.

Even as it celebrated its recent patents and licenses, the university was finalizing an exclusive, worldwide license agreement with Paris-headquartered biotechnology company Cellectis for gene-modification technology, according to a press release.

U of M representatives will take part in a MOJO Minnesota-hosted conversation about the other end of the research continuum--the transfer of technology to the market--on Wednesday, Feb. 23. (More on that next week.)

Source: John Merritt, University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research
Writer: Jeremy Stratton

When he took the call last December from Ellen Prosser of Fort Lucas Farm in Massachusetts, Dan Ellsworth could sense the sincerity and concern in her voice.

Hundreds of llamas were starving and in need of rescue at the defunct Montana Large Animal Sanctuary.

"It was a simple answer," says Ellsworth, vice president of marketing for Destron Fearing, a South St. Paul company specializing in animal identification solutions. The company donated 600 of its LifeChip microchips and four microchip readers to aid in the effort.

The chips and readers saved the rescue effort "thousands of dollars," says Gary Kaufman, spokesperson for the Camelid Rescue Coalition, made up of several regional llama rescue organizations from around the country. The chips were used to "provide a permanent form of non-invasive identification of the animals, similar to what people use on their dogs and cats," says Kaufman.

By the first week of February, "well in excess of 500" llamas had been rescued and shipped to recovery areas in at least eight states, according to Kaufman. (Not all the llamas survived; Kaufman estimates the original number was 700.)

Kaufmann had little information about why the rescue was necessary, except that the animal sanctuary "no longer had money for the llamas." It will take months to nurse the animals back to health, he says. Those interested in donating to the effort may contact Northeast Llama Rescue.

Founded in 1945, Destron Fearing was the first animal identification company in the country, according to Ellsworth. Their radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are used to identify livestock, wildlife,  fish, pets, and companion animals.

Destron Fearing has 150 employees globally, about three-quarters of them at their headquarters a few miles downriver from downtown St. Paul.

Sources: Dan Ellsworth, Destron Fearing; Gary Kaufman, Camelid Rescue Coalition.

Writer: Jeremy Stratton

A Maple Grove med-tech company has won approval to begin a large clinical trial for its implantable neuro-stimulator, which is designed to help people with obstructive sleep apnea.

Inspire Medical, founded in 2007 with technology spun out of Medtronic, announced last week that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration signed off on a 100-plus-patient clinical trial for the therapy.

"It's the key trial that collects the data necessary for U.S. approval," CEO Tim Herbert said.

The study will test an alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, a condition in which the tongue and throat muscles relax during sleep and cause the airway to collapse. People with the condition briefly wake up and gasp for breath as many as 30 to 50 times an hour.

The most common treatment today is called continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP. It's a mask that needs to be worn while sleeping and that blows air down the airway with enough pressure to keep it from closing.

"It's a very effective therapy. It's a very efficient therapy. The problem is you have to wear that mask and it's not really comfortable for a lot of people," says Herbert.

Herbert says research has shown that about 50 percent of people who are prescribed a CPAP are no longer using it a year later. Untreated, the condition can increase the odds of a stroke, hypertension, not to mention fatigue.

Inspire's treatment is an implantable system, similar to a pacemaker. Only instead of sending electrical pulses to the heart, the device sends tiny jolts to a nerve under the chin that controls the tongue and throat muscles.

The system is approved for sale in Europe. The company's clinical trial will begin enrolling patients early next year and likely take about two years to be completed. The company has 12 employees and outsources its manufacturing work to other companies, including Medtronic.

Herbert said the company is working toward having the therapy approved for sale in the United States by 2013.

Source: Tim Herbert, Inspire Medical Systems
Writer: Dan Haugen

Medical outcomes vary too much for every doctor or surgeon to be able to claim they're doing the best job.

That idea was one of the premises behind a recent study of bowel surgery data by a team at UnitedHealthcare, says Dr. Ed Dasso, the company's medical director for clinical improvement and analytics.

The company sifted through health care claim data from its network and looked at how outcomes varied for surgeons in similar cases, markets, and specialties. Where it found a wide spectrum of results, it took a closer look at what factors or decisions, such as length of hospitalization, were most often associated with a quick and complete recovery for the patient.

The result was a set of data and a list of evidence-based best practices for preventing bowel surgery complications, both of which UnitedHealthcare shared with gastrointestinal surgeons.

"The approach we took here was no penalties, no promises. We just did a good-faith effort of sharing information with these surgeons," says Dasso. "We said, 'Here are your results compared to your peers'... and then, 'by the way, if you are interested, here are the most current evidence-based treatment guidelines that could help reduce that variance. What you choose to do with that information is totally up to you.'"

