April 16, 2009

Applications open for $100,000 Purdue life sciences competition

Registration deadline for the Purdue competition is May 18. Participating teams must represent a life sciences company that's no more than three years old, and recent startup companies are of particular interest, said Kenneth Kahn, professor and Avrum and Joyce Gray Director Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in Purdue's Discovery Park.

For more information or to register for the competition, go online to https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/entrepreneurship/
programs/lifesciences/registration.php

First prize in the competition is $30,000, plus $5,000 in legal services from law firm Baker and Daniels and $5,000 in business services from accounting firm Ernst and Young. The top Indiana team also receives $10,000 from BioCrossroads.

Second prize is $20,000, plus $6,000 in legal and business services. Third prize is $10,000, plus $4,000 in legal and business services. Fourth prize is $5,000, and the remaining four finalists each receive $2,500, Kahn said.

In addition, Purdue Research Park will offer business incubator space to the top finalist and affiliate status to the second- and third-place finishers. West Lafayette-based Seyet LLC will award in-kind 3-D computer graphics visualization services to the top finisher.

The competition targets U.S.-based startup businesses in the life sciences arena, Kahn said. The company entity must be no more than three years old and have an employment of the equivalent of less than 10 full-time employees. Entrants also are not allowed to have third-party intellectual property agreements.

Executive summaries from registered companies are due June 1, and the semifinalists will be announced June 30. Those companies will be asked to submit formal business plans, and the top eight finalists will be announced on Oct. 12.

FAST Diagnostics, an Indianapolis-based company commercializing a kidney diagnostic test, took top honors and $50,000 in cash and services in last year's life sciences competition. That event attracted 42 entrants. Judges advanced 21 of those to the business plan phase, where firms provided detailed roadmaps for moving from concept and prototype stage to commercialization.

The late Burton D. Morgan was a Purdue alumnus who started 50 companies, six of which have become major corporations, including Morgan Adhesives, one of the world's largest makers of pressure-sensitive adhesives. He also was president of Basic Search Co., an idea-development firm, and wrote several books on entrepreneurism.

Morgan established the entrepreneurship competition in 1987 with an endowment gift to Purdue. The Burton D. Morgan Foundation funded the $7 million, 31,000-square-foot Center for Entrepreneurship.

The center also leads Purdue's Kauffman Campuses Initiative, which is focused on making entrepreneurship education available across the university's main and regional campuses, enabling any student, regardless of field of study, access to entrepreneurial training.

Writer: Phillip Fiorini, 765-496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu

Sources: Kenneth Kahn, (765) 496-3223, kbkahn.1@purdue.edu

Jackie Lanter, Burton D. Morgan Center, 765-494-1335, BDMCenter@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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