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2/26/2016
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VOL. 37, NO. 9
FEBRUARY 29 - MARCH 6, 2016
Source Lunch
TECHNOLOGY: Nice work Explorys has kept its promise on jobs
Dan Moore
P. 4
The entrepreneur dishes on why he likes startups
HOTELS: Drury almost ready Take a look at city’s latest gem
P. 28
P. 7
FOCUS: Health Care Heroes Some of NEO’s best and brightest P. 14-24
The List
CLEVELAND BUSINESS
Cleveland Clinic to make larger tech investments To appease reluctant buyers, the Innovations unit pushes product through FDA approval BY CHUCK SODER
The region’s largest industrial parks P. 31
T
here’s now an enormous hole in the “soft ceiling” that prevented Cleveland Clinic Innovations from making big investments. The Clinic’s business development team just spent several hundred thousand dollars to turn a doctor’s idea into a full-fledged product. That’s huge change: In the past, the Innovations team rarely spent more than $50,000 on any given technology. And it won’t be the last time that the Innovations team spends a significant amount of money to shepherd technologies and startups created by the Clinic through the so-called valley of death — a stage where they need a significant amount of capital but aren’t yet mature enough to get it from the average venture capital fund. That’s because the valley has become harder to cross in recent years, according to Peter O’Neill, interim director of the Innovations team. These days, few medical technology companies are willing to license an early-stage prototype and then spend time and money turning it into an actual product that’s ready to sell, O’Neill said. Case in point: In 2014, the Clinic and a Japanese manufacturer called Yokowo Co. received a patent on a new coronary guidewire that appeared to have a lot of potential. Compared to other guidewires — long, skinny wires that doctors use when they want to move a stent through a patient’s arteries — the Clinic says this one appears to have several advantages:
It’s more flexible. It has a strong torque response (when you rotate one end of the wire, the other end rotates simultaneously). And it has a flexible bend in the tip designed to help doctors treat blocked arteries. Medical devices companies told the Innovations team they liked the technology, which is held by a startup called Tatara Vascular. But they wanted a finished product. Preferably something that had been tested in SEE CLINIC, PAGE 25
Business of Life Drink a beer, play Monopoly Tabletop co-owners Brady Risner and Michael Holmes, and SideQuest owner Sam Bridgeman discuss the popularity of board game bars. — P. 26 Entire contents © 2016 by Crain Communications Inc.
Downtown residents amped for RNC buzz BY JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @millerjh
Downtown Cleveland will be overrun in July when as many as 50,000 out-of-towners invade for the Republican presidential nominating convention. And if a small survey of downtown residents who attended a meeting of the Downtown Cleveland Residents Association last Tuesday, Feb. 23, paints an accurate picture, most downtown residents are eager for the invasion. Many downtown restaurants will be booked for private events convention week, which is July 18-21, but downtown residents are expect-
ing to find places for celebrity watching. Several expressed the hope that some enterprising downtown organizations will find a way to position large television screens around Public Square or the Mall so they can catch glimpses of the action on the convention floor as they move around downtown. “During the convention, I’ll be walking to work, shopping at Heinen’s and eating at all of the great restaurants,” said Laura Pegg, a senior account executive at Falls Communications in Terminal Tower. “It’ll be a whirlwind.” Like others who are active in the downtown group, Pegg views the convention as an opportunity to promote downtown and the city. “I see this as an opportunity to
welcome and share all of the wonderful downtown Cleveland amenities I enjoy daily with our guests,” she said. Joseph Giuliano, president of the Downtown Cleveland Residents Association and a resident of the Statler Arms on Euclid Avenue, expressed the same sentiment, calling the convention an opportunity for his organization to be ambassadors for downtown. “We plan on offering free tours of downtown landmarks to the RNC visitors and delegates,” he said. And Giuliano, housing director of the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Corp., thinks it will be fun. “I’m a political wonk,” he said. SEE RNC, PAGE 25