As an investor in Biolectrics, a company that makes a battery-powered mouthpiece – think sports mouth guard – that treats periodontal diseases with electric stimulation, Paul Ruflin began thinking about the device's potential in other applications.

Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise has just been awarded $350,000 to continue serving business startups in Northeast Ohio. GLIDE is one of 11 technology incubators in Ohio to receive state funding through the 2014 Ohio Third Frontier Incubation Program, a program that recognizes top technology incubators fostering new businesses in the communities they serve.

December 18, 2014: The Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE), a comprehensive regional innovation center, resource hub and business incubator, was among 11 Ohio incubators to receive funding from the 2014 Ohio Third Frontier Incubation Program. GLIDE received $350,000 to continue providing Northeast Ohio technology-based startups with entrepreneurial support services, including business assistance, incubator space and access to capital.

"This is terrific news for Lorain County and the region," said Dr. Roy Church, president of Lorain County Community College. "The College, the Lorain County Commissioners and the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce started this program in 2001 to help grow more technology based companies in Lorain County. Today, with ongoing support from the State of Ohio—as demonstrated by this funding— GLIDE has grown steadily to its position as one of the first places entrepreneurs across Northeast Ohio visit for help in starting their new businesses."

GLIDE is well-known for its open door approach to business assistance, focusing on the business development process, rather than specific technologies, to ensure that any entrepreneur has a place to go for assessment, advice and direction. In its 12-year history, GLIDE has worked with over 2,800 companies, converted 150 to tenant clients, and assisted those clients to increase their revenues to more than $89 million and secure add-on investments of over $109 million.

Its incubator tenants have access to resources beyond typical business amenities because of GLIDE's location on the Lorain County Community College campus, including technology service and support, workforce development guidance, market research and internship programs. And starting next month, GLIDE is launching a new tenant program that accommodates the dynamic needs of startups.
"Beginning in January every new tenant in the GLIDE incubator will be eligible for a free six-week business training and accelerator program using cutting-edge concepts in business development," said Dennis Cocco, co-director of GLIDE. "We piloted this program in late 2013 and the results have been outstanding, with our companies learning new tools to gain traction in the market with their business idea."

Beyond its direct services, GLIDE is helping Lorain County residents protect their business ideas through Lorain County Community College's newly launched Office of Community Technology Transfer. GLIDE provided input and support in developing the technology transfer office, which assists innovative thinkers in Northeast Ohio with the patenting and commercialization process, with the ultimate goal of turning ideas into job-creating companies.

GLIDE was formed by a partnership between Lorain County Community College, the Lorain County Commissioners and the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce. It became an Edison Technology Incubator in 2006. This new grant now incorporates GLIDE into the Ohio Third Frontier program.

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The Ohio Third Frontier Commission voted Wednesday to approve more than $12.8 million to fund cutting-edge biomedical companies and help entrepreneurs and technology start-up companies get their businesses off the ground.

The Innovation Fund, a pre-seed fund for technology startups in Northeast Ohio, said it has awarded $25,000 grants to each of six young companies.

December 3, 2013: The Innovation Fund, Northeast Ohio's most active pre-seed fund for technology startups, has awarded $25,000 grants to six young companies. The funding will be used to help the companies validate their technology ideas through the imagining and incubating stages and into demonstrating.

"The grants we've awarded are so critical to the initial growth of these startups," says Dennis Cocco, director of operations for the Innovation Fund and co-director of GLIDE, the Edison Technology Incubator that administers the fund. "For each of the six companies, this grant does more than give them working capital to move their technology toward commercialization—it provides that initial market validation that their business idea has the potential for success. And that validation can lead to additional capital, first customers, and strategic partners."

The startups receiving Innovation Fund awards are:

Animal Oralectrics (Cleveland)
Animal Oralectrics develops oral care devices for animals. The treatments, which are effortless and painless, treat common oral problems including gingivitis, periodontitis, gum recession, bad breath, and tooth and bone loss.

Coag Corp (Chagrin Falls)
Coag Corp has developed a single-use prescription product to control nosebleeds. The device will be initially targeted to anticoagulated patients.

