Neurostimulation pain-relief device company SPR Therapeutics has been approved for a $900,000 loan from the state of Ohio.The financing comes after Cleveland-area SPR earlier this year raised a $2.2 million series A round and announced that it was on the hunt for strategic partnerships that could range from licensing deals to outright acquisition.A representative of [...]

Maybe Cleveland’s chief rival in the medical mart competition is stronger than previously thought.The Nashville Medical Trade Center announced its biggest tenant yet, an 80,000-square foot multi-vendor showroom that will feature RFID (radio frequency identification) and RTLS (real-time locating systems) technologies in healthcare.Multiple companies associated with the RFID in Healthcare Consortium, a trade group, are [...]

It isn’t easy to get profit-hungry Wall Street excited about a drug that hasn’t yet been tested in humans and is at best years and years away from generating any sales, but Athersys (NASDAQ:ATHX) CEO Gil Van Bokkelen did his best in a recent conference call with investment analysts.That’s because there are recent signs that [...]

Fresh off receiving the CE Mark for its cervical spinal disc replacement device, AxioMed Spine has added $5 million to its series D round of investment.The latest funding tranche brings Cleveland-area AxioMed’s series D round to $20 million, chief financial officer Jerry Baty said.European regulatory approval for AxioMed’s cervical disc complements the CE Mark for [...]

Federal grants can be a lifeline that allows life sciences startups to refine their technologies before they commercialize, but the nondilutive government funding can be hard to get.The success rate for companies seeking grants through the government’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs hovers between 11 percent and 15 percent, according [...]

It’s a pretty safe bet that you’d be happy if someone agreed to pay you more to do the same thing you’ve already been doing.So, surely primary care doctors can appreciate one provision of the federal health reform law that bumps Medicaid rates for primary care up to the same level as Medicare rates, right? [...]

A health coaching startup founded by Cleveland Clinic wellness chief Dr. Michael Roizen and TV star Dr. Mehmet Oz has raised $1.6 million, according to a regulatory document.MedCity News reported in March that Enforcer eCoaching was aiming to raise $3 million in investment funding. A subsequent regulatory filing revealed that the company has raised $1.6 [...]

Following on the heels of two hospitals, the University of Notre Dame has become the first university to strike a collaboration with Cleveland Clinic aimed at commercializing medical innovations from its faculty and researchers.Through the collaboration, Cleveland Clinic Innovations will essentially do for Notre Dame what it does for the Clinic — help turn employee [...]

Patent laws are changing.The America Invents Act has shifted U.S. patent laws to a “first-to-file” system from a “first-to-invent” system, according to attorney Steven Auvil, chair of the intellectual property practice group at Benesch in Cleveland.Auvil’s work focuses largely on litigation of intellectual property disputes.In the interview below, he discusses changes to patent laws that [...]

A new partnership with a company that bills itself as having the most broad-reaching healthcare communication network in the country could increase health IT startup CoverMyMeds‘ health insurance customer base.Cleveland-area CoverMyMeds (CMM) has developed Web-based tools that speed up and automate the submission of prior authorization requests to health insurance plans. Insurers sometimes require these [...]