PJC Blog  filter by date: November 2008

November 25, 2008 at 8:34 AM by Dan

For those who have been held up in a cave for the past few months, the credit markets have been in turmoil.  Across all markets, financing companies with debt and equity has become more challenging.  While the impact on venture-backed companies has not been as acute as financial institutions, there has clearly been an impact on financing early stage companies.  Valuations have contracted, firms have increased capital reserved for existing investments, and the bar has been raised in the minds of many investors.

 

For companies seeking to raise follow-on capital, this can present a challenge--particularly for those that are close to key milestones ... but haven't quite reached them.  In an era of higher bars and lower valuations, this often presents a disconnect between the valuation expectations of new investors and management/existing investors.  What to do?

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Tags: VC_trends

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November 12, 2008 at 10:45 am by Sean

We all know that The Red Sox, The Patriots, and The Celtics are examples of successful leadership that has arisen from New England, but another New England super star is its Communications Infrastructure sector. The New England entrepreneurial ecosystem has long been identified with communications equipment, storage, life sciences and software. However, a somewhat less visible, but equally robust segment of our innovation fabric is the Communications Infrastructure cluster. These are the companies that build, own and operate the critical communications network infrastructure that enable today’s modern Internet, voice and mobile communications services. These are companies operating everything from wireless towers to cable systems to telephone / data networks to CDNs (content delivery networks).
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Tags: Optasite wireless communications infrastructure

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November 4, 2008 at 10:15 am by Dan

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving a woman who was given a pharmaceutical treatment that resulted in a significant adverse event. While I spend less time thinking about drugs than medical devices, the case, its coverage in the media and a discussion at the most recent Dartmouth Device Development Symposium (3D) got me thinking about another Supreme Court case decided earlier in the year, Riegel v. Medtronic, which has significant implications for innovation in the device industry.

The essence of the Riegel decision was that a company cannot be sued in state court for harm caused by a medical device provided that it was approved under a PMA process and was manufactured and marketed under FDA guidelines. In other words, the Court held that challenges to the safety and efficacy of such devices are "preempted." The decision was 8-1 (on a court not terribly well known for 8-1 decisions). So why would someone concerned with the prospects for medical device innovation still be thinking about this case? As it turns out, members of congress are apparently drafting legislation that would preempt preemption—and limit medical device innovation.
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Tags: healthcare FDA medical_device innovation

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