BOULDER - Amgen Inc. in Boulder and Medtronic Navigation in Louisville are the two finalists in the Life Sciences category for the Boulder County Business Report's 2009 IQ Awards.
Amgen researchers have developed denosumab, a drug in clinical trials that would be used to treat and prevent postmenopausal osteoporosis in women and prevent bone loss in patients undergoing hormone therapy for either prostate or breast cancer. It also is being studied for the treatment of multiple myeloma, a common blood cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis. This product is manufactured for the clinical trials at Amgen's LakeCentre plant in Boulder.
Medtronic's StealthStation provides a surgeon with GPS-like navigation in the operating room while performing brain, spinal, and ear, nose and throat surgeries. It enables very precise targeting and approach to a tumor or other area of interest, allowing a surgeon to navigate around anatomy that needs to be avoided, like the motor strip in a brain or the spinal cord during spine surgery.
Winners in each of the nine categories will be announced at an evening awards ceremony beginning at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 20, at the Lionsgate Event Center in Lafayette.
Individual seating for the 10th annual IQ Awards is available for $49 per person and $450 for a corporate table that seats 10 people prior to Aug. 14. After that, cost is $59 per person and $550 for a table of 10. Register online at www.IQAwards.com by using either a MasterCard or Visa, or by calling the Boulder County Business Report at 303-440-4950. Space is limited. Corporate sponsorships are available by calling Emily Trayers at 303-440-4950.
Finalists in the other eight categories announced Aug. 7 are:
BUSINESS PRODUCTS/SERVICES
MeyersDining Insurance: Boulder: Meyers Dining worked with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to create a corporate heath-insurance plan that includes holistic and alternative medical benefits for small businesses with 50 or fewer employees that are members of the Boulder Chamber.
Phase IV Engineering, Boulder: Phase IV Engineering's miniature battery-free wireless sensor provides energy-savings. The small chip uses radio frequency energy captured from an RFID-like transmitter/reader. The chip uses that energy to power-up analog and digital circuits to take a temperature, process the data and transmit the temperature data back to a wireless reader.
ShipCompliant, Boulder: ShipCompliant Wholesale is a software program that allows anyone who distributes wine through a distributor to ensure all their distributed products are compliant with state and federal wine laws.
COMPUTER
Atrato Inc., Louisville : Atrato Inc. designs energy-efficient, compact storage products. Atrato uses a 2.5-inch disk drive instead of the commonly used 3.5-inch drive. The smaller drive reduces energy consumption by about 80 percent, and the smaller size allows the company to build a smaller, self-monitoring system. The company's storage device is about 75 percent smaller than comparable devices on the market, reducing physical space requirements.
Rebit Inc., Longmont: Rebit Inc. has created a multiple-PC version of its automatic backup and recovery software. The software is capable of backing up six PCs. The software can be password-protected on an individual PC to keep information private between PC users. It manages space requirements and lets users know how much space is available on the external disk before allowing another PC to be added to the backup drive.
Seagate Technology, Longmont: The design team at Seagate's Longmont operations developed the Seagate FreeAgent Theater, a high-definition media player that enhances the experience of enjoying digital media by providing an easy way to play your favorite videos, movies and personal photos on your television.
CONSUMER PRODUCTS/SERVICES
Clementine Art, Boulder: Clementine Art offers a line of all-natural children's art supplies; natural modeling dough, paint, markers, crayons and glue. Products are made from natural and wholesome ingredients, setting a higher standard for safety and health in children's products.
English Retreads, Boulder: English Retreads makes handbags and accessories from recycled materials, primarily using old rubber inner tubes and recycled plastic bottles. All English Retreads products are created from post-consumer materials, and each product is handcrafted, one-of-a-kind and vegan.
Seth Ellis Chocolatier, Boulder: Seth Ellis Chocolatier has created Suncups, a line of nut-free, filled chocolate candies made with sunflower butter instead of peanut butter. Suncups are certified organic, use fair-trade ingredients, are completely peanut- tree nut- and gluten-free, and are wrapped in home-compostable packaging. Suncups are one of the few chocolate options for the growing nut- and gluten-allergic market.
INTERNET SOFTWARE/BUSINESS
Absolute Performance Inc., Boulder: Absolute Performance's software as a service, System Shepherd, monitors applications on demand. The system provides deep monitoring visibility into all layers of the application delivery stack, from the network through the application software infrastructure. It leverages light-weight and efficient agent code to gather metrics and generate predictive alarms. The agent then presents the information, distributes alarms to recipients and displays dashboard information through a Web portal.
