December 18, 2003 Purdue, Roche extend entry deadline in $147,000 life sciences business plan competitionWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The deadline for entering and submitting executive summaries for the Second Annual Life Sciences Business Plan Competition has been extended to Jan. 26. The nationwide entrepreneurial competition at Purdue University will award total prizes of $147,000 for business plans that describe the path to market for products and technologies in the life sciences, biotechnology and biomedicine. Teams based at universities and colleges, research and teaching hospitals, and other academic institutions engaged in bioresearch are eligible to enter. Teams may be fledgling enterprises seeking seed capital or those further along in the commercialization process, including firms that have received grants, venture capital or equity investments. There is no restriction on the number of members on teams, but teams are encouraged to include participants with business backgrounds or MBA students. The competition, sponsored by the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship and Roche Diagnostics Corp., will take place April 20-21 on Purdue's West Lafayette campus. Founding sponsor Roche Diagnostics contributed $100,000 to the competition. Other sponsors for the 2004 contest are: Clifton Gunderson LLP, Aventor, Baker & Daniels, Indiana Health Industry Forum and BioCrossroads (formerly the Central Indiana Life Sciences Initiative). The top finisher in last year's competition was Iris AO, which uses the same technology as the Hubble telescope for early detection of eye diseases and has the potential to correct vision to 20/10. The company has set up an office in Berkeley, Calif. Last year's second-place finisher and top Indiana entry, Medical Reporting Solutions of Indianapolis, has filed four patents on its speech-recognition technology for medical databases since last year's competition. Contact Don Blewett, associate director of the center for entrepreneurship, (765) 494-4485, blewett@mgmt.purdue.edu. Competition Web site . Writer: Mike Lillich, (765) 494-2077, mlillich@purdue.edu Source: Don Blewett, (765) 494-4485, blewett@mgmt.purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu Related Web site: PHOTO CAPTION: A publication-quality photograph is available at https://www.purdue.edu/uns/images/blewett.winners.jpeg To the Purdue News and Photos Page
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