How Does Your State Rank on the Innovation Scale?

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Innovation Is Key

Innovation is crucial to sustainable economic growth, but for innovation to occur businesses must have both the incentive and the capacity to invest.

As innovation is key to the United States’ economy as a whole, many U.S. states are showing off while others are falling short when it comes to patents, R&D, venture capital and academics.

So which states are excelling in innovation and which ones are lacking, you ask?

Patents

The top states in patents per population include:

  1. Wisconsin
  2. Washington
  3. Texas
  4. Utah
  5. California
  6. Massachusetts

The bottom five patented states include:

  1. Alaska
  2. Mississippi
  3. Tennessee
  4. West Virginia
  5. Wyoming

Venture Capital

The top states for venture capital are:

  1. Massachusetts
  2. California
  3. Utah
  4. Washington
  5. Colorado

The lowest are:

  1. Arkansas
  2. Alaska
  3. Hawaii
  4. Wyoming
  5. Iowa
  6. South Dakota

R&D Spending

The leaders in R&D spending are:

  1. Delaware
  2. Michigan
  3. California
  4. Connecticut
  5. Massachusetts

The states that spent the least on R&D include:

  1. Arkansas
  2. Wyoming
  3. Louisiana
  4. Alaska
  5. Mississippi

Academics

As for academics, the top states include:

  1. New Mexico
  2. Maryland
  3. Rhode Island
  4. Massachusetts
  5. Alabama

The lowest academic rankings were for:

  1. Louisiana
  2. Arkansas
  3. Delaware
  4. Wyoming
  5. Nevada

If you are a U.S. based company conducting R&D you may be eligible for the federal and/or state research tax credit. Please contact a Swanson Reed representative to find out further information.

University of Connecticut and startup developing colon cancer vaccine

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The University of Connecticut and emerging immunotherapy company CaroGen Corp. have begun a collaboration to develop a vaccine for treatment of patients with colon cancer.

CaroGen’s proprietary technology platform will be applied to a specific target studied by UConn Health researchers Kepeng Wang, assistant professor of immunology, and Anthony T. Vella, professor and Boehringer Ingelheim Chair in Immunology.

CaroGen Corp.’s platform is a transformative virus-like vesicle (VLV) technology developed at Yale University School of Medicine and exclusively licensed by CaroGen for the development and commercialization of immunotherapies worldwide.

Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. It is expected to cause over 49,000 deaths during 2016, and the risk to individuals increases with age. Wang’s target, Interleukin-17 (IL-17), a pleiotropic pro inflammatory cytokine, can promote cancer-elicited inflammation and prevent cancer cells from immune surveillance.

The company will have the right to exclusively license intellectual property developed by UConn through this collaboration, for human and animal health use.

The company is one of 21 biotech startups now housed at the Technology Incubator Program (TIP) on the UConn Health campus in Farmington, which helps develop new biotechnology concepts into businesses. CaroGen is leveraging the resources of the program to develop a portfolio of immunotherapies, with a lead program in chronic hepatitis B viral infection in collaboration with researchers from Yale University School of Medicine and Albany Medical College.

It is also working on the development of VLV immunotherapies against C. difficile bacterial infection in collaboration with Kamal Khanna, assistant professor of immunology at UConn Health, and a vaccine against the Zika virus with Paulo Verardi, associate professor of pathology at UConn Storrs.

“CaroGen is proving to be both a scientific and entrepreneurial leader in Connecticut,” said Dr. Jeff Seemann, UConn’s vice president for research. “Dr. Almassian has led multiple efforts to apply the CaroGen technology in collaborations with UConn researchers where critical and urgent health care needs exist. We are very excited about this latest endeavor, which we believe will yield significant therapeutic and commercial opportunities through the combined expertise of UConn Health’s Department of Immunology and CaroGen.”

UConn’s Technology Incubator Program is a key component of BioScience Connecticut, the state’s initiative to position Connecticut to be a leader in bioscience research, boost the economy, and improve residents’ access to world-class medicine.

Connecticut Innovations invests $1.5M in Fintech Company

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Connecticut Innovations (CI) announced it has invested $1.5 million in Dream Payments, a fintech company that provides a cloud-based mobile payment platform for merchants and financial institutions. CI stated that the $1.5 million investment will help to further fuel the growth of Dream’s market share and accelerate the company’s entry into the United States.

Speaking about the investment, Matt McCooe, CEO of CI, stated:

“CI is excited to close this deal with the top investment award winner of VentureClash. This company has a strong leadership team and we look forward to supporting the company’s expansion in the U.S. market.”

Dream Payments stated it currently has a solid foothold in Canada in the payments-processing space and looks to expand its operations into the U.S. The company is also planning to create up to 10 employee positions in Connecticut with this investment and will look to add a business development professional to help assist with its U.S. growth plans. Brent Ho-Young, CEO of Dream Payments, added:

“The U.S. market is experiencing a major shift toward mobile commerce creating dramatic demand for Dream’s platform. We are thrilled to enter the U.S. market with the support of the State of Connecticut, which provides us strategic advantages in terms of proximity to our customers and partners such as CI, and access to a rich pool of specialized talent.”