MIT Competition Attracts Proponents Of Not-Com Ideas --- Entrants Recall Lost Days Of Pre-Web Entrepreneurs

"It was very much back toward companies driven by intellectual capital, as opposed to companies driven by financial capital and market momentum," says Duncan McCallum, an M.I.T. alumnus judging the competition. Mr. McCallum is a general partner at One Liberty Ventures in Boston. SmartCure,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Wall Street journal Asia
Main Author By Janet Whitman and Kopin Tam
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Victoria, Hong Kong Dow Jones & Company Inc 13.06.2001
Subjects
Business plans
Efficient markets
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
Fractures
Teams
Venture capital
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Summary:"It was very much back toward companies driven by intellectual capital, as opposed to companies driven by financial capital and market momentum," says Duncan McCallum, an M.I.T. alumnus judging the competition. Mr. McCallum is a general partner at One Liberty Ventures in Boston. SmartCure, a finalist in the contest, started with a problem. One team member, a plastic surgeon, was treating a patient and was quizzed by one of his residents about alternative methods to cure the patient's chronic wounds. Chronic wounds, which create particular problems for diabetics, the elderly, and the obese, can take as long as 30 weeks to heal. The two doctors wanted a better solution than the current approach using drugs and bandages. They had heard of another scientist who was doing breakthrough research on stretching cells that had been published in "Nature" and "Science." The team brought him on board. The team, Angstrom Medica, already has a patent on technology that manipulates calcium and phosphate at the molecular level to create a synthetic bone that can help heal fractures. The synthetic bone, which eventually blends with the natural bone, allows patients to avoid additional surgery of having metal pins removed.
ISSN:0377-9920