GroupAide (Lyndhurst)
GroupAide's platform gives group clients attending sporting events and entertainment venues the ability to sell and manage their group tickets, while collecting valuable attendee data for the team/venue. groupaide.com

Prezto (Cleveland)
Prezto is a mobile application that allows gift givers to easily, immediately and remotely send small, thoughtful gifts to a recipient over their smartphones. preztoapp.com

RegulatoryBinder (Cleveland)
RegulatoryBinder saves research hospitals time and money by streamlining the paper-based clinical study documentation process. regulatorybinder.com

reMesh (Kent)
By harnessing collective intelligence, reMesh's technology gives groups of people a united voice to communicate with, so they can speak with anybody or anything just as a person would.

With these most recent awards, the Innovation Fund has made 141 funding awards to 118 companies totaling $7.65 million.

About the Innovation Fund
The Innovation Fund, founded by the Lorain County Community College Foundation, is Northeast Ohio's most active early-stage fund. It makes awards of up to $100,000 to technology-based companies so they can validate their technologies and business concepts. The Innovation Fund averages six funding awards each quarter and fills the capital needs of businesses at the earliest stage of development, before they can attract angel and venture capital funding. Innovation Fund awards are made with funds from the Ohio Third Frontier, which have been combined with matching support and contributions from the Innovation Fund partners. These partners include the University of Akron, the University of Akron Research Foundation, Cleveland State University, the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE), the Lorain County Community College Foundation, Stark State College, Youngstown State University, the Youngstown Business Incubator, and Northeast Ohio Medical University.

The new tech transfer office, which is based at Lorain County Community College, is designed to give local inventors working out of basements and garages some of the same business development resources that many universities provide to inventive faculty members.

The Smartpatch percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) system has received regulatory approval for the treatment of chronic shoulder pain in Australia. Regulatory approval was granted by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the Australian Government agency responsible for regulating medical devices. NDI Medical manufactures the Smartpatch system for its portfolio company, SPR Therapeutics, who will manage commercialization.

"We are looking forward to commercializing Smartpatch in Australia as the world’s first and only approved percutaneous PNS system for the treatment of chronic shoulder pain and to implementing and refining the market entry and physician training programs we will leverage in the United States following FDA clearance,” said Maria Bennett, President and CEO of SPR Therapeutics.

SPR's PNS technology platform is being developed to address a spectrum of acute and chronic pain indications. The Smartpatch PNS System is currently being evaluated in two U.S. multi-center, randomized controlled clinical trials to support FDA market clearance for use in shoulder pain and in neuropathic pain. The Smartpatch system uses a proprietary method of percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation that has demonstrated significant pain relief and improvement in quality of life in multiple studies. Unique to SPR’s approach is that the majority of the patients in SPR’s clinical trials have reported pain relief that extends well beyond the 30-day treatment period.

“Prior to the development of Smartpatch, patients suffering from shoulder pain who could have benefitted from Peripheral Nerve Stimulation were unlikely to undergo the invasive surgical procedure required by previously available PNS systems,” said Dr. Marc Russo, MBBS, Director of the Hunter Pain Clinic in Newcastle NSW Australia, and Secretary of the International Neuromodulation Society. “Smartpatch’s percutaneous PNS approach fills a critical gap in the pain treatment continuum by offering a minimally invasive alternative to narcotics or more invasive surgery.”

About SPR™ Therapeutics
SPR™ Therapeutics (Stimulation for Pain Relief) is a medical device company that has developed a revolutionary and proprietary peripheral nerve stimulation therapy platform to addresses the critical unmet need for less invasive, longer lasting, and cost effective treatments for acute and chronic pain. SPR Therapeutics was formed in January 2010 as a portfolio company of NDI Medical, LLC. For more information, visit  http://www.sprtherapeutics.com.

About NDI Medical
Founded in 2002, NDI is a hybrid venture capital and commercialization firm, and the only one focusing exclusively on innovative neurodevice technologies that address unmet needs with potential to provide significant returns to its investors. NDI is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with locations in North Carolina’s Research Triangle and Minneapolis, Minnesota. For more information, visit  http://www.ndimedical.com.