"That was one of the premises we wanted to test with this: is just the sharing of this type of information going to result in some sort of action and potentially impact practice patterns? And, fortunately, it did."

Over the next 18 months, the health insurer observed a 50 percent decrease in avoidable hospital days and a decrease in surgery-related readmissions. The changes also produced inpatient cost savings of approximately $7.4 million during that time period. Dasso says cost savings wasn't the motivation, but that they're learning that better care and reduced costs often come hand-in-hand.

The work recently earned the company an innovation and leadership in health care award from Milliman Care Guidelines, a company that develops evidence-based clinical guidelines.

Source: Ed Dasso, UnitedHealthcare
Writer: Dan Haugen

A Minneapolis imaging company is hoping its MRI technology can become a magnet for investors.

Steady State Imaging recently disclosed that it's seeking to raise $4 million to continue refining and commercializing its technology, which enables MRI machines to image both soft and hard tissues. The fundraising round kicked off in October with the sale of $250,000 in equity, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The technology is a software platform called SWIFT (short for SWeep Imaging with Fourier Transformation), which was developed by Dr. Michael Garwood at the University of Minnesota's Center for Magnetic Resonance Research and can be installed on existing MRI machines, much like a firmware update can upgrade a cell phone or video game console.

Currently, MRI machines are good at imaging soft tissue in the body, such as your brain or muscles, but it's not the best option for imaging hard tissue like bone or cartilage. X-rays are still the most common method for imaging those harder tissues, despite the risks from ionizing (x-ray) radiation.

"Dr. Garwood's technique really broadens the applicability of MRI. It allows for really good imaging of hard and soft tissues," says Steady State Imaging CEO Danny Cunagin. "You can kind of think about his invention as combining an X-ray machine and an MRI machine in one device, without the ionizing radiation of X-rays."

Another benefit of the software is that it allows MRI machines to run much quieter than most do today, which makes it more patient-friendly, says Cunagin. It's currently for sale for in the pre-clinical market, and Cunagin says they expect to announce a clinical partner within the next three to four months.

Steady State Imaging was incorporated in 2005 and relaunched in 2008 under new leadership. It employs about half a dozen people at its office just west of downtown Minneapolis. Cunagin says the latest round of fundraising will allow the company to refine the software based on feedback from existing users, as well as prepare for commercialization in the clinical market.

Source: Danny Cunagin, Steady State Imaging
Writer: Dan Haugen

BioMedix Vascular Solutions has outgrown its space in the suburbs and is preparing to move to downtown St. Paul in the spring.

The health care technology company makes a suite of hardware, software, and online services to assist physicians in diagnosing vascular disease.

It's currently headquartered in an 8,000-square-foot office space in White Bear Lake, but spokeswoman Meg Heim says the location can no longer accommodate the company's growth.

BioMedix's new home will be at 178 E. Ninth St., a three-story, 24,000-square-foot building that's currently boarded up and is slated for renovation before the move-in date, likely to be sometime in March. The company will lease two and a half floors of the building -- all but half of the first floor--for its approximately 75 local employees. (The company employs about 150, but half are traveling or remote salespeople.)

"We are looking forward to the energy and the atmosphere that downtown St. Paul offers," Heim said in an e-mail earlier this week.

She said preparations for the move are well underway, and that they're looking forward to seeing the building when the renovation is complete.

The growth that prompted the move has come across several product categories, including its medical hardware and health IT software, Heim said. The new space will help accommodate the growth the company expects to see in 2011, as well as help support its existing, and expanding, client base, she said.

Source: Meg Heim, BioMedix Vascular Solutions
Writer: Dan Haugen

A local software shop is experiencing some healthy growth.

PowerObjects helps companies configure and customize Microsoft Dynamics relationship management software, which helps organizations keep track of information about their clients, customers or sales leads.

The company was Microsoft's fastest-growing partner in its last fiscal year. COO Jim Sheehan says revenues are on track to be 40 percent over last year. In June, PowerObjects announced an expansion of its office in the SO|HO building in downtown Minneapolis, where it employs 32 people.

Sheehan credits the company's growth to its "laser focus" on Microsoft Dynamics software. Until three years ago the company was much less specialized and did a variety of custom software projects for customers.

"It was pretty scary for us. We had a few million dollars in business in other software lines, and we said: Nope, we're going to get rid of it all," Sheehan said, and focus exclusively on implementing Microsoft Dynamics software.

As a result, they're known at Microsoft, and that's resulted in some major business referrals.

It also has an expertise in software for health care and life sciences--"pretty much anything that relates to or could touch a patient," says Sheehan.

The company also has about 15 employees in Texas at offices in Dallas and San Antonio.

Source: Jim Sheehan, PowerObjects
Writer: Dan Haugen