Colorado BioScience Association Announces Winners Of Its 2007 Awards Program, Honoring The Best of Colorado's Bioscience Industry

(PRLEAP.COM) Denver, Colo., November 29, 2007 — The Colorado BioScience Association (CBSA) has released winners of its 2007 Awards Program. The announcement is made by Denise Brown CBSA Executive Director, who says the CBSA awards program showcases and honors those individuals and companies making a significant difference to Colorado’s vibrant bioscience industry in 2007.

Official presentation of the awards occurs Friday, December 7, 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., at the CBSA’s annual awards luncheon. Held in conjunction with the 2007 BioWest Conference & Expo at the Grand Hyatt Denver, registration information is available at http://www.BioWestConference.com.

Recipients of the 2007 awards are:

* Lifetime Achievement Award — Dr. Larry Gold. Dr. Larry Gold whose name is synonymous with Colorado and bioscience is the founder, chairman of the board, and chief science officer of SomaLogic (http://www.somalogic.com). Prior to SomaLogic, he founded NeXagen, Inc., which later became NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Before forming NeXagen, he also founded and served as co-director of research at Synergen, Inc., a pioneering biotechnology company later acquired by Amgen, Inc. Since 1970, Dr. Gold has been a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU). While at the university, he served as the chairman of the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Department from 1988 to 1992. During his prestigious career, Dr. Gold has received many citations including the CU Distinguished Lectureship Award, the National Institutes of Health Merit Award, the Career Development Award, and the Chiron Prize for Biotechnology. In addition, Dr. Gold has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1993 and the National Academy of Sciences since 1995.

* 2007 Company of the Year Award — AlloSource. AlloSource (http://www.allosource.org) is a unique asset in Colorado’s backyard. Few people have heard of AlloSource, but the company is one of the largest non-profit bone and tissue banks in the country. Tissue banks are in the same regulated category as medical devices but provide allografts of actual bone, skin, and soft tissues including tendons, ligaments, and often entire joints. These grafts are used for clinical applications including orthopedic, spine, joint restoration, oral maxillofacial, podiatry, periodontal, urology, oncology, trauma and skin.

The largest supplier of fresh cartilage allografts in the country, AlloSource is also the largest supplier of skin used for life-saving burn applications in the world. The company is highly regarded for its good tissue practices and commitment to constantly improving the tissue donation, processing and transplant process. The company gives back 40% of its top-line revenues to non-profit organ procurement organizations in its local communities (such as Donor Alliance in Colorado) These monies go to fund education programs, new therapies and techniques to help people in the local communities in which AlloSource operates.
AlloSource recently made a strategic investment in the Denver-based Labs at Bonfils. This step will allow the company to offer donor eligibility testing for the human eye, tissue, reproductive, stem cell and solid organ transplant industry.

Tom Cycyota, President and CEO of AlloSource, has been involved with the CBSA for many years and has a background in the medical device industry.

* 2007 Rising Star Award — Inviragen. Inviragen (http://www.inviragen.com) is a company that has grown substantially since it won the Venture Showcase competition in 2005. Inviragen and its collaborators are developing novel vaccines to protect against worldwide infectious disease threats, such as dengue fever, West Nile disease, and plague/smallpox. In 2006, Inviragen opened its office and laboratory facilities in Colorado and obtained a worldwide exclusive license to dengue and West Nile vaccine technologies from the CDC. Inviragen completed a contract manufacturing agreement with Shantha Biotechnic, one of India’s leading vaccine manufacturers. Inviragen was awarded one of the prestigious five-year Cooperative Partnership vaccine development grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). The $2.8 million grant will partially support development of Inviragen’s dengue vaccine. Inviragen’s West Nile vaccine was chosen for further product development by the Rocky Mountain Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense and Infectious Disease Research. Inviragen established a partnership with the S. Korea-based Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (PDVI) to accelerate the development and introduction of Inviragen’s dengue vaccine. To date, Inviragen has raised over $5 million in grant and angel investor funding. Through its global network of vaccine researchers, Inviragen is poised to begin human clinical trials of its lead dengue vaccine in two continents in 2008.