Data Storage Group Inc., Longmont: Data Storage Group created a patent-pending software-based data deduplication technology that removes redundant data across multiple physical and virtual machines, reducing backup storage requirements, resulting in faster network transfer rates, streamlining the data backup and recovery process. It can be scaled from single users to large enterprises.
OptTek Systems Inc., Boulder: OptTek Systems' software product OptForce helps organizations achieve desired work-force composition. The software is structured to integrate with organizational objectives such as financial, productivity, diversity and human resources goals, including recruitment, talent management, employee engagement, and retention. Analytics provided by the software spans a variety of processes, including hiring, talent management, performance management, compliance and professional development.
INTERNET SOFTWARE/CONSUMER
Occipital LLC, Boulder: Occipital's RedLaser is a barcode scanner for the iPhone. It works directly from the built-in camera's video feed. It scans all common barcodes in real-time and works for the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS. The RedLaser application allows users to scan products and get price information from Google and links to Amazon.
OneRiot, Boulder: OneRiot is a real-time search engine that helps users of social Web sites find the news, videos and blogs that people are buzzing about right now. OneRiot crawls, indexes and ranks the real-time Web with its patented PulseRank algorithm so search results are spam-free and reflect current social relevance.
TechoShark Inc., Boulder: TechoShark Inc.'s hoozat iPhone/iPod touch application accesses Facebook while also viewing the Facebook profiles of fellow hoozat users nearby. It allows users to meet and connect with new people or simply browse Facebook with a great user interface.
NONPROFIT
Circle of Care Project, Boulder: Circle of Care Project helps connect elders with cultural events, enrichment programs and fun activities. The outings enhance seniors' quality of life in physical and metal health, and well-being by preventing isolation, loneliness and stagnancy. All activities are provided at no cost to elders who wish to participate.
eGo CarShare, Boulder: eGo CarShare offers members a variety of fuel-efficient vehicles as well as pickup trucks to use on a short-term basis without the hassles of ownership. It charges $4.50 per hour and 30 cents a mile. The cars are reserved in advance via phone or online and then accessed with a coded key.
Imagine!, Lafayette: Imagine! builds SmartHomes that provide permanent affordable housing for people with physical, cognitive and developmental disabilities. The homes incorporate cutting-edge technologies to improve the quality and efficiency of services and support for the residents.
SPORTS & OUTDOORS
Crocs Inc., Niwot: Crocs' new footwear, Prepair, is designed to help wearers recover between athletic activities. They come in a classic clog, traditional slide and flip-flop. The shoes features Croslite Ag material footbeds that are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and do not compress. The fit allows the foot to bend and expand naturally, reducing peak pressure points, and spreads body weight over a broader surface consequently relieving strain on the musculoskeletal system.
HydraPouch LLC, Boulder: HydraPouch makes a product by the same name designed to eliminate the use of paper cups during road and trail races. The soft silicone refillable 6-ounce rubber pouch clips on the runner's shorts when not in use and can quickly be filled at aid stations using a high-speed dispensing valve. The pouch conforms to the shape of any size hand, is splash resistant when closed, and has a molded spout through which a runner can easily sip while running at any pace.
Move Sports Inc., Boulder: Move Sport's RecoFit is a compression sleeve that fits over the leg. It increases blood flow to the heart and appears to shorten recovery times after long runs.
SUSTAINABILITY
Eetrex Inc., Boulder: Eetrex, formerly Hybrids Plus, creates embedded software and hardware for electric-vehicle battery systems. The embedded software can control smart power electronics, facilitating SmartGrid and vehicle-to-grid systems.
Next Generation Energy LLC, Lafayette: Next Generation Energy's Zilla is a patent-pending roof mount for solar panels. Zilla's flashing assembly protects parts from the elements that could cause degradation to the mount, eliminating the need for sealants or caulking.
WattsGoingDown, Boulder: WattsGoingDown's software as a service by the same name shows how energy-consuming and producing devices such as HVAC systems, motors, lighting and solar panels contribute to total energy consumption and peak energy use every minute of every day. With WattsGoingDown, energy managers uncover opportunities to reduce energy expenses, save energy, manage peak demand and validate the results of their work.
