Sharklet Technologies Wins Dorsey & Whitney Venture Showcase Award, Presented at 2010 BioWest Conference & Expo

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sharklet Technologies, Inc. (Aurora, CO), has won the Dorsey & Whitney Venture Showcase Award at the 2010 BioWest Conference & Expo. The announcement is made by Holli Baumunk, President & CEO of the Colorado BioScience Association (CBSA), who says the $7,500 Venture Showcase Award was provided by the Dorsey & Whitney law firm and announced at the 2010 CBSA Awards Dinner. The competition session at BioWest was sponsored by The Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation (Metro Denver EDC).

Sharklet Technologies is a life sciences company that has engineered a revolutionary surface product called Sharklet. The first non-toxic, long-lasting and no-kill surface used to control the growth of bacteria, Sharklet is a patented surface technology comprised of millions of raised, microscopic features arranged in distinct diamond shapes to form a continuous pattern. Laboratory tests show that the Sharklet micro-pattern disrupts several critical microbial colonizing processes that are necessary for bacteria to develop into a disease-causing biofilm. In tests simulating an ambient hospital environment, the Sharklet patterned surface has shown to significantly reduce survival and touch transfer of bacteria. Until the advent of Sharklet, kill strategies including antibiotics, disinfectants and biocides have been the primary weapons to control bacterial growth. These kill strategies and their overuse has led to increased bacterial resistance, causing harm to people and the environment. Visit, http://www.sharklet.com.

Sharklet competed against three other companies for this honor. Additional finalists included AmideBio (Boulder, CO), BioVantage: (Golden, CO), and PeptiVir, Inc. (Aurora, CO).

According to Baumunk, finalists had 10 minutes to present their technologies and business plans to a panel of bioscience venture capitalists, followed by a question and answer period. The venture capitalist panelists included: James Topper, M.D., Ph.D., General Partner, Frazier Healthcare Ventures; Brian Birk, Managing Partner, Sun Mountain Capital; Liz Marchi, General Manager, Frontier Angels; and Micheal Weiner, Partner, Dorsey & Whitney.

Additional awards presented at the 2010 CBSA Annual Awards Dinner included:

Life Time Achievement Award -- Robert Collins. Robert Collins has been called one of the two “Father’s of Colorado’s Medical Device Industry.” In 1964, Mr. Collins and his business partner Ran Bellows moved their small southern California business to Lakewood, Colorado. Their company, COBE Laboratories, manufactured and distributed medical specialty products around the world, and soon became an international player in the medical device sector.
Life Time Achievement Award – Robert Anderson. Robert Anderson is also known as one of the two “Father’s of Colorado’s Medical Device Industry.” In 1969, Mr. Anderson co-founded Valleylab, Inc., and served as their CEO and Chairman until January 1986. He relinquished his role as CEO in 1986 and continued as Chairman until retiring in May of 1996.
2010 Company of the Year Award -- Amgen. Amgen Colorado was born out of a collaboration with researchers at the University of Colorado with Dr. Marvin Caruthers serving as one of the company’s founding researchers. Amgen first began research operations in Boulder in 1981, and in 1995, Amgen acquired the Boulder facility which expanded when it bought a local biotech company, Synergen Inc. Visit http://www.amgen.com.
2010 Rising Star Award -- Sharklet Technologies. Sharklet Technologies is an Aurora-based life science company that has engineered a revolutionary surface product called Sharklet. Unlike anything on the market today, Sharklet is the first non-toxic, long lasting and no-kill surface used to control the growth of bacteria. Visit http://www.sharklet.com.
Volunteer of the Year Award – Larry Blankenship. Larry Blankenship is the CEO of ValveXchange, an Aurora based medical device firm which is working to improve heart valve replacement procedure by developing a two-piece bioprosthetic tissue valve system. Larry also sits on the Board of the Colorado BioScience Association. Visit http://www.valvexchange.com.
Educator of the Year Award – Deanna Scott. Deanna Scott is a prime example of an innovative and outstanding educator in our community. Ms. Scott serves as the Associate Director for the BioMARC Outreach Training Program for Product Translation at Colorado State University. Visit http://www.biomarc.colostate.edu.
2010 Partner of the Year Award – University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office and Colorado State University Technology Transfer Office. Over the last seven years, Colorado’s bioscience industry has grown faster than the national average and the research conducted in the state has garnered both national and international attention. This success is highly due to the tremendous technology transfer offices within the state’s research institutions. Visit https://www.cu.edu/techtransfer and http://vpr.colostate.edu/pages/DiscoveryPortal.asp.
2010 CBSA Chairman’s Award – Dr. Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her achievements are remarkable because she was an autistic child. At age two she had no speech and all the signs of severe autism. Fortunately, her mother defied the advice of the doctors and kept her out of an institution. Many hours of speech therapy, and intensive teaching enabled her to learn speech. As a teenager, life was hard with constant teasing. Mentoring by her high school science teacher and her aunt on her ranch in Arizona motivated her to study and pursue a career as a scientist and livestock equipment designer. Dr. Grandin obtained her B.A. at Franklin Pierce College in 1970. In 1974, she was employed as Livestock Editor for the Arizona Farmer Ranchman and also worked for Corral Industries on equipment design. In 1975, she earned her M.S. in Animal Science at Arizona State University for her work on the behavior of cattle in different squeeze chutes. Dr. Grandin was awarded her Ph.D. in Animal Science from the University of Illinois in 1989 and is currently a Professor at Colorado State University. Visit http://www.grandin.com or http://www.templegrandin.com.

About Colorado BioScience Association

The CBSA supports the economic development of Colorado through the creation of a premier bioscience cluster within the state. Representing more than 400 members, the CBSA facilitates growth of the bioscience industry in Colorado through advocacy, representation and service. For more information about Colorado's dynamic bioscience cluster, visit the CBSA at http://www.cobioscience.com.

CBSA also is found on these social media sites:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/COBioscience

LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=98468&trk=anet_ug_grppro

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/ColoradoBioScienceAssociation

News Feed: http://coloradobio.blogspot.com

YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/COBioscience

About Dorsey & Whitney LLP

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About Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation

The Metro Denver EDC, an affiliate of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, is the nation’s first and only truly regional economic development entity in which many area economic development groups have joined together to represent, and further, the interests of an entire region. Our partners include 70 cities, counties, and economic development organizations in the seven-county Metro Denver and two-county Northern Colorado region. Visit: http://www.metrodenver.org.