Inviragen CEO Dan Stinchcomb gives freely of his time and expertise to the development of the bioscience cluster in Colorado.

* Volunteers of the Year Award — Debora Hankinson and Phil Macey. The CBSA’s 2007 Volunteer of the Year award is being given to two individuals who have been instrumental in revitalizing the CBSA’s Real Estate and Facilities Committee. Debora Hankinson, formerly with LS Planning and Phil Macey, RNL Design (http://www.rnldesign.com), co-chaired the Committee in 2007. With these individuals’ leadership, the committee built the real estate and facilities web page on the CBSA website that allows individuals to ask questions and receive confidential answers from the members of the committee. In addition, Deb and Phil helped direct the development of several well-attended and well-regarded programs in 2007.

* 2007 Partner of the Year Award — Forest City Development. In 2007, Forest City Development (http://www.forestcityscience.net) signed a 30-year agreement to develop the $2 billion bioscience park on the Fitzsimons Campus. Forest City has a long history of bioscience park development; they developed University Park on the MIT campus and are currently developing the Johns Hopkins campus in Baltimore. The development of the Colorado Science + Technology Park at Fitzsimons will add much needed real estate to Colorado’s infrastructure and will give companies located throughout the state the laboratory space in which to grow. The Forest City team has supported the CBSA’s mission and the growth of the industry for many years and is committed to the future of the industry in Colorado.

* 2007 Legislator of the Year Award – Representative Jim Riesberg (D-Weld). Representative Riesberg (http://www.riesbergin50.com) has carried the bioscience industry’s legislation the past two years. The two bills that Rep. Riesberg carried and which became law, HB 1360 and HB 1060, have provided $4.5 million in state funds for proof-of-concept grants and SBIR matching grants to companies commercializing state institution technologies. Representative Riesberg understands the bioscience industry, what it means to Colorado and has become the champion of the industry in the Colorado General Assembly.

* The 2007 CBSA Chairman’s awards — Ed Wood, Kevin Smith and Bonnie Vivian. Ed Wood, former CEO of Cobe BCT, served as the CBSA Board Chairman from 2005 - 2007. Ed continues to be actively involved on the Association’s board and after being retired for a few short years has started another bioscience company in Colorado. Kevin Smith, former President of Gambro, Inc and Bonnie Vivian, former CEO of Denver Biomedical are chairing the CBSA Education Committee and are committed to find ways for the Association to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education and to build the career pipeline for the bioscience industry in Colorado.

* In addition to the annual CBSA awards, this year the new Pinnacle of Science Award has been established:

Dr. John Stewart, University of Colorado – Dr. Stewart is an individual whose scientific endeavors have changed the business landscape and a man with a passion for peptide chemistry.  In his lifetime, Dr. Stewart has authored over 398 peer reviewed papers (20 in last 3 years), 23 patents and 321 abstracts.  His lifelong dedication to the development of peptide therapeutics and commitment to excellence makes him a truly unique and worthwhile part of the Colorado bioscience community.   Dr. Stewart helped to design and build the world’s first automated peptide synthesizer- now housed at the Smithsonian museum.  This technology has made possible Roche Colorado’s peptide manufacturing processes.


“A distinguished panel of CBSA Board members and past awardees chooses the recipients from an impressive and long list of nominees for each award,” says Brown. “This is the fifth year for the annual awards program.”

About Colorado BioScience Association

CBSA is a not-for-profit corporation providing services and support for Colorado’s growing biosciences industry. With more than 400 members, CBSA actively works to promote the growth of the industry by working for a better business environment, grow the state’s biotech workforce, fight for policies that support a strong bioscience industry in the state and speak with a single voice on behalf of the industry. For more information, visit http://www.cobioscience.com.

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Contacts:

Christine Shapard, Deputy Director, Colorado BioScience Association http://www.cobioscience.com –
303-592-4089 or cshapard@cobioscience.com

Maggie Chamberlin Holben, APR, Absolutely Public Relations http://www.absolutelypr.com –
303-984-9801, maggie@absolutelypr.com

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