Despite a tough economy and uncertainties over health care reform, UnitedHealth, the nation’s largest private insurer, said sales jumped 7.3 percent to $8.7 billion.

Politicians, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have long criticized the school for inhibiting innovation rather than creating it. But that criticism is getting old, or at least it should be. Under Jay Schrankler and Doug Johnson, the school’s tech transfer program has made enormous strides.

The Minnesota company’s primary market is to diagnosis the advance of Alzheimers, but the company says the process can also measure the effect of neurological treatments. This second round of funding will expand the development and use of the test to see how well compounds to treat neurological diseases.