Ohio kept its No. 4 ranking for the strength of its biotechnology industry in Business Facilities magazine’s annual list, partly because of continued investments by Ohio Third Frontier, according to BioOhio, the state’s bioscience development organization.

The $5 million Medical Growth Fund gathers some of the region’s well-known health-care entreprenuers who want to make seed-level investments in startup companies that are close to profitability. It will focus on medical device, health IT, and health-care services businesses and provide an initial investment of up to $500,000.

Investments in Midwest health care start-ups fell 9 percent to $402 million in the first half of the year from a year ago, according to the latest BioEnterprise Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report. Meanwhile, life sciences investments nationwide represented the largest percentage of total venture capital invested since the MoneyTree Report started.

You’d think a worldwide economic crisis would cause companies to shut their doors to new licensing deals aimed at taking technologies market. Not at the technology transfer office at Case Western Reserve University. That office set a record for new licensing revenues during the fiscal year ended June 30 — $16.3 million.

Altogether, there are easily $50 million in health-related federal earmarks from Ohio legislators that could fund projects from the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University to a Youngstown company whose device is ideal for victims of battlefield trauma. Votes in Senate and House committees are expected this month to determine whether the institutions would get some, all or any of their requests.

Manufacturers looking to branch out into the biomedical industry will be able to get some tips from people whose businesses already participate in that market. Ohio is second in the Midwest for companies registered with the Food and Drug Administration for medical manufacturing.

Growth of biomedical business, research and development in Northeast Ohio grew faster than the national average in each of the last five years, according to the latest Cleveland Plus Economic Review. Though venture capital investments in health care companies slowed significantly in Northeast Ohio and the state during the first quarter from a year ago, health care investing was up in the Midwest.

Two trends helped give Ohio a seat at the bioscience leaders table last year: Big drug companies farmed out more of their research and manufacturing work — to contract research and manufacturing organizations in the state. And a record number of biomedical companies started up or moved to the state, primarily in Northeast Ohio.

Biomedical companies with compelling technologies could win millions of dollars in investments this year despite the worst gloom in financial markets since the Great Depression.

Health care services, medical information systems, biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and equipment, and other health care companies received more than 60 percent of the $259 million in investment capital raised by the region’s companies in 2008, according to the report being written by Ohio’s Venture Capital Advisory Task Force.